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Everyone should get a chance to listen to this record in their lifetime. Zappaās body of work sometimes gets overshadowed by raunchier, wackier material like āTitties & Beerā, but within his massive discography lie works of true genius and beauty. In the mid 1960ās Zappa was signed to MGM records, but a Capitol Records producer whoād learned Zappa could write orchestral music approached him with the suggestion he do an orchestral album for Capitol, since Zappaās MGM contract didnāt bar him from conducting. Released in 1968 after being tied up in label litigation for 13 months, the result is a staggering blend of orchestral music, experimental sound collage, music concrete and avant-garde rock. Artfully interspersed among the music are pieces of bizarre dialogue. Zappa noticed that if you spoke near the strings of a grand piano theyād resonate in a pleasing way, so he recorded hours of āpiano peopleā dialogue and made careful selections. A perfect work of art, in my opinion.Ā
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The most outre, difficult, awesome album in the history of LPs.
28 tracks of crazy. This double album might be the strangest record released in major-label rock history.
As the Simpsonsā Matt Groening once said, I listened to it once and hated it, then seven more times convinced me it was the greatest album of all time.
Do yourself a favor and tune in. š¶
Jun 17, 2024
this isn't a particularly rare vinyl release at all - it's still widely in print and very affordable. it's an album very very widely considered a classic. but it is, I think, the moment when I realised what makes buying music more satisfying of an experience than the lifetime of piracy I'd built up to that point.
it comes with a handful of prints and illustrations that really expand upon the feeling of the album. the record itself isn't even labelled, there's no tracklist, the sides are engraved with their descriptions "nervous, sad, poor" and "bleak, uncertain, beautiful". but most notably of all, each of these releases comes with a penny flattened on train tracks behind the studio it was recorded in. I've heard stories of copies of this album coming with handwritten notes of thanks from the label.
it was the first time I think I realised the love and the immense effort that goes into putting music out independently like this, even long after the recordings are done. I mean, I get that this one's a very special case - a lot of high-effort touches to really drive home the art, and to keep doing them decades after the album released. but I think picking this up is a big reason why I'm still buying vinyl ten years later.
the album still absolutely rips, of course.
Jan 10, 2025
All-time Psych grail! 1968! San Francisco! Made one album and then broke up! If you like Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, The Beatlesāpick it up!
Feb 23, 2024
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When a friend is trying to describe something and has to resort to drawing it, with limited skill, the results are always wonderful. Amateurish doodling in general is a good thing.Ā
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Collections of digital photos are more ephemeral than we think. I make it a point to periodically order prints of my favorite photos from each year. The material stuff doesnāt last forever either, but unless youāre a fastidious digital archivist, the physical may stick around longer. As someone whoās witnessed the slow death of a couple of social media websites and personal computers, those photos of friends, family or a building you liked the look of in 2015 often land in the internet graveyard. Thereās an inherent value to the tangible and the touchable. The fact that I still have photos of my mom as a teenager astounds me.
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These arenāt always the most accurate, but itāll usually get you within spitting distance of the correct info. Itās a great way to learn about the flora, fauna, insects and spiders in your area. Taxonomy is really interesting and the names are half the fun.
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