Word: zappa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...FRANK ZAPPA, in his tenth year as guitarist and leader of the demonic Mothers of Invention, continues to wrestle with a nagging artistic problem. Should he pattern his music to suit broad, popular musical tastes or should he ignore public sentiments and compose from the heart...
...Zappa's musical output in the last year and double concert at Boston's Orpheum theater last weekend suggest that the brilliant composer may decide eventually to sacrifice his art for greater public acclaim and a higher income. To Zappa's delight, his last three albums, Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe' and Roxy & Elsewhere, scaled the charts and seduced a new crop of listeners--mostly teenyboppers jaded by glitter rock--into becoming "Zappa Freaks." But all this success spells trouble. The band that once proclaimed it had "no commercial potential" is now in danger of becoming much too commercial...
...current musical fare, with a few exceptions, pales in comparison to Zappa's earlier work. His mid-'60s pieces ranged from impassioned social commentary, as in "Who Are the Brain Police," to fifties rhythm and blues parodies, to lengthy explorations of the subconscious ("Help, I'm a Rock"). What made the early music exciting and "avant garde" was the peculiar synthesis of three-and four-beat rock, off-beat vocals, jazz and blues and dissonant, polyrhythmic musical phrases borrowed from 20th century classical composers like Varese, Stravinsky and Cage. In the 1960s, no American rock band could compete with Zappa...
...Zappa's compositions and his band's outrageous stage theatrics did not make money for the Mothers in the 1960s, nor did it place an album on the Billboard charts. But changes in personnel in recent years and new musical directions by Zappa appear to be geared toward greater financial success...
...first step came with Chunga's Revenge and 200 Motels when Zappa augmented his intricate musical style with thoroughly obscene lyrics and three-minute songs like "Tell Me You Love Me" and "Magic Fingers" that grabbed you right in the groin...