671 Frank Zappa - Over-Nite Sensation (1973)

Studio album - Progressive Rock

About the Act:

It’s hard to know what to say about Frank Zappa. There has been a lot written about him and it would be easy to parrot a lot of that. If you want to dig into his history, there’s plenty to go at.

He was prolific. Between 1966 and his death in 1993 he released 62 albums. Since then, 50 more albums have been released. Oh, he was American, I guess that’s relevant. He had a band in the early days, The Mothers of Invention. Soma albums are credited to "The Mothers of Invention" some to "Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention" and after the band was disbanded, they were just credited to him.

He is musically hard to describe, some of his output could be classified as Prog, some as Jazz-Rock, some as Avant-Garde Classical, and often it owes more to German Cabaret than anything. It can be complex, and he was an amazing guitarist, who surrounded himself with amazing musicians. He apparently got frustrated with orchestras for hire because they couldn’t play what he wanted them to. Later in life he was starting to embrace cutting-edge synths and sequencing.

So sometimes, the music is front and centre, but often it is the backdrop to his songs. Subject matter: social satire, often disguised as songs about banal things, but then he seems to take just as seriously songs that truly are about banal things. It would not be safe to put one of his albums on at work, or in front of the kids, if you didn’t already know the content, as it is often very adult. And that includes the spoken stuff on live albums. Be prepared for explicit sexual content, political commentary and anti-religious sentiment, all of which is mixed up with a peculiar absurdist humour.

He has a cult following. Presumably some people have bought all 100+ albums. I have listened to a good number of them and am still undecided about him. 

About the Album:

This was a studio album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. It is hard to count accurately, but it was maybe the 17th album with Frank' name on it (all in 8 years). It was initially badly received by critics, but later got better consideration.

My History with this Album:

I have probably heard it before. I acquired a substantial collection of Zappa stuff a few years ago, and listened to most of it. This was part of that collection, but I don't remember it specifically before listening to it twice this morning while washing up.

Review:

For those who know Zappa - this is a fine example of typical Zappa. 

That's probably not most of you, so let's break that down somewhat.

Musically, well, where to start? It's kind of rock and funk with progressive elements (by which I mean complex chords, sometimes unusual and discordant harmonies, odd and changing rhythms, and a general high level of technical complexity). This includes instrumental passages which are rock-funk like, with repeated chord patterns, and soloing. There are elements of jazz in there too, including modern jazz, and elements of modern classical, meaning basically controlled discordance. There are influences from everywhere, Eastern, classical, jazz, rock. Some of the soloing is quite extraordinary, I like Frank's guitar solos (as well as everything else he did, he was an innovative guitarist), and Jon-Luc Ponty's violin soloing is for me even better. It's progressive and complex but at times still manages to get good grooves going. The production is excellent and the strength of the musicians really shines out in this album.

The song structures are generally unusual, forget verse, chorus, repeat, this is all about different sections. Sometimes sections repeat. One thing that is done sometimes that is particular to Zappa is that when singers (often backing singers) as singing particularly odd lines of notes, this is doubled with xylophone or vibraphone, as if to say "I know this line is odd, but I can prove it is written rather than improvised". It gives a feel of German Cabaret to my ears.

So, musically, I would say it is really strong.

Lyrically, well this is Zappa, again some explanation needs to be had. There are three songs about sex, one pretty explicit at times. I'm quite surprised that this got released - maybe Frank had enough pull in the industry by then. This is typical of Frank Zappa, his scatological humour often includes quite explicit sexual content, little of which has to do with love and tenderness. Another song is about the influence of TV,  and again is typically Frank in its anti-establishment sentiment, bordering on conspiracy theories. There is a song about singing songs, which gives the idea that there is a 50-50 chance that he is ever singing about anything significant. There is a song called "Zombie Woof" which I don't understand, and there is a song about being a dental-floss farmer/manufacturer in Montana. This is again typical Zappa, and is effectively both surreal and mundane, but wrapped in complex music. This is my favourite song on the album. Some of the singing is done by non-Frank people, some of whom are Tina Turner and the Ikettes (Ike and Tina's backing band).

I would NOT play this to my kids, but it is a strong album, and a good introduction to the Zappa thing if you needed one.

8/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3QrEk9Va9qO4uobczNUtqe

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnBpugCTbNiLjJunopmpjH6zInuaIi0bu

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-Nite_Sensation