"Zappa records, by the mid-'80s, were worth more than GOLD,"

what are you talking about? I bought every Zappa album I have right around then, used or new, for <$10. they weren't first pressings though.

You like what you like. I like later Zappa, especially live recordings. It's okay if you don't. Maybe give The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (1988 live tour) a listen and see if it has too much of whatever that thing is you don't like.

Sounds like you dislike Zappa fans more than Zappa himself.



Sheik Yerbouti and Overnite Sensation are both excellent straight-up (if out-there) rock albums. Joe's Garage is also great, even if it is a "musical." Not to mention all the great jazz rock albums. There's a lot of great 70s Zappa out there.

1) The Best Band You Never Heard.

2) Joe's Garage

3) You Are What You Is

He lost me after Bongo Fury, but that reunion with Beefheart is worth a listen.

I think Joe's Garage is brilliant.
I also very much like the "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore" series... I think live Zappa is in many ways more interesting than studio Zappa.

Zappa strikes me as a purely intellectual exercise. Emotionally distant. Decapitated from the body. No shivers down your spine. I have trouble paying attention to that kind of music.

@8 Lyrically, it has large servings of contempt, in many flavors. If you have a taste for it, he's quite the chef.

Instrumentally, it's a fantastic carnival, with bumper cars, bad-ass roller coasters, haunted houses, and, yeah, a few of those spinny rides that sometimes go a little too long and make your tummy sick.

Check out "One Size Fits All". Another early great and maybe the last with songs that will appeal to you, Particularly San Ber'dino and Po-Jama People These are the Mother's Songs you're looking for.



The albums most are mentioning here ... Apostrophe, Overnight Sensation (Essentially one recording session), Joe's Garage are what rub you the wrong way... Threads of themes woven throughout an album as a series of extended jokes. Zappa acknowledges that these are what paid the bills and kept the girls coming back for more.



Beyond the Jokey Records he made two or three other types of records: Jazz, Orchestrated, and Guitar Histrionics. I don't imagine these appeal to you, Mike. The Mothers day's of Garage Rock were over.



You are on the money with Hot Rats as a high point. Unfortunately if you're not into the Jazz / Rock fusion it may wear on you. At least his character keeps the insanely ambitious music fun and sleazy as opposed to pretentious alá Mahavishnu Orchestra.



You may like Cruzin With Rubin and the Jets also, great music, Simultaneously sincere and tongue in cheek, which may burn you.

I agree with @10 about One SIze Fits All. The space stoner blather of "Inca Roads" .. the incendiary guitar solo that plays out "Po'jama People" ... the surprisingly moving and absurd "Sofa #2". Most of the albums from that period find me with my finger on the FF button, but the only weak track on this one is "Andy", but some people like it, who knows why.

I personally love all Zappa, and he is my favorite musician and person of all time. His Mothers stuff is my favorite, but his solo work is amazing too. "Uncle Remus" off of "Apostrophe" is such a beautiful and amazing song. "Joe's Garage" is a brilliant album. His live work is incredible. His album "Broadway the Hard Way" is probably my favorite live album- it even has Sting show up, doing a very jazzy rendition of "Murder By Numbers", and it ends the album with the song "Jesus Thinks You're Jerk", with an impassioned plea for everyone in the audience to get out there and vote the bums out of office. All of his work- his commercial, his jazz, his classical- has such meaning, brilliance and beauty. He can be so irreverent, yet honest and biting at the same time. The man was a lyrical, musical, conceptual genius who died way too young. Just imagine if he were around today, and what he would be saying about our political climate, the apathy of young people, and the fact that we still have not come far enough in the minority struggles for rights and acceptance. People often dismissed him as a novelty songwriter for stuff like "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow", but so many of his songs were really deep. "We're Only In It for the Money" is full of really deep songs, and Uncle Remus is very deep as well.

At least there are still all of those tapes in the vault that Gayle and the kids keep releasing, so there is still "new" Zappa material coming out all of the time.

THANKS EVERYONE (except for you @13, well done BTW)! It appears I now have lots of listening to Zappa to take care of this week.

@2 I was in the southeast in the '80s and all the record shops had FAT Zappa sections with starting prices of $20 and up. I think part of the Zappa thing, at the time, was the record/music nerd one-up thing. Like, IF you could afford the records you had to choose to NOT to listen to much else, so there was a lot of pretense behind it. There was a bit of the same with Funkadelic too. I couldn't afford any Mothers records until I made the West Coast.