Frank Zappa – A Guide To His Best Albums

By Tommy Udo

November 29, 2017

There are just too many Frank Zappa albums to cope with, and that’s a fact. They range from cheesy doo-wop send-up Cruising With Reuben And The Jets to impenetrable avant-garde epics like Civilization Phaze III. The main body of Zappa’s best work comes from the 60s and 70s, although he was by no means past his peak in the 80s, and continued to write and record up until his death from cancer in 1993.

A ferociously intelligent man, Zappa always made the listener aware that he felt that he was ‘slumming it’ by playing pop music, yet he did more than anyone to push rock music forward, to explore the possibilities and transcend its limits. As well as being a freak icon, Zappa was one of the great ‘serious’ American composers of the latter half of the 20th century – something that is only now being acknowledged by the ‘classical’ establishment.

He was an uncompromising satirist, poking fun at both ‘square’ America and the hippie counter-culture with equal ferocity. More seriously, he was also an articulate spokesman for everything from ending the levy on recording tape to doing battle with the forces of censorship in the US Congress.

After playing drums in various bands as a teenager, Frank Zappa relocated to LA where he worked in advertising and ran a studio. In 1964 he joined local R&B band The Soul Giants as a guitarist. This band eventually became The Mothers Of Invention. A polymath, Zappa incorporated ideas from the avant garde – he was an obsessive afficianado of the music of European pioneers Edgar Varese and Igor Stravinsky – as well as from free jazz, advertising, film scores and more into rock music.

At a time when rock music was undergoing a revolution, the Mothers stood out from the hippie pack by dint of their cynicism, and Zappa’s experimental approach to the music that made the studio explorations of the Beatles seem tame by comparison.

Zappa continued to challenge his audience over the years, subverting their expectations at every turn, gleefully playing the role of square peg in a round-hole music industry he loathed throughout his career.

There are no bad Zappa albums, but it doesn’t follow that just because you enjoy the fusion of Hot Rats you will necessarily want to wade through his complex and impenetrable synclavier compositions which occupied his latter years. But for Zappa buffs, the distinction is moot.

Essential (Frank Zappa's classic albums)

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - One Size Fits All (1975)

Zappa’s mid-70s masterpiece, the rebirth of the Mothers, with fine cameo appearances from Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and Captain Beefheart (uncredited for contractual reasons). Packed with ideas, it’s a comparatively straightforward album and probably Zappa’s most accessible.

Opening with the sci-fi funk of Inca Roads, the album flits across art rock (Evelyn, A Modified Dog), complex jazz rock instrumental (Sofa No 1) and heavy rock (the amazing Can’t Afford No Shoes and San Berdino) it and fits in neatly as one of the best rock albums of the 70s.

Frank Zappa - The Grand Wazoo (1972)

Zappa once said of this and its predecessor, Waka/Jawaka: “They sold a few copies in Scandinavia.” Well, maybe Scandinavians know a masterpiece when they hear it.

Although it was recorded back-to-back with Waka/Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo is superior in every way. It’s almost a continuation of the work he started on Hot Rats; largely instrumental, with a heavy emphasis on brass and Zappa’s flowing guitar, it’s as close as he ever came to creating a straight jazz-rock album. It was also one of the best bands Zappa ever worked with and included trumpeter Sal Marquez and George Duke on keyboards.

Superior (the albums that sealed Frank Zappa's reputation)

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - We’re Only In It For The Money (1968)

Zappa’s best satirical work, mercilessly savaging the late- 60s flower-power culture. The sleeve parodies The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album, while songs like Who Needs The Peace Corps? and Flower Punk burst the balloon of hippie hubris. For all that it ribs the Grateful Dead set, however, it also appealed to the same fan base and is as much a classic album of that era as Live Dead. Presented as a sound collage, it is a little bit like flicking across the radio dial between Top 40 pap and ‘challenging’ soundscapes like The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny.

Zappa - Zoot Allures (1976)

Although the cover depicts a band – Zappa, Patrick O’Hearn, Terry Bozzio and Eddie Jobson – only Zappa and Bozzio actually play on the album.

Zoot Allures is a pretty stripped-down, straight-ahead rock album, flawed but with some amazing high points like the sensuous The Torture Never Stops and the guitar instrumentals Black Napkins and the title track. There’s a lot of mediocre parody, like opener Wind Up Working In A Gas Station and the blast at the Travolta craze of the time, Disco Boy. Zoot Allures certainly isn’t essential Zappa, but it is one of his most accessible for those from a rock background coming to his music for the first time.

Frank Zappa - Over-Nite Sensation (1973)

The album that includes the notorious Dinah-Mo-Hum, along with some of Zappa’s other best songs in Zomby Woof, I’m The Slime and Montana. This marvelous, albeit short, album is the first steps towards the accessibility of Apostrophe (’) and One Size Fits All, and again showcases the musical talent he assembled for Grand Wazoo and Waka/Jawaka.

If anything this is as close to a ‘typical’ Zappa album as you can get: sniggering scatological porno-rhymes like Dirty Love next to social commentary like I’m The Slime, a savage attack on TV, experimentalism and pop sensibilities, along with fantastic musicianship and composition.

Frank Zappa - Hot Rats (1969)

Zappa’s first proper solo album, Hot Rats was a clean break from the cut-ups and sneering comedy of the Mothers. It was also Zappa’s first (almost) completely serious album.

Consisting of six tracks that range from the disciplined instrumental opener Peaches En Regalia to the rambling, extended jam The Gumbo Variations, the album was both a pinnacle of the jazz-rock fusion boom of the late 60s and one of the first albums to be dubbed (or cursed) ‘progressive’. Hot Rats is an album that you can get lost in, and one that, despite being more than 35 years old, never once sounds like a quaint period piece.