ZAPPA - your top ten ranks

[Soundwaveseeker]

For anyone into Frank Zappa. What's your top ten Zappa albums? This may be a little difficult because he has so many titles. The man just pumped out music and compositions like a machine. But we'll try to go top ten - great stuff will be left off, but...top 10.

My top is subject to change of course, but I didn't want to overthink it - I just chose ten that resonate with me. I doubt many people will have 'Sleep Dirt' in their top spot.

10) Broadway The Hard Way - FZ sez get up off yer ass and vote! One of Zappa's more political ones. The CD version is twice as long as the LP
9) Perfect Stranger or LSO vol 1 - challenging orchestral music, not out of place as soundtrack to any Merry Melodies cartoon
8) Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch - title track blew me away when I first heard it at age 14 - what is this?!
7) Sheik Yerbouti - w/Adrian Belew!
6) Burnt Weenie Sandwich - just like it, no explanation
5) We're Only In It For The Money - fave 60's title
4) Roxy & Elsewhere - Geoge Duke, Ruth Underwood - clavinet city, great fusion-type stuff
3) One Size Fits All - w/Chester Thompson etc. Inca Roads & Andy = sublime Zappa
2) Studio Tan - Gregory Peccary never gets old for me
1) Sleep Dirt - magic

Just missed it: Joes Garage, Uncle Meat, Tinsel Town Rebellion, maybe Hot Rats, Them Or Us. I could go Lather, but I equally like the titles separately, much to Frank's dismay, as Lather was supposed to be a 4-albums set that the record company put out separately. These are ready to go to replace some of the above. Probably easier to list what's not a contender - I do dig me some Zappa:

1) The Flo & Eddie era - least fave era of the classic stuff for some reason, maybe the groupie jokes got old?
2) Posthumous/Zappa Family Trust stuff - some patchy ones and some barrel-scraping involved

Anyone have a top ten Zappa list? Or just list ones you heard that you like?

[Sharp On Attack]

1. The Grand Wazoo
2. Apostrophe
3. Overnite Sensation
4. One Size Fits All
5. Hot Rats
6. Uncle Meat
7. Freak Out
8. Absolutely Free
9. We're Only In It...
10. Zoot Allures

[Ceasar’s Palace]

As much as I respect Zappa, a whole album is way too much.
Here’s my minature Zappa song collection:

Peaches En Regalia
Dancing Fool

sorry.



not.

[Dantalion Rides Again]

Dove in last year and listened to the entire catalog in order. Then I was all about it for a couple months, but it's been a little while now. I was never a big fan before, although I had a few things. But now I have a whole new level of appreciation for Frank.

This is without thinking too much:

The Grand Wazoo
One Size Fits All
Sheik Yerbouti
Studio Tan
You Are What You Is
Waka-Jawaka
Over-Nite Sensation
Bongo Fury
Hot Rats
Man From Utopia

Thought about including Thing-Fish, because that narration hits my funny bone, and because it's fascinatingly odd, and because people hate on it (I understand; I'm new at this). But I have a hunch that over time I'll catch on to why people hate on it. Really a quick list based on first impressions, I really don't know the material all that well.

Favorite overall track (which is finally commercially available as of the 200 Motels deluxe release) is a demo of Magic Fingers, which ends w/ Zappa shutting it down going, 'Hold it hold it hold it, stop the music stop the music."

Other favorites of mine are "Lemme Take You To The Beach", "Sofa No. 2", "Broken Hearts are for Assholes", "Muffin Man", "Zomby Woof", "Stink Foot".

[cybrkhatru]

1. Roxy and Elsewhere. My favorite, probably for always
2. Freak Out
3. Hot Rats
4. One Size Fits All
5. We're Only In It For The Money
6. Chunga's Revenge
7. Apostrophe
8. The Grand Wazoo
9. Weasels Ripped My Flesh
10. Burnt Weeny Sandwich

I tend to prefer Frank from 1975 and back.....

[Soundwaveseeker]

As much as I respect Zappa, a whole album is way too much.
Here’s my minature Zappa song collection:

Peaches En Regalia
Dancing Fool

sorry.



not.

That's ok. FZ is not for everyone, and can be a bit much for some. I started out with a few titles and years passed before I 'got it', then wanted more Zappa albums. It took years to finally get them all, well all the 'main' ones anyway.

[Yesed]

The Grand Wazoo to Sheik Yerbouti . (10) My favorite run, not comprehensive, but encapsulates most of my favorite moments.

[Ash Armstrong]

Zappa? It's all one album. All of it. A conceptual continuity.

I can't do rankings but my favourite FZs are Uncle Meat, Zappa in New York and The Yellow Shark, though not necessarily everyday.
I've been listening to Zappa since around the time when Joe's Garage came out, but I think increasingly over the 29 years since he died his music has become more important and more indispensable to me than any music by anyone else, and that has to include Yesmusic, which surprises me a little in saying so but I think, now, that that's true for me.
I remember a month back in the summer of 2016 when I filled my phone music player with nothing but Zappa albums, maybe 50 of them, and along with all my CDs at home I listened to nothing else but FZ music for a month, probably more than a calendar month in all, and I've never done that I don't think with anyone else's music.
I wish he hadn't died so young.

"The present-day composer refuses to die"

[Slugwart]

Next to Yes and Floyd, my favourite musician, (and my wife's most hated). I prefer the guitar hero era more than the early Mother's. Anything from the Best Band shows in 88 is brilliant.

1. Joe's Garage (Because it was the first I heard)
2. Best Band You Never Saw In Your Life
3. Hot Rats
4. Broadway the Hard Way
5. Overnite Sensation
6. The Grand Wazoo
7. One Size Fits All
8. Sheik Yerbouti
9. Ship Arriving to Late to Save a Drowning Witch
10. Zoot Allures

[Soundwaveseeker]

Zappa? It's all one album. All of it. A conceptual continuity.

I can't do rankings but my favourite FZs are Uncle Meat, Zappa in New York and The Yellow Shark, though not necessarily everyday.
I've been listening to Zappa since around the time when Joe's Garage came out, but I think increasingly over the 29 years since he died his music has become more important and more indispensable to me than any music by anyone else, and that has to include Yesmusic, which surprises me a little in saying so but I think, now, that that's true for me.
I remember a month back in the summer of 2016 when I filled my phone music player with nothing but Zappa albums, maybe 50 of them, and along with all my CDs at home I listened to nothing else but FZ music for a month, probably more than a calendar month in all, and I've never done that I don't think with anyone else's music.
I wish he hadn't died so young.

"The present-day composer never dies"

Indeed it's all one opus. FZ looked at it as one body of work. I started to listen to Zappa in 1984, though my uncle had a copy of Overnite Sensation which he played one day and I thought it intriguing. The first one I got oddly enough was London Symphony Orchestra vol 1, which my dad got me - under lite protest I may add "are you sure you want that? Frank Zappa is an animal!". Those were exact words I remember well. Why that one? Maybe I liked the cover, and I did like some classical music at 14. That may have been the only one available. Yellow Shark is the better orchestral album, but parts of LSO 1 stick with me, especially Sad Jane. But my favorite orchestral piece by Zappa is Duprees Paradise. By the end of the year I had LSO, Ship Arriving, Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt - and that's it. For years.

Zappa albums were hard to find back in the 80's, especially the old ones. You had to go to the used/'Record & Tape Exchange' type places for that. Finding Tinsel Town Rebellion in 1988 got me back into the Zappa phase, and the Ryko reissues had me collecting Zappa for years and years. Got Joes Garage (all 3 acts) in December that year, I just tuned out and listened to it like it was a movie. I didn't move until it was over. Zappa In New York, i somehow acquired someone's cassette tape of that and thought what better live album than this? Uncle Meat I didn't hear until much later, and it was the Ryko version where they stuck dialogue from the film and a newer track at the beginning of disc two which kinda mars it. I later made a CD-r of it without the unnecessary bits and just the music as on the 2-record vinyl and it sounded so much better. I like how it's all over the map- rock & roll, jazz, orchestral, doowop, music concrete, all of his flavors up to that point. You can't go wrong with King Kong, Green Genes or Cruising For Burgers. Uncle Meat was one that grew on me and has rewarded my ears since.

In '93 I was at Tower Records in Virginia and overheard someone say "I can't believe Frank Zappa's gone". My heart sank. I don't always want to hear Zappa all the time- I go through phases, but when I do I'm all in. I'll listen to blocks and blocks of Zappa albums from all eras. Yeah, I wish he was still around today. He lived to compose and create music. Not a bad purpose in life at all.

[Ash Armstrong]

Indeed it's all one opus. FZ looked at it as one body of work. I started to listen to Zappa in 1984, though my uncle had a copy of Overnite Sensation which he played one day and I thought it intriguing. The first one I got oddly enough was London Symphony Orchestra vol 1, which my dad got me - under lite protest I may add "are you sure you want that? Frank Zappa is an animal!". Those were exact words I remember well. Why that one? Maybe I liked the cover, and I did like some classical music at 14. That may have been the only one available. Yellow Shark is the better orchestral album, but parts of LSO 1 stick with me, especially Sad Jane. But my favorite orchestral piece by Zappa is Duprees Paradise. By the end of the year I had LSO, Ship Arriving, Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt - and that's it. For years.

Zappa albums were hard to find back in the 80's, especially the old ones. You had to go to the used/'Record & Tape Exchange' type places for that. Finding Tinsel Town Rebellion in 1988 got me back into the Zappa phase, and the Ryko reissues had me collecting Zappa for years and years. Got Joes Garage (all 3 acts) in December that year, I just tuned out and listened to it like it was a movie. I didn't move until it was over. Zappa In New York, i somehow acquired someone's cassette tape of that and thought what better live album than this? Uncle Meat I didn't hear until much later, and it was the Ryko version where they stuck dialogue from the film and a newer track at the beginning of disc two which kinda mars it. I later made a CD-r of it without the unnecessary bits and just the music as on the 2-record vinyl and it sounded so much better. I like how it's all over the map- rock & roll, jazz, orchestral, doowop, music concrete, all of his flavors up to that point. You can't go wrong with King Kong, Green Genes or Cruising For Burgers. Uncle Meat was one that grew on me and has rewarded my ears since.

In '93 I was at Tower Records in Virginia and overheard someone say "I can't believe Frank Zappa's gone". My heart sank. I don't always want to hear Zappa all the time- I go through phases, but when I do I'm all in. I'll listen to blocks and blocks of Zappa albums from all eras. Yeah, I wish he was still around today. He lived to compose and create music. Not a bad purpose in life at all.

And I can't believe I actually misquoted Varese! Unconscionable!