peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2016 12 27 EatThatQuestion FrankZappa

Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words

Tue, Dec 27, 2016./noise/movies | Link

This one is for the fans. As a very part-time fan I struggled to get into much of it; I think of Zappa as funk/jazz with a side of weird, and that doesn't really get a go until past the halfway mark. (There's no Muffin Man, for instance, or Valley Girl either.) Zappa's philosophy strikes me as coherent, or at least consistent: he's partial to the notion of ownership, which is mildly incompatible with spreading one's creations as far as possible. There was plenty of opportunity for things to get interesting, if only someone took him seriously. The whole thing might have benefited from alternative viewpoints, though I am thankful it steered me towards his 1986 Jazz in Hell album: it's a tad too frenetic take on Vangelis-style synth-pop.

Neil Genzlinger.