GTO's Permanent Damage
By Alan Heineman
GTO's (Girls Together Outrageously) PERMANENT DAMAGE - Straight 1059: 17 tracks.
Personnel: Misses Pamela, Mercy, Christine, Cinderella and Sandra, recitations and vocals; various musicians.
Rating: No Stars God. Has it come to this?
Take all the worst qualities of the Mothers of Invention: self-congratulatory pride in being freaky, in mouthing currently fashionable obscenities and discussing perverted sexual fantasy trips on record, in being better than the assorted creeps they satirize. Add to that an irrevocable absence of any musical talent whatsoever, in composition, lyric-writing or performing. Voila: the GTO's.
Straight is Frank Zappa's company; he produced this album, whose sole purpose is épater les bourgeois. I have often wondered why Zappa felt it necessary to have the Mothers' music attack audiences who would never listen to them in the first place, or, if they did, wouldn't get it. One usually forgives the Mothers for that, because they were often brilliant composers and performers, individually and collectively. But the GTO's have absolutely no redeeming facets. Lest you hadn't heard, Frank, Dada died a welcome death nearly half a century ago, and won't bear resurrection, even if it is tricked out with Dirty Words and other shock tactics.
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