Overly sub-standard
By Nick Kent
FRANK ZAPPA
Sheik Yerbouti (CBS)
The modern-day composer refuses to die and, sadly, so too does Frank Zappa. He just keeps on keeping whackin' 'em out – the same old slop, whether it be the 'serious' orchestral flotsam he can flaunt to justify his noxious condescending broadside wildly directed at the poor saps who still think he's some bona-fide genius, or the gross-out whacko "yucks for the bucks" flimflam.
But wait! This is Frankie-babe's very first album for a new label. None of your further contract-fulfilment vinyl waffle for poor old Warner Brothers to gag on here. No excuses this time. Nothing less than the creme de la creme of the Zappa genre circa' 78-'79, you'd be forgiven to presume.
W-e-e-e-ll, sorry to disappoint all you folks out there with the expectations and all, but this is wall-to-wall four-sided dreck that may even actually represent a new look for Zappa's swindling artistic returns so far.
As an outsider taking the old objective check-out, it seems to me Zappa's been doing some market research studying and come to the conclusion that what with the Saturday Night Live crew, Steve Martin, Animal House and all raking in the cash over in the States with humour on vinyl, that his 'yucks for the bucks' slant is the one to dust up on and filter out to the suckers. Sure, there's a bit of the old serious musical work out in evidence – more precisely, the old Zappa fretboard dexterity gets the usual abrasive sturm und dang whip-out on 'Rat Tomago'. Absolutely nothing you haven't heard before, mind you, and once again in five minutes 15 seconds flat proving that as a guitarist Zappa cleverly utilizes a fiercesome barrage of tonal blitzkrieg to disguise the baleful fact that his solos just don't – and never have – go anywhere.
It's all blabber and smoke, as said the geezer whose work with the Big Z provided the latter with his last decent record, 'Bongo Fury'. There's further obligatory fretboard trouncing of 'The Sheik Yerbouti Tango' (indistinguishable from 'Rat Tomago') and a final malicious portion of arrogant fretboard blitzkrieg on the final 'Yo' Mama', but that's it for you Zappa guitar freaks (nothing really, nothing to turn on).
And the rest? Well now, here is a man obsessed with peddling cheap laughs that, beyond the odd witty couplet or two, aren't worth even a gratuitous smirk most of the time. There scarcely a speck of wit or insight in the battery of lampoonery at hand and mostly, cloaked in equally cloying fruity 'fusion-pop' backdrops (again, total retreads and nada merit) aren't even worth the one obligatory chuckle of a play back.
There's the usual barrage of asinine mondo-pervo humour – 'I Have Been In You', 'Jones Crusher', and 'Broken Hearts Are For Assholes' for example are lame and frat-party offensive 'Dancin' Fool' titles for sprightly lampoons on Travolta / disco but it is all so obvious and such a tired vehicle for the obligatory – by now, anyway – send-up, it groans under the weight of its own smug 'I'm such a sharp satirist' intent.
'Baby Snakes', 'Tryin' To Grow A Chin' and 'City Of Tiny Lights' are Zappa's more characteristic Dada dippedy doo – feeble-minded and pointless, while 'Jewish Princess' would be anti-semitic if it weren't so damn feckless.
Buy this album and you can check you arsehole-rating. It's the only useful thing about it.