Frank Zappa: Strictly Commercial - The Best Of Frank Zappa
By Martin Gordon
FRANK ZAPPA
STRICTLY COMMERCIAL: THE BEST OF FRANK
ZAPPA
RYKODISC
Peaches En Regalia/Don't Eat The Yellow Snow/Dancin' Fool/San Ber'dino/ Dirty Love/My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama/Cosmik Debris/Trouble Every Day/ Disco Boy/Fine Girl/Sexual Harassment In The Workplace/Let's Make The Water Turn Black/I'm The Slime/Joe's Garage/ Bobby Brown Goes Down/Montana/Valley Girl/Be In My Video/Muffin Man/Tell Me You Love Me/Planet Of The Baritone Women.
• A user-friendly induction into The Ways Of Frank and the first official Zappo retrospective since 1969.
• Contains single versions of Yellow Snow, Joe's Garage, Montana, and the Weasels Ripped My Flesh version of My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama.
AIMED AT THAT RARE genetic mutation The Person Who Hasn't Heard Of Frank Zappa, Strictly Commercial is a stressfree blind date with the iconoclastic Frank, and the great man is definitely on his best behaviour. Nothing too stained or encrusted, low on wilful obscurity and high on fun fun fun, cool tunes, social comment and the odd shard of surly guitar in that old familiar style.
From the positively edible Peaches En Regalia, which kicks the CD off, Strictly Commercial takes a strictly non-chronological amble through Frank's back pages, the earliest inclusion being Trouble Every Day from Freak Out! ( 1966) and the most recent Sexual Harassment In The Workplace, a snappy cadenza from the 1988 release Guitar.
Not present in these congenial surroundings are Zappa's more devious orchestral efforts and sound collages, but you do get a clear view of his lyrical conceits, some serious ensemble playing, a little instrumental noodling, wacky production values and general cynicism about – well, everything really.
You also get a treatise on internal applications of canine urine, social deconstructions of Californian youth, thinly-disguised broadsides aimed at The Beatles and their spawn, rants about mass media and the preoccupations of puberty, biographies of dental hygienists plus, of course, SEX! in all shapes, sizes and species. You also get the greatest backing vocal of all time – "moo-ahh" in Be In My Video – plus the ursine presence of Captain Beefheart on that sublime treatise on overeating, Muffin Man.
According to the booklet, some of these gems were hits, which seems an unlikely scenario given the intelligence with which they were constructed. Dancin' Fool, Yellow Snow (from whence this collection's title), Disco Boy, the priceless Valley Girl duet with Moon Zappa, Montana, San Ber'dino; the hits apparently just kept on comin'. Sleeve notes by Terry Gilliam tell us of the Royal Albert Hall concert where the keyboard player scaled the majestic organ to break into Louie Louie.
Does Humour Belong In Music? Do you really need to ask?