A Fretboard Frank Zappa Anthology- nominate your favourites

xSkarloey

I like a lot of Zappa but really haven't got time to trawl through all the albums.

Please post your favourite Zappa tracks and moments- music and interviews- for the benefit of time-poor novices like me.

Moe_Zambeek

Muffin man is a personal favourite, valley girl for the bassline, peaches en regalia for the obvious one. I have a strange soft spot for Beltway bandits too.

And don't eat the yellow snow

Bogwhoppit

Everything from the video 'Does humour belong in music'.

steamabacus

Pretty much everything on the 'One Size Fits All' album.

And Black Napkins for guitar soloing.

bingefeller

Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up.

rsvmark

Dirty love

Bobby Brown goes down

+1 for peaches, valley girl

octatonic

Huge Zappa fan.

All of Roxy and Elsewhere.

His version of 'Ring of Fire' is brilliant.

All of Joe's Garage.

Baby Snakes

The rest of Sheik Yerbouti.

The Jazz Discharge Party Hats.

The rest of 'Man from Utopia'.

He also wrote one of my favourite autobiographies, one of my favourite books about music and one of my favourite books about anything- The Real Frank Zappa Book.

When I encountered Bill Hicks (after both Zappa and Hicks had died) I found more than a little in common between them.

DulcetJones

"Overnight Sensation" is my top choice, maybe "One Size Fits All" second, too many to list.

stonevibe

Zoot Allures. Weasel Ripped my Flesh. Sleep Dirt, Ruben & The Jets, Them Or Us, Man From Utopia, Ship Arriving Too Late.

Love Hot Rats and 'Peaches' etc

Pretty much everything already mentioned above.

Can't really go wrong with Zappa to be honest. 

EricTheWeary

If it's stuff on YouTube you want I'd be tempted to search for Zappa Plays Zappa. Some of the old stuff with Frank just looks so dated its much easier to watch ZPZ and they go through a number of songs so it's almost a Best Of in itself. I think Dweezil comes across as a much nicer person than his dad was. All heresy I know.

I heard Zappa from Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch and worked backwards from there. I like the 80's stuff for having the best bass lines, Scott Thunes ( spll?) FTW.

Just on my phone at the moment, I'll look s few tracks up when I get chance although I tend to like the novelty stuff... ">

randomhandclaps

There's so much but I'm going to suggest (as I usually do with Zappa, just because they get forgotten) Sexual Harassment In The Workplace and his version of Bolero. It really shows how above anything else, Zappa was an absolutely phenomenal guitarist.

EricTheWeary

Very little of Frank on this but just the Bass of God

EricTheWeary

The list of Frank Zappa tunes I can hum from memory being very short but this would be on it. The Man From Utopia possibly my fave Zappa album, it was contemporary to the period I got into him. Opening track of that album then

stimpsonslostson

I was a Vai fan before I got into Zappa, my dad gave me a tape of "Man from Utopia" telling me it was the new Steve Vai album! I KNOWINGLY started with Strictly Commercial, it's a fairly good greatest hits. Joes Garage is great (the song AND the album).

Jez6345789

Roxy and Elsewhere.

xSkarloey

Many thanks everyone. I'll start with the suggestions made and work into the back catalogue from there.

boogieman

Apostrophe is a great album too.

Chuffola

octatonic said:

Huge Zappa fan.

All of Roxy and Elsewhere.

His version of 'Ring of Fire' is brilliant.

All of Joe's Garage.

Baby Snakes

The rest of Sheik Yerbouti.

The Jazz Discharge Party Hats.

The rest of 'Man from Utopia'.

He also wrote one of my favourite autobiographies, one of my favourite books about music and one of my favourite books about anything- The Real Frank Zappa Book.

When I encountered Bill Hicks (after both Zappa and Hicks had died) I found more than a little in common between them.

+1 to all of this

Very difficult to recommend anything when it comes to Zappa because of the huge range of styles / eras / bands.

I'd just stick your toe in and soak it all up. You'll hate some of it, love some of it, be confused by some of it, aroused by parts, repulsed.  

My favourite artist. A genius.

My own personal choice would be the early 70s funky stuff - Roxy / One Size / Apostrophe / Overnite Sensation. The level of musicianship is absolutely fantastic and the pieces themselves are probably the easiest to get into.

Chuffola

Oh yeah - if Zappa Plays Zappa ever play near to you, do whatever it takes to get a ticket.

Equally fantastic musicianship and if you close your eyes, it could be any variant of the Mothers performing. 

axisus

Massive fan of the Joe's Garage album. Heard it late teens and it was mega influential on me. After years of polite pop chart music I felt that my mind had been defiled by something slutty ....... and I liked it!

Not sure how useful it is to me in life but I've never forgotten how to say "F*ck me you ugly son of a bitch" in German!

Philly_Q

In common with many of the posters above, I like that 1973-76 period - Over-Nite Sensation, Apostrophe ('), Roxy & Elsewhere, One Size Fits All, Bongo Fury, Zoot Allures.  I also have a soft spot for Them Or Us because it was the first one I actually bought as a new release.

That, by the way, is from the perspective of someone who's mainly a rock fan.  If you're into jazz or more avant-garde stuff you might find other albums more interesting.

There's so much stuff though!  I've got roughly 70 Zappa CDs but there's still tons I haven't got!