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As for albums Hot Rats, Joe's Garage, Shut up and Play your guitar.
Lucky enough to see him in 1988, now that was some gig, like nothing else I've seen before or since.
Been uploading old tracks I recorded ages ago and hopefully some new noodles here.
I suppose that you could go by phases. By modern expectations, the original line-up releases are fairly crude. Hot Rats is when the studio craft really begins to show. The Flo & Eddie period is silly but shot through with tricky musical parts. The Chester Thompson, George Duke, Ruth Underwood period has jazzy leanings.
Some of the humo(u)r relies on running gags that re-appear across the decades. Conceptual continuity.
On a complete tangent, I suggest that the DVD, The Drummers Of Frank Zappa from the Drum Channel.com could prove informative. Bozzio, Humphrey, Thompson, Underwood and Wackerman discuss their time in the band and play some of the music. Once you get what the drummers were doing on the compositions, it becomes easier to understand what the other instruments are hanging on top.
Been uploading old tracks I recorded ages ago and hopefully some new noodles here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappa_in_New_York
An underrated album IMO is Make a Jazz Noise Here. But maybe that's because I'm a huge Kennealy fan.
Some of the 70s satirical groupie stuff is a bit weak for me. I prefer hot rats and the early mothers stuff. A best of might be a good primer to choose albums from which songs you like come from. I've just counted. I have 35 zappa albums, and I admit there's a few I can't immediately remember anything about.
For studio, maybe Hot Rats for the avant garde, but i love some of the stuff on You Are What You Is.
As with any prolific artist, there’s the good and the bad. And there's some great tracks that keep coming back. The Torture Never Stops for instance.
I think my first was Tinsel Town Rebellion or Does Humor Belong in Music?
FZ himself said his favourite lineup was from around 75-76. So maybe start there and work you way out?
I also really like Them or Us, which was the first I bought as a new release - it has a couple of tracks featuring great solos from a very young Dweezil (plus Steve Vai).
Joe's Garage
You Are What You Is
Hot Rats
Apostrophe
Shut Up N Play Your Guitar
It's all good stuff. There's a lot I've not listened to, so I'm gonna have a Zappa fix over the next three weeks. Ike Willis and Ray White are bloody brilliant btw!
As far as favourite albums go - Hot Rats and Overnight Sensation for me.
Obviously not serious about not giving it a chance. For some reason I really wanted to like him for a long time and kept giving him loads of chances over years but it would always just sound like some of the worst music I'd heard.
I truly think we all get different things out of music and enjoy it for different reasons. I think people who like him must get different things out of music than I do.