Frank Zappa 1968

From the beginning, Frank Zappa cultivated a role as voice of the freaks - imaginative outsiders who didn't fit comfortably into any group. We're Only in It for the Money is the ultimate expression of that sensibility, a satirical masterpiece that simultaneously skewered the hippies and the straights as prisoners of the same narrow-minded, superficial phoniness. Zappa's barbs were vicious and perceptive, and not just humorously so: his seemingly paranoid vision of authoritarian violence against the counterculture was borne out two years later by the Kent State killings. Like Freak Out, We're Only in It for the Money essentially devotes its first half to satire, and its second half to presenting alternatives…

Frank Zappa loved '50s doo wop music. He grew up with it, collected it, and it was the first kind of pop music he wrote ("Memories of El Monte," recorded by the Penguins in 1962). Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, the Mothers of Invention's fourth LP, is a collection of such music, all Zappa originals (some co-written with MOI singer Ray Collins). To the unexperienced, songs like "Cheap Thrills," "Deseri," and "Jelly Roll Gum Drop" may sound like an average doo wop song. A closer look reveals unusual chord sequences, Stravinsky quotes, and hilariously moronic lyrics - all wrapped in four-way harmony vocals and linear piano triplets. A handful of songs from the group's 1966 debut, Freak Out, were rearranged ("How Could I Be Such a Fool" and "Anyway the Wind Blows" give the weirdest results), and old material predating the Mothers was recycled ("Fountain of Love"). "Love of My Life" and "You Didn't Try to Call Me" became live staples.

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - Beat The Boots, Vol II (1992) {Rhino R2 71017~023 rec 1968-1978}
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© 1968-78, 1992 Rhino / FOO-EEE | R2 71017~023
Rock / Experimental Rock / Art Rock

This is the second (and final) bootleg-gone-legit box that was actually sanctioned by Frank Zappa. But rather than go to the expense and time to use better sources – which the artist presumably had access to – he simply ripped off the illicit recordings that had been doing the same to him for decades. And voila, Beat the Boots was born. Zappa enlisted Rhino Records to manufacture and distribute the anthologies – which were packaged to appear as if the contents were being sold in a low budget cardboard box. However once inside Beat the Boots!, Vol. 2 (1992), consumers were treated to a full LP jacket-sized 40-page memorabilia scrapbook, a black felt beret and a red pin/badge bearing the hammer-in-fist artwork emblazoned on it.

Frank Zappa - Zappa Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2020) {Zappa Records / UMe}
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© 2020 Zappa Records / UMe
Rock / Experimental Rock / Avant-Garde / Art Rock / Jazz Rock

Zappa original motion picture soundtrack available digitally today via zappa records/UMe as acclaimed “zappa” documentary is now available everywhere in the u.s. 68-track album features 12 unreleased tracks from the vault including performances from The Whisky A Go-Go in ’68, the Fillmore West in ’70 and “Saturday Night Live” in ’78. Includes more than two dozen tracks from across zappa’s prolific four-decade career, rarities, interview clips plus 26 original score cues 
by composer John Frizzell.

Frank Zappa - We're Only In It For The Money (1968) + Lumpy Gravy (1968) {1995 Ryko Remaster Complete Series}
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© 1995 Rykodisc / The Zappa Family Trust | RCD 10503 / RCD 10504
Rock / Experimental Rock

The early Zappa albums were treasured by the few and totally misunderstood by the majority. The brilliant SGT. PEPPER satire of the cover should have garnered extra sales, but no. Zappa's scathing wit homed in on modern middle-class America and West Coast hippies. The album offered 19 vignettes incorporating avant garde, doo-wop, some relatively conventional pop music and a lot of hilarious dialogue that was so hip it has never dated.

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - Lumpy Gravy (1968) + We're Only In It For The Money (1968) {2012 UMe Remaster}
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© 2012 UMe / ZFT | ZR 3836 / ZR 3837
Rock / Experimental Rock

Lumpy Gravy, Frank Zappa's first solo album, was released months before the Mothers of Invention's third LP (even though its back cover asked the question: "Is this phase two of We're Only in It for the Money?") and both were conceptualized and recorded at the same time. We're Only in It for the Money became a song-oriented anti-flower power album with one contemporary/musique concrète/sound collage hybrid piece by way of conclusion. Lumpy Gravy collaged bits of orchestral music, sonic manipulations, spoken words, and occasional pop ditties into two lumps of 16 minutes each.

Frank Zappa - Beat The Boots! III (2009) {6CD Set, Zappa Records Digital Downloads}
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© 2009 Zappa Records Digital Downloads
Rock / Experimental Rock / Art Rock

Beat the Boots III is a set of digitally downloadable albums by Frank Zappa. It compiles bootleg recordings which were previously available illegally, released by Zappa Records in 2009 as part of the Zappas' campaign to dissuade Frank Zappa fans from buying illegal recordings of his concerts. These albums are not distributed as physical items but only as Digital downloads.

Frank Zappa - Lumpy Money - The Project/Object (2009) {3CD Zappa Records ZR20008 reissue 2016 rec 1968}
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© 1968, 2009, 2016 Zappa Records | ZR20008
Rock / Experimental Rock / Avant-Garde / Art Rock / Jazz Rock

Official Release #85. This triple volume package contains an audio documentary tracing the conception and construction of Frank Zappa's We're Only in It for the Money (1968) and Lumpy Gravy (1968) masterworks. As the second entry in the Project/Object series (the first being the MoFo Project/Object in 2006 that gathered four CDs worth of goodies from the Freak Out! era), the modus operandi for Lumpy Money (2009) remains much the same as its predecessor. Presented within are primary components from both works in several unique – and formerly unissued – incarnations and configurations. It should also be noted that neither of Zappa's mid-'90s approved masters for We're Only in It for the Money or Lumpy Gravy are found here. Instead of retreading those – which (as of this 2009 writing) remain in print on the Rykodisc label – the nearly three-and-a-half hours served up here offer an embarrassment of insight into the development of the music, as well as the modular recording style that Zappa was evermore frequently incorporating into his craft.