We're Only in it For The Money

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…

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.

Supergrass reissued their 1997 album In It For The Money in 2021. The band’s second album is be available as a remastered, expanded 3CD set or on vinyl which comes with a bonus 12-inch single. The album was of course the follow-up to the band’s debut album I Should Coco (which was reissued in 2015) and features the singles ‘Going Out’, ‘Richard III’, ‘Sun Hits the Sky’ and ‘Late In The Day’. All of those were top ten hits, save for ‘Late In The Day’ which peaked at number 18. In America, ‘Cheapskate’ was the only single from the album.

Frank Zappa - Lumpy Money - The Project/Object (2009) {3CD Zappa Records ZR20008 reissue 2016 rec 1968}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.00 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 483 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 1.23 Gb | 5% repair rar
© 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.

The Top 100 '60s Rock Albums represent the moment when popular music came of age. In the earliest part of the decade, bands were still regularly referencing earlier sounds and themes. By the middle, something powerful and distinct was happening, which is why the latter part of the '60s weighs so heavily on our list. A number of bands evolved alongside fast-emerging trends of blues rock, folk rock, psychedelia and hard rock, adding new complexities to the music even as the songs themselves became more topical. If there's a thread running through the Top 100 '60s Rock Albums and this period of intense change, it has to do with the forward-thinking artists who managed to echo and, in some cases, advance the zeitgeist. Along the way, legends were made.

Overseen by the Zappa Trust and produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister, Joe Travers, The Mothers 1970 collects together more than four hours of previously unreleased performances by the heralded line-up which lasted roughly seven months: Aynsley Dunbar (drums), George Duke (piano/keys/trombone), Ian Underwood (organ/keys/guitar), Jeff Simmons (bass/vocals) and Flo & Eddie aka Howard Kaylan (vocals) and Mark Volman (vocals/percussion) of The Turtles who performed under the aliases to skirt contractual limitations of performing under their own names. This iteration of The Mothers, which likely began rehearsals fifty years ago this month, came to an end in January of 1971 when Simmons quit the band during the making of the 200 Motels movie.

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - Carnegie Hall 1971 (2011) {4CD Box Set Vaulternative Records VR 2011-1}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 878 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 515 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 541 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1971, 2011 Vaulternative Records / The Zappa Family Trust / Zappanese | VR 2011-1
Rock / Experimental Rock / Avant-Garde / Art Rock / Jazz Rock

Official Release #91. In October 1971, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention played two shows in one night at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The album, Carnegie Hall, celebrates that night's marathon – two shows (7:30 and 11:30 p.m.) with ticket prices ranging from $3.50 to $6 – featuring Zappa (lead guitar, vocals) with Mark Volman (vocals, percussion), Howard Kaylan (vocals), Ian Underwood (keyboards, alto sax), Don Preston (keyboards, gong), Jim Pons (bass, vocals) and Aynsley Dunbar (drums).

Frank Zappa - Meat Light: The Uncle Meat Project/Object Audio Documentary (2016) {3CD Set Zappa Records ZR 20024}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.23 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 491 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 880 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1968, 2016 Zappa Records / ZFT / Universal | ZR 20024
Rock / Experimental Rock / Avant-Garde / Jazz Rock

Official Release #107. Uncle Meat gets the deluxe treatment in this three CD Project/Object Audio Documentary. Included is the original 1969 vinyl mix (restored, remastered and available digitally for the first time), an original sequence that includes unique source material and bonus vault tracks mostly compiled from the recording sessions at Apostolic Studios in NYC between 1967 and 1969.

Released in May 1982, Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch marks Frank Zappa's entrance into the 1980s. From this point on, his rock records would focus on single, simple rock songs (the previous year's You Are What You Is had them organized in interconnecting suites) with occasionally more complex instrumental numbers. The recipe would be extended to The Man From Utopia (1983) and Them or Us (1984). Side one features three studio songs that would never be performed on stage. By 1981, Zappa had become a master at manipulating vocal tracks, a technique featured in each of them, but most successfully in "Valley Girl," where daughter Moon Unit (aged 14 at the time) pastiches rich girls from the San Fernando Valley…