Frank Zappa - We're Only in It for the Money
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Frank ZappaBrand: ZAPPA,FRANK
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1995-04-18
Music Label: Zappa Records
Soundtracks:
- Are You Hung Up?
- Who Needs the Peace Corps?
- Concentration Moon
- Mom & Dad
- Telephone Conversation
- Bow Tie Daddy
- Harry, You're a Beast
- What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?
- Absolutely Free
- Flower Punk
- Nasal Retentive Calliope Music
- Let's Make the Water Turn Black
- The Idiot Bastard Son
- Lonely Little Girl
- Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance
- What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body? (Reprise)
- Mother People
- The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny
Free Music Notes for We're Only in It for the Money
Free Music Review: THE "ANTI-BEATLES"
Hit: 5 Stars
"We're Only In It For The Money" reminds me of an early "MAD" magazine. If you are familiar with the first incarnations of this magazine, even as far back as the days when it was a comic book (early and mid 1950's), it does share some elements. Where the record by the Mothers is a pointed barb at what was happening in 1967, and the magazine wasn't topical early on, each has lots of little barbs and puns, and you have to peruse it several times to see what's going on here.
This work has been criticized for having abstract sound collages being passed off as musical compositions, but remembering that Zappa found tonic value in nonmusical sounds and used them as part of his repertoire, especially at a time when musicians were looking for the furthest-out things they could record, the "noise" on this disc fits right into what this recording is all about. The Mothers Of Invention were the Anti-Beatles. The Fab Four had long-since sold out, selling merchandise that had nothing to do with their music, to a degree that was rivaled only by KISS, a full decade later. So, why not substitute the neatly trimmed mustaches and glittering Sgt. Pepper outfits of the Beatles with scruffy beards, stringy hair, and dresses that look like they came out of a third-rate thrift store? Ugliness was always a part of the Mothers' image. The picture on the cover that spells "MOTHERS" in watermelons and carrots, is pretty clever, considering the other cover uses flowers to spell "BEATLES." The slam-dunk of poor taste in the artwork, apart from the image included here of Lee Harvey Oswald being shot, is the mannequin on the left side of the cover photo, face blacked out, arms broken off, and the stomach split open, giving Cesarian birth to a baby doll. And to think, the Beatles' "Butcher" photo was banned from publication for, how many years? This is one thing of many that makes the Mothers Of Invention one of my all-time favorite bands; the all-out tackines of it all. It is a slap in the face to all the restrictions some folks seem to feel entitled to impose on the rest of us. This band was what happens when you think you can control people. Rebellion. Conformity is scary, if it is coerced.
Despite the muddiness of the sound, this was a cutting-edge recording, and still is, even this many years later. The rapid-fire of sounds and ideas can be a little confusing, even exhausting, especially if this isn't what one is used to hearing. There have been times where I would be listening to this, and people would go "WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?" So I would just laugh at the private joke shared by the band and me. And, yes, despite the good musicianship and the seriousness of the state of things then and now, it is, a huge, elaborate joke. Original vocalist Ray Collins began to dislike Zappa's songs, and started to hate singing his lyrics, and had temporarily left the band at this point. It's my guess that "Call Any Vegetable" was the last straw. The lyrics to "Uncle Meat" are similar, and Collins' tracks were recorded at this time. But the content of this piece is so pointed, so incisive, that Collins, I feel, missed out on the band's peak. Bringing Bunk Gardner, Don Preston, Ian Underwood and Billy Mundi into the band over the past year, already better than many bands at this point, pushed the talent level over the top. And the financial strain of touring this band hadn't driven it into the ground yet.
This was an unusual band, poking fun at the very people that gave it it's livelyhood. One listen to "Who Needs The Peace Corps?" shows this. The band sings "...every town must have a place where phony hippies meet, psychedelic dungeons popping up on every street...," and the phony hippies still bought the record, and still followed the band. A forgiving bunch, I guess.
Probably the most subtle bit of parody on this record is closing it with "The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny." As everyone knows, "Sgt. Pepper" ended with "A Day In The Life," featuring abstract sounds from the orchestra building up to a creshendo, letting loose at the right time, the last time ending on that one big piano chord that fades into infinity. Here, it's all a sampling of sounds and voices with no melody, and ending it on a lone chord that fades the exact same way.
As stated earlier, this is like reading the oldest copies of a "MAD" magazine. The Mothers: The Anti-Beatles.
We're Only in It for the Money Poster
No Description Available.Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 18-APR-1995
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