Zappa Freaks Out!

I knew Zappa had a strange fascination with 50's rock n roll and doo wop. Zappa's career in the mid-70s and beyond were spattered with his cynical twist soda shop hits, while his earlier material with the Mothers of Invention took a jab at the conservatism Red Scare era United States on a lyrical level. It always amazed me how someone with so much musical genius wanted to play something so seemingly simple. Upon rediscovering the Mothers' 1966 debut, Freak Out!, it would appear that Zappa had this obsession from the get go. While the band's earlier stuff is a bombardment of sarcasm and an absurd take on the popular and alternative music of the day, Freak Out! lures you in with some familiar sounds then takes you in a literal freak out. What makes this album so special is the accessibility, which is perhaps why Zappa chose such popular music as the base for his lyrics, which largely mock the teen culture of the 50s and 60s, which Zappa grew up in. Intellectually these guys were far more threatening than the drug crazed San Francisco scene of the time, among others. Instead of joining the counter culture craze to combat the straight laced conservatism of the day, their mission was to tackle it head on, and disguise it as something hip, but still way more weird. The Fugs may be the only band that comes close to how weird these guys were.

Get Freaked
(Note: This is ripped from vinyl. Each track is an entire side of a record. I didn't separate the tracks out of laziness and to provide a somewhat authentic experience, no skipping tracks n what not.)