It really depends on your taste in music, I don’t know you all that well but you seem like an outside the box guy.
“Chunga’s Revenge” 1970 is essentially the heaviest riff of the time and that album is excellent!
That was Zappas second Mothers lineup.
Then I would highly recommend something from the 1st Mothers Band.
IMO “Absolutely Free” 1967 is his most interesting one, it was way ahead of its time, really hardcore for its time, in a lyric way and the music arrangement is genius. “We’re only in it for the money” and “Uncle Meat” are excellent too, but they are difficult albums to grasp. The money Album is more punkish like IMO with military drum beats (pretty cool really) but it’s also a parody album of 1960s hippies.
Uncle Meat is very complex and you need some of Absolutely Free first before diving into that one. Uncle Meat is IMO so good once you get it.
A lot of the later stuff he did was based off his early works.
Out of the later stuff that was mentioned to you in that other thread. I would say his most wildest and musically talented is “St. Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast” that’s a track on the Apostrophe album.
Always visit the track “Hungry Freaks Daddy” this is from his debut album, I think it’s his ground breaking landmark!!!
There are a lot of Jazz heads that love “Hot Rats”, yeah it’s great, but not like this other stuff., just my opinion.
Now that I think about it, the early Mothers was really like 90s grunge music but way more complex musicianship! I see a lot of Nirvana type stuff with Zappas older rock style in the 1960s.
All Zappa’s music is great for different reasons. He was an amazing writer/composer. An even more amazing guitar player. This is one of my favorite tracks by him. Also love the “shut up and play yer guitar” series.
My father used to play zappa all the time when I was a kid and I just thought it was funny. After I matured a bit I could really appreciate what he was doing.
I still think this is one of the greatest guitar solos of all time
A lot gets jumbled up in my head, partly because he would use different solos in other places,and partly because “stuff about Madonna” is taking up space it shouldn’t.
But Apostrophe stands out for me as an absolute banger. The song and album.
Great tips already. I don’t know all Zappa’s music (who does?), but I’ll agree with the recommendations, they are probably the spearhead of his production.
Zappa was one of those modern musicians who had the passion, creativity and insanity of a classical composer. Add the humour and you have something really unique.
@SepCalla at one point I had every CD release expect maybe 2 they were both classical releases.
I had around 60CDs by him.
He had a vault in his home of much more unreleased stuff that his family had been producing.
I found a bunch of live unreleased stuff on tube. Back in the 1960s with the early Mothers a person could have owned his albums, but if they went to a show, they would an entirely different experience. He was known to release new material in live performances. Some people want to hear the exact same notes etc in a live show as an album and that was not what Frank did. This at times even frustrated some of his audience.
OMG I found it, St Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast live starts around 3:20 here, you really get a glimpse of how talented these musicians are and Frank wrote and conducted this-
Zappa has a very intelligent title to a tune, it’s called “Sinister Footwear” no lyrics but the title means that shoes and the design can be very bad for you which is 100percent true!
The Apostrophe album and mainly Stinkfoot, Cosmik Debris and Nanook was first presented to me around age 12 when I got my first guitar and searching my parents albums for material to play.
My first teacher was a friend of the family that only knew classic rock.
My dad showed me that album told me that good guitar work is in it.
I played part of the album and didn’t understand what I was hearing.
At age 17 I was really into blues guitar I revisited the album and loved it. They aren’t blues solos, but the backing is blues related.
That was my start. I immediately went out and starting collecting his CDs which each CD came with a catalog, so I made sure I got everyone on that catalog.
You like Halloween? That was Zappas holiday. This tune, the singer Ray Collins sounds like Dracula here. Ray had one of the greatest vocals in the 60s.
And here is a cool story on how Frank got into this band via Ray. Ray quit the band very early too.
I will admit that I would find it difficult to say I like it better than the one I posted, but that’s very likely due to only listening to the original version for 30+ years, haha.
Very pentatonic leaning in all of those songs. Cosmik debris is another favorite of mine from that album.
.
