Hipsters Were Always Hypocrites. Ask Frank Zappa.
Frank Zappa was an unruly figure of 1960s rock, a free-speech advocate and devout parodist defined by his opposition to authority. His albums assembled the bones of rock and roll into an idiosyncratic style coursing with disbelief at just about every aspect of the American zeitgeist: hippies, cars, college, drugs, California, and, eventually, yuppies. He also hated record labels, government, and the police, positions stoked by a brief jail stint at age 24 due to charges of “conspiracy to commit pornography,” after an undercover vice cop entrapped him into making a fake, audio-only sex tape. The experience changed his life: Zappa became as vehement in his morals as he was flamboyant in his presentation, a wide-eyed, comically bearded Lady Justice weighing the country’s dark side against its silliness.
Of his, a 1973 LP with his band the Mothers of Invention. It’s not Zappa’s most influential work—his 1966 debut, , basically invented the concept album, incorporating consistent characters and ad-libs from a whiny teenage narrator Zappa treated as a symbol of American conformity. But is his most inviting listen, forging a muscular, funk-inflected sound that couches the denseness of his more avant-garde music in pop hooks. Meanwhile, Zappa’s lyrics scrutinized his then-youthful fan base, caricaturing the counterculture with the cartoonish strokes of a melodic R. Crumb. is a triumph: a concentrated digest from perhaps the most popular stretch of his career, and a freeze-frame of his compositional flowering and ingenious lyrical ribaldry.
