THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY

Musically this is a masterpiece, no doubt! All the concepts of the songs are incredibly advanced for its time, an Zappa not only gets into rock and roll, but travels around jazz, classical, and modern electrical music, like the tape experiments all along the album. Not only interested in showing his skills, but truly developing an artistic project, Zappa deals with the blues, the psychedelic clichés, in order to make fun of the music, but also Stravinsky like orchestral parts (Mother People and others), Stockhausen like concrete music (Nasal Retentive Calliope Music, and all along the album), a true Genius!! I will highlight some cool parts. What one feels whenever he hears this album is it's not only a conceptual album, but each song is very dependent on the others, like it's one of the albums that really gives me the feeling of a single song divided into various parts, like an opera or a symphony. That gives us a good idea of what was Zappa's musical formation: some fans say that He was a musical anarchist, a critic of traditional music, but, sincerely, when I hear this guy, I know it's a specialist, almost academic musician, with qan enormous musical knowledge. Back to conceptual stuff, a lot of leitmotifs is found on this album, like a part of "What's the Ugliest..." which says "All your children are poor unfortunate...". That reappears when the American youth theme is retaken, later on the album. All the songs have a very interesting instrumentation, with several different string instruments (like 12 string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, some mandolin or something), many different electronic devices, like a discrete moog synth. The drummer for this album, Bily Mundi, also does a very good job in some truly fast parts like "Flower Punk" and "Mother People". We have to admit, anyhow, that most of the innovations in this alum is dues majority to Zappa's new recording techniques, like speed shift and the craziest overdubs I've ever heard since Les Paul. This album could not be played live at the time, the same problem that the Beatles started having with Sgt Peppers.

I can't give less than five stars to this album, it's a real masterpiece, no doubt!! But I won't talk only about the good aspects of the album. The whole thematic of the album, like many other themes on Zappa's carrier, is electing an enemy and mocking Him through all of the album. The ones chosen for this album are the 60's American society: hippies, junkies, police violence, sexual conservatives, etc. In a way, I admit that maybe the American society of that time needed to hear this kind of thing for opening its mind, but, in my opinion, there's a lot of resentment in this album and in all Zappa's work. Like his only complaining was to be an oppressed, misunderstood member of society, and all of the other people around him were guilty for that. I admit sometimes that sounds to me like a crybaby, but Zappa has his redemption when He says, in the last song, that He's another person and wants to show who he is, instead of blaming everyone else. That's the only negative point of this album, but it's very small close to the quality and musicianship of it!! LISTEN TO IT AND ENJOY A LOT, PROG FANS!!

Share this FRANK ZAPPA review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Leo Milani
• Report this review (#509291)
• Buy FRANK ZAPPA music online with PA partners
• Show all FRANK ZAPPA MP3/Stream
• Go to FRANK ZAPPA page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to The Mothers of Invention: We're Only in It for the Money page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for FRANK ZAPPA related discussions