THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: FREAK OUT!

Hard to imagine how astonishing or out of place this album must have sounded in 1966. With its mixture of styles and psychedelic weirdness Zappa was leagues ahead of the pack, but almost 45 years later it sounds pretty tame and poppy.

Most of the songs stick to the existing pop format of the 50's and early 60's, rhythm and blues, bee bop and pop. None of those charms me at all and I find them quite tedious and uneventful to sit through. Admitted, I never read lyrics so due to that I'm obviously missing half of the deal here. But just listening to the music there's hardly anything that rises above other music of its age. A few exceptions of not are the 12 minute of psychedelic mumbo jumbo and nonsense of The Return of Monster Magnet. But apart from lending its name to one of my favourite 90's bands, it's an uncomfortable listen. Intentionally so of course and it deserves credit for introducing avant-garde elements in pop music.

For some reason I can't really relate to rock music from before the magic year 1967. So I'll grant one star more then what I feel this is album probably deserves, it's an interesting debut for Zappa fans to see where their hero came from, but it sure ain't anything I'm gonna freak out to any day soon.