Frank Zappa Albums: Chronological List

For a very long time I have been irritated by the chronological lists of FZ's albums, mainly because most of them made no sense or were plainly wrong. So I went through all his albums and sorted them the way I saw the order to be correct.

The list follows below and if anyone spots any errors, I would be happy if these were pointed out to me.

There are several points I need to explain:

1) I have included all regular albums, all posthumous releases (marked with a 'P'), and the Beat the Boots series (marked with a 'B'). There are no unofficial bootlegs and no 'best-ofs'.

2) A large number of Zappa's albums, especially the posthumous ones, are collections that span a number of years, if not decades. I have sorted these in a way that they slot into a spot so that the latest track on that album corresponds to the chronological place in the list. Many lists don't do this, but go by the earliest track instead. This doesn't really make sense to me, because listening to the later tracks then becomes a glimpse into the future, which is quite irritating, as the groundwork to those tracks hasn't even been laid yet. The list below treats these tracks as retrospectives, which I find to be a much more natural approach.

3) There are just a handful of posthumous releases that FZ worked on during his lifetime that are original material with no indication of when they were recorded. This applies mainly to his synclavier albums. Where this is the case, I have added them to the end of the list, where they seemed to make the most sense. I assume he worked on these during the few years remaining to him after he was diagnosed, and after he gave up working in any band context.

So, for those who are interested, the list is as follows:

List was revised on 29.04.2018, 3 entries added.

1    Cucamonga (P)
2    Joe's Xmasage (P)
3    Joe's Corsage (P)
4    Mofo (P)
5    Freak Out!
6    Tis The Season To Be Jelly (B)
7    Absolutely Free
8    Lumpy Money (P)
9    We're Only In It For The Money
10    Lumpy Gravy
11    Greasy Love Songs (P)
12    Cruising With Ruben and The Jets
13    Road Tapes Venue 1 (P)
14    Electric Aunt Jemima (B)
15    Beat The Boots 3 Vol 4 (P,B)
16    Uncle Meat Project/Object
17    Uncle Meat
18    Mystery Disc (P)
19    Hot Rats
20    Our Man In Nirvana (B)
21    The Ark (B)
22    Burnt Weeny Sandwich
23    Weasels Ripped My Flesh
24    Ahead of their Time (P)
25    Road Tapes Venue 3 (P)
26    Chunga's Revenge
27    Freaks and Motherf**kers (B)
28    Tengo Na Minchia Tanta (B)
29    Disconnected Synapses (B)
30    Fillmore East - June 1971
31    200 Motels
32    Playground Psychotics
33    Carnegie Hall (P)
34    Swiss Cheese-Fire! (B)
35    Just Another Band From L.A.
36    Finer Moments (P)
37    Waka-Jawaka
38    The Grand Wazoo
39    Joe's Domage (P)
40    Wazoo (P)
41    Imaginary Diseases (P)
42    Little Dots (P)
43    Over-Nite Sensation
44    Piquantique (B)
45    Road Tapes Venue 2 (P)
46    Beat The Boots 3 Vol 5 (P,B)
47    The Crux Of The Biscuit (P)
48    Apostrophe
49    A Token Of His Extreme (P)
50    The Roxy Performances (P)
51    You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol  2
52    Roxy & Elsewhere
53    Roxy the Movie Complete Soundtrack (P)
54    Roxy By Proxy (P)
55    Unmitigated Audacity (B)
56    One Size Fits All
57    Bongo Fury
58    The Lost Episodes (P)
59    Joe's Menage (P)
60    Joes Camouflage (P)
61    Zoot Allures
62    Conceptual Continuity (B)
63    Philly 76 (P)
64    OZ (P)
65    One Shot Deal (P)
66    Halloween 77 (P)
67    Hammersmith Odeon (P)
68    Beat The Boots 3 Vol 1 (P,B)
69    Lather (P)
70    Zappa In New York
71    Studio Tan
72    Sleep Dirt
73    Orchestral Favorites
74    Saarbrucken 1978 (B)
75    At The Circus (B)
76    Chicago '78 (P)
77    Halloween (P)
78    Sheik Yerbouti
79    Transmissions
80    Joes Garage
81    Anyway The Wind Blows (B)
82    Frank Zappa Plays The Music Of Frank Zappa
83    Buffalo (P)
84    Tinseltown Rebellion
85    Shut Up n Play Yer Guitar
86    Quaudiophiliac
87    You Are What You Is
88    The Dub Room Special (P)
89    As An Am (B)
90    Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch
91    You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 1
92    You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 5
93    The Man From Utopia
94    Baby Snakes
95    Baby Snakes Compleat Soundtrack (P)
96    London Symphony Orchestra Vol. 1
97    Boulez Conducts Zappa
98    Beat The Boots 3 Vol 6 (P,B)
99    Them Or Us
100    Thing-Fish
101    Francesco Zappa
102    Meets the Mothers of Prevention
103    Beat The Boots 3 Vol 3 (P,B)
104    Does Humor Belong In Music?
105    Congress Shall Make No Law (P)
106    Jazz from Hell
107    London Symphony Orchestra Vol. 2
108    Beat The Boots 3 Vol 2 (P,B)
109    Guitar
110    Broadway The Hard Way
111    The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life
112    Make A Jazz Noise Here
113    You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 3
114    You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 4
115    You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol  6
116    Trance-Fusion (P)
117    Frank Zappa for President (P)
118    Feeding The Monkies At Ma Maison (P)
119    Dance Me This (P)
120    Civilization Phaze III (P)
121    Everything Is Healing Nicely (P)
122    The Yellow Shark (P)
123    Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions (P)
124    200 Motels - The Suites (P)

Edited by npjnpj - April 29 2018 at 04:15

Good list impressive - had me checking for some albums eg Finer Moments but it/ they were there

Edited by EddieRUKiddingVarese - November 26 2016 at 16:51

Shouldn't 049 came after 050-052?

@zravkapt: I don't believe so. Stage Anymore 2 was, according to credits, recorded sometime in 1974, whereas Roxy and Elsewhere was recorded on various dates in December 1974. It is possible, of course, but it seems unlikely that FZ crammed even more concerts into the very end of the year.

Edit: just found it. The Helsinki concert was recorded in September 1974.

@ EddieRUKiddingVares: it's actually the first one from those two. It must have snuck in somehow. I bought it in a small CD shop in Frankfurt when it was just released and wondered into my collection. Until you mentioned it I was under the impression it was an official release. Cheers.

Edited by npjnpj - November 26 2016 at 18:51

[QUOTE=npjnpj]@zravkapt: I don't believe so. Stage Anymore 2 was, according to credits, recorded sometime in 1974, whereas Roxy and Elsewhere was recorded on various dates in December 1974. It is possible, of course, but it seems unlikely that FZ crammed even more concerts into the very end of the year.

Edit: just found it. The Helsinki concert was recorded in September 1974.

/QUOTE]

Shouldn't Hot Rats come after Burnt Weeny Sandwich and/or Weasels Ripped My Flesh?
Some parts of BWS were recorded during the HR sessions (according to IINK) so it isn't clear.

Apostrophe should come after the Roxy albums if only because the recording of the basic track of Yellow Snow is documented on the Roxy box set as starting after the shows.
Roxy & Elsewhere should come after the other Roxy albums (because of the May 1974 tunes ie Trouble Every Day).

So much music ! I could spend weeks listening to Frank only !

I need a drink.

Sorry, but the revised list contains 5 errors, but captcha doesn't allow me to access them, regardless of the browser I use. I'll try again later. In case you're wondering: there are 5 entries marked (RY), which have to be deleted. It stands for 'Ryko release'.

Edited by npjnpj - April 29 2018 at 04:11

So many albums! Has anybody here listened to all of them?