Frank Zappa the most popular PA artist?

Henry Plainview wrote: Billy the Mountain wrote: HughesJB4 wrote: Logan wrote: Incidentally, I just started checking various artist names (listed in the PA band/artist pages) official sites at myspace to see how many "friends" are listed: Frank Zappa has 92819 friends. Peter Gabriel has 39137 friends. Miles Davis has 23125 friends. You gotta remember the vast majority of myspace users are scene kids, and because Zappa is the most trendy of out of him, David and Gabriel, of course Zappa will have more friends on myspace due to scene kids boosting his friend count. As the scene kids say "ZAPPA IZ TEH TRENDYZ". And sometimes they do this too after the sentence: ^_^. *Sorry Henry:P* Are you kidding!!!! Zappa is trendier than peter gabriel.....lets not forget that genesis is probably the biggest sellouts in music history and have become more trendy and popular than Frank Zappa could ever be.  Frank Zappa was a force that battled conformity throughout his career, and the last word I would use to describe him would be trendy.  I agree with the previous posts that mention the range of Franks discography. He has made pure classical, pure jazz, chamber music, jingles, movie soundtracks, electronic music, syphonic rock, pure rock, satire, spoken word and the list goes on.  That man is the most influencial artist of the last 40-50 years.  As for THE BIG 5 (or six because I believe that gentle giant was AMAZING) Frank Zappa has released over 40 albums of original material, and over 100 total, name me one of those3 six that has come close to that feat and covered the range of different styles that Uncle Frank did.  That is why I believe his music is discussed so much, because it covers almost every genre so everyone can relate to one song or another.  Anyway, I just think you should rethink your wording when describing Frank: not trendy....how about transcendant, non-conformist, antiestablishmentarian, or maybe genious....but for the love of god not trendy!!!!! You are misinterpreting what he said, and trendy does not equal popular. Collins Genesis is as far away from trendy as popular music can get.   And I would disagree with your statement that he is the most influential artist of the last 50 years. Ornette Coleman/John Coltrane created a genre.

i dont think Collins Genesis was that trendy in the 80s either,  based on what people have told me about being around in the 80s. there were always bigger and trendier acts back then

i think Zappa's influence is only recently begun to be felt. sure prog bands since the 90s/2000s have had a little Zappa in them (DT, TFK, Umphrey's) but i think more young people are discovering his music, whether they like his political commentary, or his inside jokes, or his eclectic styles of music, whatever.

even the most ahead-of-their-time jazz artists have gained much acceptance since their time. Zappa on the other hand was really ahead of his time, and still hasnt gained as much acceptance as he should have. maybe we're coming to a Zappa renaisance, who knows.

Xanatos wrote: Zappa rocks! :D

I was always curious of Zappa, my dad never got into him so I took it upon myself. And I can say I enjoy exactly 50% of what I've heard. Some of it's phenomenal. And some of it's completely insane.

Oddly enough I was trying to make a playlist yesterday and I came here for some advice. I figured out you can't find a discriminating review of Frank Zappa on a prog site.

Hi,

I think Zappa is name-dropped more than he is actively listened to.

if we consider Beatles as non-prog (which makes sense for me), then Zappa is the most popular one of course...

Yorkie X wrote: I don't get the prog experience I`m looking for from Zappa , what Zappa plays is good for what it is , I call it "Rock in opposition"  but its not prog.   Time we stopped kidding ourselves and I think Zappa would agree with what I`m saying.

Ah ok, thank you :) 

I'm not sure if he's the most popular, but I think he's up there.

dat half-decade necropost