THE FRANK ZAPPA AAAFNRAA BIRTHDAY BUNDLE

This collection, which is only available through digital download (as far as I know), is the first of several "Birthday Bundles" that were released around every two years. These bundles usually collected previously unreleased tracks from Frank Zappa and from some of his family/friends. These will mostly appeal to the rabid Zappa fan, but others might find some enjoyment from them also. The first bundle was released in 2006, and it definitely has an interesting array of tracks, some good and some pretty bad.

First of all, each of these birthday bundles also contain different variations of the AAAFNRAA. This is an acronym for one of Frank's favorite mottoes "Anything Anytime Anywhere for No Reason At All".

The first four tracks are taken from what were previously unreleased concerts. The tracks are not necessarily anything to write home about. They are typical great performances of Zappa's songs. "Tryin' to Grow a Chin" was first originally on the "Sheik Yerbouti" album and is performed in Sydney Australia on Jan. 20, 1976. This is followed by "Dead Girls of London", a track that was mostly unheard by the public at that time. Again, it's an okay track, it's the typical Zappa fun track recorded live at the Odeon Hammersmith in London in February 1979. The bad thing about this particular version of the track is that it has a bad fade out at the end. Next is "You Are What You Is", a track that comes from the album of the same name, but this time performed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on December 11, 1980. The song is way too repetitive as far as the melody goes and it was an attempt at trying to make a hit single, not a good song at all and this live version isn't any better. The last live track is "Bamboozled by Love" performed in Wien, Austria on May 8, 1988. This version is actually pretty good, but doesn't vary much from the original. The last of the Frank Zappa tracks here is a remix of "Fine Girl". There's nothing really interesting here that is worth noting except that Chad Wackerman's drums were overdubbed over the original version. It's all good, but nothing really noteworthy.

The last 6 tracks are all contributions from various family members. First there are two tracks with lead vocals by Diva Zappa with some guitar and songwriting help from Dweezil Zappa. The first song, "Girlie Woman" was the only track that was available on another album, one of Dweezil's solo albums. The song is just awful, the singing is terrible (and not in a funny way), the lyrics are awful and so is the instrumentation. This is followed by "When the Ball Drops" which is maybe just a tad better, but still quite bad. The song is about desperately searching for someone to kiss on New Year's Eve before the "ball" drops. These are followed by a pair of tracks from Ahmet Zappa with help from Jason Nesmith. The first of this pair is a pretty decent track "Bring it Back". This track brings back interest in the overall collection as it is much better than the Diva contributions, but the second track from Ahmet "Feel How I Need You" is quite sub-par and boring. A very good instrumental called "Rhythmatist" by Dweezil Zappa follows that centers more around his synth skills than his guitar skills, but still pretty good nonetheless. The biggest surprise comes from "Moon Zappa" with the track "Everyone is Going Mad". She has help from Paul Doucette (from "Matchbox Twenty") and the song is actually really good. Of course, Moon Zappa provided the vocals for Frank's song "Valley Girl", but this track is much better than that was. Her vocal ability is much better and on this track, you can actually hear how good her singing voice is. This is the best track on the album and it's too bad that she didn't get more exposure like this.

So, in the end, this ends up being of more interest to Zappa-philes, but is still okay enough that occasional Zappa fans would also find something to like also. Moon Zappa's track is the best, but many will probably still want to check out just how bad Diva Zappa's songs are. When considered as a whole, however, this album comes out with 3 stars. Good, but not great and nothing worth getting too excited about.