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{{
{{quote|
''If it does it's because you're dumb''
|'''Frank Zappa''',
'''Frank Zappa''' (1940-1993) was a famous [[Crazy Awesome]], unbelievably prolific composer/musician, singer, virtuoso guitarist, [[Record Producer]], film director and anti-censorship activist. His massive 75-album output, both solo and with his band The Mothers of Invention, is largely known for [[Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly|spanning almost every genre known to man]] from [[Hard Rock|straightforward rock 'n roll]] to [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|free-jazz, musique concrète]] and classical music, alternating between heavy experimentalism and accesible catchiness and being chock-full of satirical, absurd, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|gut-bustingly hilarious]] lyrics. While he had occasional brushes with mainstream fame in [[The Seventies]] and [[The Eighties]], the bulk of his career was spent as a legendary cult figure, boasting a small but devoted fandom and critical acclaim. His eclecticism, absurdism, instrumental talent and anti-establishment stance has been heavily influential, with numerous acts citing his influence such as [[
Zappa's life-long anti-establishment stance manifested itself through harsh criticism of public education and organised religion, and most famously through his anti-censorship activism. The latter earned him lasting fame when he showed up at a Senate hearing in 1985 and completely tore the [[Moral Guardians|PMRC]] a new asshole with his statement, [
He once appeared in a ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' episode, voicing the Pope (which was edited due to censor complaints). He also appeared in an episode of ''[[Miami Vice]]'', playing the role of a coke lord. Zappa also hosted an episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' during its fourth season (1978-1979), which didn't go over so well with the cast at the time, who saw Zappa's mugging and calling attention to the cue cards during sketches extremely irritating (the only cast member who liked Frank Zappa and was glad that he hosted was [[John Belushi]]). Zappa died of cancer in 1993. Some of his songs were used during the first two seasons of ''[[Duckman]]'' as a tribute and his son, Dweezil, was cast as the voice of Duckman's moronic, Valley Boy son, Ajax. Two years later a group of Zappa fans in Lithuania paid to have a bronze bust of Zappa erected in downtown Vilnius, although Zappa wasn't Lithuanian and had never visited the country. It went on to become Vilnius' [http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/may/09/news second-most-popular tourist attraction]. In 2008 a replica was erected in Baltimore. By the time you read this, most of the Earth's surface will be covered with busts of Frank Zappa.
[[Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?|Oh, and he gave his four kids really weird but cool names like Moon Unit Zappa, Dweezil Zappa, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen Zappa]].
{{creatortropes}}
* [[Affectionate Parody]]: The album ''Cruising with Ruben & the Jets'', made along with the Mothers of Invention, is an affectionate parody of [[The Fifties|fifties]] doo-wop music. Borders on [[Indecisive Parody]], as the sound was so authentic that many radio stations believed it to be made by another band entirely.
* [[All There in the Manual]]: A lot of times, the liner notes spell things out and explain some of the in-jokes, word salads, and satirical intentions, not to mention to the weird lyrics (Zappa felt that having the liner notes and album jacket to look at and touch was part of what fans treasured about the music buying experience). Beyond that though, there's still his autobiography which explains a lot, not to mention the snippets of vital info you get from reading the oceans of Zappa info available on the net. Many Zappa confederates and well-wishers have stepped out from behind the curtains over the years to explain motivations or in-jokes or origins of songs. Also, Zappa's vast non-American audience is frequently confused by Zappa's satirically America-centric references, his younger audience is frequently confused by his unspeakable filthiness, and his modern audience is confused by his (often deliberately) dated references. These people gather all over the internet to enlighten each other in public. There's a lot out there to take in.
* [[Anti
* [[Arc Words]]: On [[Concept Album|''Joe's Garage'']] the phrase "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you gotta load or unload, go to the White Zone. You'll love it. It's a way of life." comes up in at least three songs.
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]] / [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick]]: This is sort of a YMMV example, but from versions of "Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me?" performed in the '80s (examples can be found on, at the very least volumes 3 and 6 of the ''You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore'' series): "He called her a pig, a slut, and a whore, a bitch and a Republican." The last of those epithets is likely to be interpreted as either the least or the most offensive. Knowing Zappa, he probably intended it as the most offensive, but it should also be pointed out that we're not supposed to ''like'' the character who thinks "Republican" is a good insult.<ref>(Notably, he also revised Betty's favourite group from Helen Reddy to Twisted Sister in this era. In a coincidence, that group's frontman Dee Snider was, alongside John Denver, the only other musician besides Zappa to testify at the PMRC hearings, but Zappa had already started performing the revised lyrics before that occurrence).</ref>
* [[Attractive Bent Gender]]: Occurs with Terry Bozzio in "Punky's Whips", in reference to androgynous male singer and guitarist Punky Meadows, a member of the glam rock band Angel.
* [[Badass Moustache]]
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* [[Biting the Hand Humour]]: ''We're Only in It for the Money'' splits its time between satirizing the mistreatment of ''actual'' outcasts ("Concentration Moon", "Mom & Dad") and mocking hippies ("Who Needs the Peace Corps?", "Absolutely Free", "Flower Punk").
* [[Black Sheep Hit]]: The rather catchy (with the obligatory share of [[Lyrical Dissonance]]) "Bobby Brown Goes Down". In a documentary, Frank admitted to being amused that it kept climbing to #1 in Norway every once in a while. Also fitting the bill are his two biggest hits in the US, "Dancin' Fool" and his only Top 40 hit, "Valley Girl".
* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]:
{{quote|
"The child will grow and enter a world of liars and cheaters and people like you/who smile and think they know what this is about/you think you know everything/maybe so/the song we sing/are you listening?" ("The Idiot Bastard Son") }}
* [[Broken Pedestal]]:
** Scottish rocker Alex Harvey loved Frank Zappa and finally got to open for him one night. The crowd booed Alex off the stage, and Frank never intervened or helped in any way. Alex was kind of crushed.
** [[Cheech and Chong|Tommy Chong]] is a huge Zappa fan. Zappa attended one of Cheech & Chong's performances and left because he hated the duo's stoner humor, much to Chong's disappointment.
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* [[Casanova]]: "You want to get set free onetime? All you have to do is get your pants off, admit that you have your pants off, find somebody of the opposite sex, or, if you wanna be a little bit weird, you can do something else, but do it sexually, that's the only way you're going to set yourself free."
* [[Catholic School Girls Rule]]: "Catholic Girls"
* [[Concept Album]] - A handful of his albums fit this trope. A few examples are the ''Freak Out!''
** ''Freak Out!'' is often considered the first rock concept album (if [[The Beach Boys]]' ''Pet Sounds'', which came out a month before it, isn't<ref>the songs on ''Pet Sounds'' are thematically unified but Brian Wilson has hinted that it may not have been consciously intended as a concept album</ref>), so it could be listed as the [[Ur Example]], [[Trope Maker]], and/or [[Trope Codifier]]. Actually, all three of the Mothers' first albums (''Absolutely Free'' and ''We're Only in It for the Money'' round out the trilogy) could qualify, depending on how you define "concept album".
*** Arguably, ''Freak Out!''
**** ''Lumpy Gravy'' was not a Mothers album, however, although some of the Mothers did appear on it. However, in its own way it, too, could be considered a concept album.
**** ''Apostrophe(')'' is a concept album for the first five songs. The narrator has a dream that he is an Eskimo named Nanook, and when he discovers a fur trapper beating his favorite baby seal he rubs yellow snow in his eyes, causing him to go blind. The fur trapper must travel to the Parish of St. Alfonso, currently hosting a pancake breakfast, with food cooked by Father Vivian O'Blivion. The narrator then visits a scamming fortune teller whom he humiliates. The album then branches off into unrelated territory, concluding with the tale of a horrid disease called Stink-Foot.
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*** Given his general aversion to authority and government, I would imagine he thought even a regulated legal market would be dangerous. All-in-all, Zappa's stances appear highly Libertarian.
* [[Dystopia]]: ''Joe's Garage'' is a rock opera set in a dystopian future where music and sex will be illegal, and the dominant religion is the [[Church of Happyology|Church of Appliantology]].
* [[Dead Baby Comedy]]: The album ''Thing-Fish'', about a mutated gang of black stereotypes with dresses growing out of their bodies putting on a
* [[Epic Rocking]]: He did this countless times throughout his career; one of his best known examples is the seven minute guitar solo during "Willie the Pimp."
* [[Evil Mentor]]: One night, the green but eager original line-up of [[
* [[Filk Song]]: ''Cheepnis'' is a song about monster movies with [[Special Effects Failure|unconvincing special effects]].
* [[Freak
* [[Generation Xerox]]: Dweezil Zappa.
* [[Genre Roulette]]: He performed at least one song in virtually every genre of his time: blues, rock, jazz, classical, fusion, and so on.
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* [[Instrumentals]]: They were often the highlights of his albums.
* [[Insufferable Genius]]: Had an IQ estimated at '''172''' and could, at times, be somewhat insufferable.
* [[Intercourse
** ''Chunga's Revenge'' has almost every vocal tune be about this ("Road Ladies", "Tell Me You Love Me", "Would You Go All the Way?"), except "Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink".
* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Zappa wanted the music itself to express ideas and humor beyond the words. He said that a college's music appreciation class's example of a trumpet sounding like it was "laughing" was a very weak and shallow example of what he was going for. He pointed out old car horns going "arooga" or Harmon-muted trumpets as being hilarious for unexplainable reasons. Now, in practice Zappa's theory along these lines mostly presented itself as a deliberately [[Igor Stravinsky]]-esque use of [[Standard Snippet]] for humor purposes, but there were some cases where he innovated his own motifs, which is where this trope comes. The most memorable is probably Zappa's idea that someone talking through a plastic megaphone is the ultimate expression of bland, faceless authority. If you don't think plastic megaphones are that hilarious and/or ominous, you will by the time Zappa's done with you, especially after ''Joe's Garage''.
* [[Last
** "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny" from ''We're Only in It for the Money'' is a ''Last Song'' Nightmare.
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: You have all the weird original characters from Zappa's songs, all the weird and talented musicians who play the songs and get mentioned in the songs like characters, and all of the weird non-musicians and hangers-on who get mentioned just as frequently.
* [[Lyrical Dissonance]]
* [[Magnum Opus Dissonance]]: Even though Zappa never named "Thing-Fish" his masterpiece he often called it an essential album because of the political message. Yet to this day many Zappa fans revile it as his worst, least imaginative and most unenjoyable record ever! Even the political aspect is so far-fetched that it loses its impact because people are unable to take it seriously.
* [[Matzo Fever]]: "Jewish Princess".
* [[Mondegreen]]: His cover of [[Jimi Hendrix]]'s "Purple Haze" uses the widely noted mondegreen "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" amongst other lyric changes [[For the Lulz]].
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* [[Myth Arc]]: His preferred term for it was "conceptual continuity". Also, his "xenochrony" method of lifting guitar riffs and melodies from either himself or others (he was a big fan of the "Louie Louie" riff) and inserting them in other songs.
* [[Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly]]: the [[Trope Maker]], arguably.
* [[Nipple
* [[Not So Crazy Anymore]]: An almost immediate example: When ''We're Only in It for the Money'' came out a lot of people thought he was crazy because of all the references to cops shooting hippies. Slightly under three years later, the Kent State shootings happened. They were National Guardsmen rather than police, but other than that it occurred almost exactly as he predicted. The proximity of the events has also led to several cases of [[You Fail History Forever|You Fail Rock History Forever]] as people have claimed that the songs on the album were ''inspired'' by the Kent State shootings.
* [[One
* [[One of Us]]: He was the quintessential band geek (He played snare, to be specific), and loved "monster movies".
* [[Porn Stache]]
* [[Progressive Rock]]: One of the [[Trope Codifier
* [[Protest Song]]: Many, many examples to name. Played both relatively straight ("Trouble Every Day", "Who Needs the Peace Corps?", "Plastic People") and subverted ("Who Are The Brain Police?", "Flower Punk").
* [[Pun
** ''Zoot Allures'' - say it out loud and use your French knowledge.
** ''Sheik Yerbouti'' - Think of a famous disco hit
** "Dinah-Moe Humm": "I heard a Dinah-Moe humm", a pun on a humming dynamo.
** "Manx Needs Women" is a pun on the film "[[Mars Needs Women]]".
** "Aybe Sea"
* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: Many of his lyrics are inspired by 20th century society, both politics and real life anecdotes from his personal or bandmembers' lives.
* [[Recurring Riff]]: Often from songs written decades earlier; see xenochrony above.
* [[Reference Overdosed]]: Zappa's work is literally packed with references to other musical works and genres, 20th century politics and society and even inside jokes. Fans are still deciphering hidden meanings.
* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: Became increasingly prevalent as the years passed, although it was there from the start -- it was ''unheard of'' for an unknown rock group to release a double album at the time ''Freak Out!'' appeared, and by some accounts it's the first rock double album of any kind. The fact that Tom Wilson produced it probably helped the group's fortunes a lot -- Wilson had, by that point, gotten the kind of stature that basically meant any act he produced could do pretty much anything they wanted, as long as he signed off on it (which he usually did -- he was a smart enough producer to trust his artists' instincts).
** Released ''Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar'', a ''triple album'' of guitar solos excerpted from live performances. Followed by another album of similar length and execution, ''Guitar'', 7 years later.
** Let's not forget his ''quadruple album'' with a running time of over two and a half hours, ''Läther'', which his record company refused to release at the time. It eventually got released in 1996 as a 3-CD set with four bonus tracks that extended the running time to almost three hours.
* [[Refuge in Vulgarity]]: He loved this, particularly on albums like ''Joe's Garage'' and ''Thing
* [[Rock Opera]]: Most famously ''Joe's Garage''. Also, ''[[
** It's worth noting that a lot of these are pretty obvious parodies and deconstructions of rock operas in general, namely "Greggery Peccary". ''Thing-Fish'' also features deconstructions of a lot of Broadway tropes.
* [[Rockstar Song]]: "Joe's Garage" again.
* [[Saying Sound Effects Out Loud]]: ''Waka Jawaka''.
* [[Serious Business]]: Turned down a [[American Political System|nomination for running for the President]] of the United States on the Libertarian Ticket. Also, was cultural attaché for the Czechoslovak government and has [https://web.archive.org/web/20131014022014/http://www.balticsworldwide.com/news/features/zappa.htm a statue of him in Vilnius, Lithuania].
* [[Shaggy Dog Story]]: Several, including "Billy the Mountain" and "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary".
* [[Space Whale Aesop]]: "A mountain is something you don't want to fuck with."
* [[Shout
* [[Standard Snippet]]: Zappa had an ironic and fervent love for how hilarious and expressive these could be and had his band drilled to play them flawlessly. The combination of universal recognition and wretched cliche was like a magical drug to Zappa's post-modern psyche.
* [[Take a Third Option]]: When there were two diametrically opposed groups, Zappa would usually choose to ridicule them both: hippies/squares, Republicans/Democrats (although he generally heaped much harsher scorn on Republicans), battle of the sexes, list goes on. It even extended to his serious writings -- for instance, in ''The Real Frank Zappa Book'' he notes at various points that unions, businesses, and governments are all untrustworthy.
* [[Take That]]: Many, of which the quote at the top is a [[Take That, Audience!]].
* [[The Evil Prince]]: ''Thing-Fish'' features a government scientist and part-time theater critic who's referred to as The Evil Prince.
* [[The Rival]]: Occasionally [[
** [[Lou Reed]] and Zappa never got along.
* [[The Spartan Way]]: He loved family life and relished being a father... But his whole life and in fact his whole house were configured to serve his musical career. His entire family was swept up in its orbit, and they've all helped out one way or another. Not to mention the nightmarish practice and touring schedules of his bands. Living with Zappa meant living for Zappa's music.
* [[They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste]]: Loved it in all of its forms. Stupid jokes and unpleasant sounds had a welcome place in a lot of his work.
* [[Torture Cellar]]: "The Torture Never Stops" from ''Zoot Allures'', which hovers between [[Black Comedy|funny]] and scary.
* [[Training
* [[Two
* [[Uncommon Time]]: Used pretty frequently. Lampshaded in one section of "Toads of the Short Forest" on ''Weasels Ripped My Flesh'':
{{quote|
* [[Unusual Euphemism]]: On ''Joe's Garage'' the term "to plook" is used to refer to sex and rape.
** Other unusual Zappa euphemisms include "poot" (a reference to flatulence), "spoo" (ejaculation), and "numies" (mucus), although this is by no means an exhaustive list.
* [[Valley Girl]]: Codified the trope with his 1982 hit single "Valley Girl".
* [[Viewers Are Geniuses]]: A lot of his material requires extensive knowledge of multiple musical genres before you can even ''begin'' to appreciate it. Most obvious on albums like ''Lumpy Gravy''.
* [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made
** As he points out, a lot of his stuff is so complex that you have to be sober to play it. For an example of what can happen, check out the London Symphony Orchestra's drunk version of "Strictly Genteel."
* [[What's an X Like You Doing In
* [[Word Salad Title]]: A lot of his albums: ''Uncle Meat'', ''Burnt Weeny Sandwich'', ''Weasels Ripped My Flesh'', ''Zoot Allures'', ''Sleep Dirt''...
** "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" was from the cover of a magazine. The piece is about exactly that, apparently.
{{reflist}}
{{Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists}}
[[Category:Musicians]]▼
{{Total Guitar's 100 greatest guitarists of all time}}
[[Category:Reprise Records]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Names to Know in Music]]
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