Best Mothers of Invention Album

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Ruben & The Jets is one of the few Zappa albums that I just can't enjoy. Thing-Fish and Jazz From Hell also fall into this category.

― Moodles, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 03:06 (sixteen years ago) link

since Hot Rats isn't billed as a mothers album, it's got to be Freak Out.

― abanana, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 03:14 (sixteen years ago) link

Absolutely Free , because it's the album that has "Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin."

― Ivan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 04:22 (sixteen years ago) link

I'll go with "Absolutely Free", but I like a lot "Weasels" too.

― Marco Damiani, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 07:23 (sixteen years ago) link

roxy. where you been livin? reseda? no! san jose!

― chaki, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 08:46 (sixteen years ago) link

smoke the tapes?

― chaki, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 08:46 (sixteen years ago) link

I can't choose between Freak Out! and We're Only In It For The Money. Can I give half a vote to each please?

― Stewart Osborne, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 09:01 (sixteen years ago) link

tempted by Freak Out Absolutely Free & Weasals, wound up voting for Overnite Sensation cause honestly that's the one I ENJOY the most.

― m coleman, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:04 (sixteen years ago) link

'We're Only In It For The Money' and 'Uncle Meat' a close second. The former sounds to me like such a fantastic capsule of an era. The weird queasiness, the segues, the doo-wop, 'Lonely Little Girl' and the whole hippy/no-hippy thing.

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:10 (sixteen years ago) link

Holy shit, look at all the love for Absolutely Free, my own favourite as well! And for years it was regarded as the weak sister of that classic trilogy, bookended by acknowledged masterpieces and overlooked. I've always loved the (fake) anarchic vibe - all those meticulously rehearsed 'ad-libs' tossed off as though made up on the spot. Also, it's nice that Frank was able to devote one LP side to his social satire and the other to his absurdist nonsense. And nicer still that there was no Side Three with which to fill his annoying juvenile naughty-words stuff.

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:51 (sixteen years ago) link

The Duke of Prunes/'Supremes' climax is just awesome.

― Joe, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:41 (sixteen years ago) link

It's annoying that album tho, too shouty

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:43 (sixteen years ago) link

I went for Freak Out because they hadn't quite worked out how to do it yet (and were therefore better). We're Only In It, well yes, but Stan Freberg was sharper.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:51 (sixteen years ago) link

"Freak Out" actually has good songs on it, unusually for Zappa, but I hate all that "Monster Magnet" stuff. I like "Money" but I also like "Uncle Meat"/ "Weasels"/ "Burnt Weeny"...

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:54 (sixteen years ago) link

Dog Breath Variations!!

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:01 (sixteen years ago) link

Apart from Frank's songwriting, Ray Collins on lead vocals is the big star on Ruben and the Jets.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 18:02 (sixteen years ago) link

Uncle Meat by several miles, and I'm amazed that I'm the first to say so.

My ranking of original Mothers' albums:
1: Uncle Meat
2: We're Only In It for the Money
3: Burnt Weeny Sandwich
4: Freak Out!
5: Cruising With Ruben and the Jets
6: Weasels Ripped My Flesh
7: Absolutely Free

I've never heard Mothermania.

Of the Duke/Brock/Fowler/Underwood/Thompson era, I'd put Roxy and YCDTOSA Vol. 2 (the Helsinki concert) ahead of everything by the original Mothers except Uncle Meat and We're Only In It For the Money, and generally put the rest of it below Absolutely Free. I try not to think much about the Flo & Eddie era.

― Rock Hardy, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 18:19 (sixteen years ago) link

Mothermania is a compilation. Selecting songs from those first three albums ruins the "conceptual continuity." Uncle Meat is one of my very favorites, sandwiched between WOOIFT (probably THE first album to warp my Monkees-loving mind at age 10 or so) and the later period "Roxy."

― Dan Peterson, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 18:38 (sixteen years ago) link

Voted for "One Size Fits All" because "Inca Roads" is the best thing Zappa ever did. "We're Only In It For The Money" is fun though.

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 18:40 (sixteen years ago) link

WOIFTM is probably my second favourite album of the 60s.

― chap, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 18:53 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, I knew Mothermania was a comp. I should have said I'd never bothered with it because I already had everything on it.

― Rock Hardy, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 19:02 (sixteen years ago) link

The mere though of Don Preston makes me laugh so hard I pee my pants.

― valoss, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 19:38 (sixteen years ago) link

I got to see The Grandmothers twice last summer at the Winnipeg Folk Festival -- (Preston, Estrada and others I can't remember) fronted by Napoleon Murphy Brock. Amazingly fun, career-spanning sets.

― Dan Peterson, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 21:02 (sixteen years ago) link

ok so my experience with Zappa so far has been: bought a copy of Freak Out because of the "historical significance" and also cuz I had always dug "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" since hearing it as a kid. then I bought Hot Rats and Bongo Fury for the Beefheart. then nothing for years. then last year I picked up a nice clean original of Absolutely Free cuz I figures what the heck. and I really dig it! I think I may be starting to "get" Zappa. So I would vote for AF if I didn't think it was lame to vote in a poll where you only own two albums. I am surprised to see Rock Hardy rank it so low.

― Stormy Davis, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 21:13 (sixteen years ago) link

I loves it lots! I just love the other original Mothers records at least as much. After Uncle Meat and WOIIFTM, I could rank #3-7 in just about any order and be happy -- like, a five-way tie for third.

― Rock Hardy, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:10 (sixteen years ago) link

I went for Freak Out.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:12 (sixteen years ago) link

best song on AF - STAUS BACK BABY

― chaki, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:13 (sixteen years ago) link

I also like the closing of the album: "America Drinks and Goes Home".
Waiting for the hitherto unknown Scott Walker cover of it (with heart-wrenching Peter Knight string arrangment) to be miraculously discovered one day and distributed among the masses.

― Joe, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 12:27 (sixteen years ago) link

Bump - even distribution for first three, dwarfing all others.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 16:14 (sixteen years ago) link

Who voted for Ruben and the Jets?? I might have done so myself, but was deferring to my long-held opinion of Freak Out.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 18:08 (sixteen years ago) link

Does Ruben and the Jets sound like that track on Freak Out "Go Cry On Somebody Else's Shoulder"? I always liked that one.

― Johnny Hotcox, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 01:00 (sixteen years ago) link

Lumpy Gravy doesn't count?

― ellaguru, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 01:02 (sixteen years ago) link

i love how flo & eddie got HATED on

― cutty, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 01:07 (sixteen years ago) link

Lumpy Gravy was released under FZ's name, not the Mothers.

i love how flo & eddie got HATED on

Me too. Aside from crap material, those records just SOUND bad. Which is unusual for Zappa.

― Rock Hardy, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 01:22 (sixteen years ago) link

i think they sound cool. especially ansley dunbar's drums.

― chaki, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 01:55 (sixteen years ago) link

billy was a mountain ethel was a tree growing off of his shoulder

― Tim Ellison, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 02:41 (sixteen years ago) link

shoulda been a three way tie

― forksclovetofu, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 03:30 (sixteen years ago) link

I don't think it was eligible

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf500/f534/f53429fiwfn.jpg

― Stormy Davis, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 03:38 (sixteen years ago) link

five years pass...

Ray Collins has passed away.

― Big Sambola & The Tailspinners (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 31 December 2012 06:01 (eleven years ago) link

nine years pass...

Don Preston turns 90 today, almost certainly the first 60s rock performer to do so.

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 21 September 2022 22:00 (one year ago) link

That is pretty cool, well done Don!

― Narada Michael Fagan (Tom D.), Wednesday, 21 September 2022 22:06 (one year ago) link

Great observation!

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Wednesday, 21 September 2022 22:22 (one year ago) link

I was all about to bring up Ed Cassidy, but I see he died five months short of his 90th birthday!

HBD Don!

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 21 September 2022 22:26 (one year ago) link

seven months pass...

Another Mother turns 90 today: saxophonist Bunk Gardner, who can also be heard on Tim Buckley's Starsailor,

― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 2 May 2023 23:52 (eleven months ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlujBK31XAw

This was a fun listen yesterday. "Village/Echidna's/Don't You" is even faster than You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 recorded 2 months earlier. Ridiculously tight, with all sorts of interesting tweaks to arrangements. And what a setlist:

Tush Tush Tush, Stinkfoot, RDNZL, Village Of The Sun, Echidna's Arf, Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?, Penguin In Bondage, T'Mershi Duween, Dog Meat, Building A Girl, Dinah-Moe Humm, Camarillo Brillo, Oh No, Trouble Every Day, Any Downers, Babbette, Approximate, Montana, Yellow Snow Suite, Pygmy Twylyte (incl. Dummy Up, Room Service), Tush Tush Tush

― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Friday, 5 May 2023 17:03 (eleven months ago) link

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