The Great Musician Frank Zappa and His Philosophy.


“Civility please, gentlemen.”

Great and Wise Trixie, relax - please, relax - and listen to “Zoot Allures”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5gnubhlgF0[/youtube]
[list]- “Zoot Allures” by Frank Zappa, 1976 -[/list:u]

But here comes my question again: What about Frank Zappa’s philosophy?

Wait, don’t listen to it! Listen to the studio version first, it’s always cleaner.

About his philosophy: I’ve read his biography and the quotes that are found on the internet. There are bits and pieces of religious criticism and political commentary, but nothing really straight forwardly philosophical. He was interested in science more than anything (his biography was dedicated to Stephen Hawking, in fact). Of course you can glean philosophical meaning from some of his song lyrics once in a while, but nothing officially philosophical.

Yes, I know, but unfortunately I can’t open it - like the most of Zappa’s music, especially his studio versions, as I already told you once in another thread. The reasons are the copyrights.

There are two Zappa songs I like the most: “Apostrophe” (1974) and “The Purple Lagoon” (1977).

I am also interested in science more than anything. But the older I have become the more my critique of science has increased.

Did he never say anything about the most famous philosophers?

I know that he was religiously and politically incorrect. So he was quite correct. :slight_smile:

Why should I be civil when he rapes my ears with this shtick he calls music? It’s so…boring.

I think the guy in the photo in the original post needs a haircut, don’t you think? How is it possible for a man who not only accepts but glorifies taking photos in a messy physical state be capable of composing good music? Alright, there are exceptions, but don’t you think this is his general attitude towards life? to be sloppy? to disobey laws, to be against any sort of discipline? Isn’t that what all rock ‘n’ roll, and later on, punk music is all about? To be an ugly leper celebrating ugliness?

How can you compare Carl Orff to Frank Zappa?

The rock and roll I listen to celebrates Valhalla values, witch values, your values, my values. Zappa is not my kind of rock and roll, its more like just a rock, but without the roll.

Quotes from Zappa
“I never listened to stuff like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. It just didn’t sound interesting to me.”

Zappa’s philosophy
“One day I discovered that if you took a missle, and added ten warheads to the missle, instead of just one, you can blow more things up. I was impressed with the atomic bomb”

What kind of music do you prefer then?

Videogame music, some rock and roll, classical music, a couple of 90’s pop songs, my little pony songs.

I was joking a bit. The photo was satirically meant. Zappa would probably have done the same as I did with his photo, because Zappa was not always serious.

Actually I would never compare Carl Orff to Frank Zappa, but I did it in this case, because of the fact that I like classical music as well as rock music and of the fact that I was quickly confronted with Carl Orff to Frank Zappa when Zoot Allures’ said something about the best composer of the 20th centurry in his first post of this thread.

Best rock composer of the 20th century is probably Peter Gabriel.

Some other (more serious) photos of Frank Zappa:

Pretty much any random classical piece of decent quality can destroy anything I’ve ever heard from Zappa. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata? Sure. Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings? Sure. Scriabin’s Etude Op 8 No 12? Sure. Mozart’s Little Serenade? Sure. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto? Sure. Need I go on? Even film music and trailer music (e.g. Two Steps from Hell) is better than most of rock ‘n’ roll.

This he thought when he was a little child.

For comparison:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdncUKMFPiI [/youtube]

Why? :-k

Because number one, its progressive rock. Its like a hybrid of classical music, rock music, and futuristic music. It is of higher musical quality than Rush, King Crimson, ELP, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. who are all amateurs in comparison, who don’t harness the classical motifs right. I’d have to say King Crimson or Rush is the second best of the bunch, though a bit too homogenous for my tastes, each song is to uniform compared to the previous. Floyd is too dry, and Zepellin too melodramatic. ELP is too freeform, and directionless at times.

Zappa is just like a cacophony of crap. In that one song you posted, he attempted to emulate progressive rock, but it just sound like a kid in the garage, hammering random notes, like an improvised jazz garage jam session. No identity, no substance, just gibberish. And it he puts it all together through the veil of comedic humor. It’s the glue of his poop, the only thinking holding the pieces.

I like progressive rock music very much. It is my favorite kind of rock music. But that does not automatically mean that the best rock composer is a progressive rock musician. Please do not forget other rock musicians, especially the jazz rock musicians, because they are also very good rock composers.

I totally agree.

Thre quality of the classical music is a little bit higher than the quality of the progressive rock music.

No.

It is more like doing it in another way (comedic humor included), but Frank Zappa did not hide anything behind his humor; he had a very serious side as well.

Yes he was so serious that his jokes werent very funny. It was obvious he had a serious demeanor, which is why his jokes fell flat. He was very masculine, not in touch with his feminine side, so his humor fell flat. He was no daemon, no Loki, no Joker, no comedian, no clown.

Musically, it was just improvized Jazz. His music was just garage band rubbish, joke music, random improv lyrics he made up at a campfire with no musical flow whatsoever, a kid making up off beat lyrics to banging goofy music in the background.

Jazz causes psychosis.

Are you sure that you are not confusing jazz rock or jazz in general with your “1990’s pop songs” or your “my little pony songs”? :slight_smile:

90’s pop music and my little pony music sounds nothing like Jazz.

Jazz is music for niggers, women and gay fags. Excerpt on jazz music

Jazz is for the psuedo-intellectuals to call themselves cultured, the pretentious…the rude.

Blues standards started with the negroes. Ragtime jazz and contemporary jazz is what happened to the standard blues when it was modified by smart, musically literate white people who feel asleep while litsening to the boring classical symphony. What was left over of the blues standards became rock and roll…silly shit like Buddy Holly and the doo-wop stuff. Miles Davis is what happened to contemporary jazz when it became psychedelic. McLaughlin, Pastorius, Corea, Holdsworth et al is what happened to psychedelic jazz when it became jazz fusion. In the back ground rock and roll continues to evolve into heavy metal for the meat heads and pop music for the geeks. The last great intellectual renaissance in modern music was the progressive rock jazz fusion dialectic. Classical is dead… it fell asleep and never woke up.

Gabriel’s beginnings are with Genesis. I’m not talking about the eighties Shock the Monkey stuff. Have you even heard the old Genesis, Trixie? Like Foxtrot or Selling England By The Pound? This is some of the best progressive rock ever made… and a precursor for fusion. You call Gabriel the best composer of the twentieth century and yet you don’t know anything about him other than Sledge Hammer. Ha! What a joke.

I’m gonna school you later on after work today, kid. Pick a seat.