The Great Musician Frank Zappa and His Philosophy.

Zoot_Allures · August 26, 2015, 11:24pm

Is there anything good inside of you, Andy?

Lev_Muishkin · August 27, 2015, 10:34am

Magnus Anderson:

Lev Muishkin:

AH! POP MUSIC??

Odd, of all the Classical Music you could have chosen you pick one of the most simple overplayed and easy-on-the-ear bit of popularist fluff.

You make several mistakes.

First, just because something is popular does not mean it is bad. Similarly, just because something is rare (e.g. a bunch of black dudes jamming in a bar) does not mean it is good. You are confused on this one. When attacking music you should always attack it based on its constitutive elements, on what is within it, not based on what is outside of it and certainly not based on a symptom.

Second, just because something is simple does not mean it is bad. Similarly, just because something is complex does not mean it is good. You need to forget about linearity. Ordered simplicity is superior to disordered complexity.

Third, though “Blue Danube” is one of the most popular and one of the simplest classical pieces, it is certainly not a pop song, in a sense that there is a great distinction between it and 20th century pop music, including contemporary classical music, neoclassical, minimal and the similar (e.g. Ludovico Einaudi and Philip Glass.)

Fourth, the best way to demonstrate the superiority of a genre over another one is to pick one of its weaker representatives. “Blue Danube”, whether you like to admit it or not, is above anything Mahavishnu Orchestra ever did (even Jan Hammer’s casualesque ambient music, call it elevator music if you will, is more engrossing.)

You are an imbecile, Lev. You should just stick to your jammers and forget about discussions.

You made several mistakes.

point 1. Mostly it is true that stuff accessible to all, is usually pretty bad, not always, but then I did not say it was.
point 2 I never said simple was bad; I said I prefer something challenging, as Simple gets boring quickly.
point 3 Actually Strauss is widely regarded as the birth of POP.
Point 4 - this is what you are doing, not me.

And BTW. What kind of a moron thinks that prog rock musicians are not also composers. Dim fuck

Zoot_Allures · August 27, 2015, 10:53am

That aphex twin is trash… it’s not even music. Somebody mixed a bunch of tracks on some computer software and then called it a song. This generally characterizes what happened to music in the early eighties. The advent of these new recording technologies. Now anybody can be a ‘musician’. Then you’ve got the explosion in the music industry… easily accessible means to produce and distribute music in the free market. Anybody can step into a producer’s office with a demo tape and cut a record deal. Finally, the consumer public, being musically illiterate, will by anything that is marketed. Now every fifteen minutes some new group appears selling the same crap… only it’s a little different this time. There’s a rapper involved, so it’s not just house music rave techno whatever whatever, it’s house music rave techno hip-hop. Thirty minutes later something else comes on the radio and is popular for a week. This time there’s some distorted guitar. So we have house music rave techno hip-hop metal.

Your animosity toward this kind of modern music is warranted, Magnus, but you have no comprehension of jazz (contemporary or fusion) or progressive rock. It is precisely the unpredictability of these genres that is one of the most important elements. Breaking from conventional forms and patterns in song writing. Structuring songs differently, composing songs with many separate parts instead or using the mundane melody/chorus format used all the time in mainstream, commercial music.

By the way, Hammer played with Mahavishnu Orchestra on several albums. Don’t know if you knew that, but I found it ironic nonetheless.

Watch Billy on the skins. This dude is a better drummer with one hand than any drummer you’ll ever find on the radio or in an orchestra pit.

Zoot_Allures · August 28, 2015, 3:26pm

Arminius:

Freak Out and Absolutely Free were parodies of the sixties psychedelic hippy rock scene, but also a shot at the record industries and the values that were prevalent over the music of that period. Frank was against censorship of any kind… though not for the reasons we might suppose. His attitude during the early Mother’s Of Invention period was two sided; he didn’t want to enter the rock scene (because it was silly and below him), but he had to, to make some money. Nobody was paying composers back then. Pop music and rock was where it was at. So what does he do? He enters the mainstream scene with a card up his sleeve. He will write music of the appropriate genre better than the rest, but at the same time make a mockery of it. A statement is made to the music consumers, music genre, music industry and the dominant values of the time with this one gesture: this is what you are, hippies… this is how simple your music is… this is how cheap your industry is… and this is how lame your values are. He didn’t want to censor these trends… he wanted to indulge them, set them loose, let them play out naturally. He used all this as material to work with in order to show people what they were. He was the master parodist.

This one was a shot at the bands of that era. You see the parody of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album cover there. It was also a kind of tongue and cheek admittance to his being in the rock music industry for all the wrong reasons. Because this industry was a joke, he felt, he was only in it for the money.

You Are What You Is can be understood independently, but also understood within the context of Thing Fish, the concept rock-opera album of which it was a part. Independently is can be seen as a social critique of consumerism and consumer identities. As part of Thing Fish it is specifically for the purposes of criticizing American negro culture. Note the incorrect grammar; you are what you is.

Zoot_Allures · August 28, 2015, 3:34pm

But then we’d piss the robot off, and Tink would walk amok.

Arminius · August 28, 2015, 5:37pm

Zoot Allures:

Arminius:

Is, for example, the title of Zappa’s first LP - “Freak Out” - already a philosophical statement or just similar to some statements here on “ILP”?

Contains, for example, the title of Zappa’s second LP - “Absolutely Free” - an ontology of the will, thus a metaphysical and thus a philosophical statement?

Freak Out and Absolutely Free were parodies of the sixties psychedelic hippy rock scene, but also a shot at the record industries and the values that were prevalent over the music of that period. Frank was against censorship of any kind… though not for the reasons we might suppose. His attitude during the early Mother’s Of Invention period was two sided; he didn’t want to enter the rock scene (because it was silly and below him), but he had to, to make some money. Nobody was paying composers back then. Pop music and rock was where it was at. So what does he do? He enters the mainstream scene with a card up his sleeve. He will write music of the appropriate genre better than the rest, but at the same time make a mockery of it. A statement is made to the music consumers, music genre, music industry and the dominant values of the time with this one gesture: this is what you are, hippies… this is how simple your music is… this is how cheap your industry is… and this is how lame your values are. He didn’t want to censor these trends… he wanted to indulge them, set them loose, let them play out naturally. He used all this as material to work with in order to show people what they were. He was the master parodist.

Is, for example, the title of Zappa’s third LP - “We’re Only in It for the Money” - a philosophical statement or just similar to some statements here on “ILP”?

This one was a shot at the bands of that era. You see the parody of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album cover there. It was also a kind of tongue and cheek admittance to his being in the rock music industry for all the wrong reasons. Because this industry was a joke, he felt, he was only in it for the money.

Zappa also said for example: „You are what you is“. That is lingustically false but peotically allowed. My question: Is it also philosophically false?

You Are What You Is can be understood independently, but also understood within the context of Thing Fish, the concept rock-opera album of which it was a part. Independently is can be seen as a social critique of consumerism and consumer identities. As part of Thing Fish it is specifically for the purposes of criticizing American negro culture. Note the incorrect grammar; you are what you is.

Yes. Great. Much of the modern philosophy is social criticism, and based on that fact one can say Frank Zappa was at least a little bit a modern philosopher. I know Zappa’s biography and his attitude towards social conventions; so I can say that your interpretations of the said music albums (see above) and Zappa’s person are right.

Musically I do not like the time since about 1980 very much; so it is not really a surprise that I know Zappa’s early music better than his later music. However. I want to show you a video from the 1980s with Frank Zappa. The official title of that video is “Frank Zappa on Crossfire” (1986).

“We are talking about words. … The whole thing is words. …” (Frank Zappa, 1986):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc[/youtube]-
[list][list]“Frank Zappa on Crossfire”, 1986.[/list:u][/list:u]

My short comment: Words on crossfire.

What do you think about that video?

“The world’s most plentiful ingredient is stupidity.” - Frank Zappa.

Zoot_Allures · August 28, 2015, 6:11pm

Frank felt it was his duty to defend the freedom of speech in music (however much he thought it was mindless garbage), but he also enjoyed disagreeing with hard core conservatives just to be doing it. He couldn’t stand the church or evangelism, but especially not conservative’s attempts to censor music because of their religious agendas.

The fact that he didn’t want to be there in that video is written all over him. He didn’t like media attention at all, really.

You’ve seen the hearings with Tipper Gore, yes? Frank was one of the few musicians present at those hearings, in an attempt to stop the parental advisory which we now see on album covers. To show his gratitude he wrote this song for Tipper.

edit: two part objection there. He objects to government intervention into consumer freedoms, so therefore liberally minded people who push for music censorship. But he’s also objecting to the conservative religious agendas behind the censorship attempts.

Zoot_Allures · August 28, 2015, 6:22pm

With the 80’s came the advent of new electronic devices for making music. This attracted people into the music industry who aren’t musicians at all, so the quality and integrity of music from that point on gradually digressed. It became easier to design a piece of music… and as long as the format was simple and familiar, people loved it. Moreover, capitalism hit a boom during that period, so the mass production of music and distribution was greatly enhanced. Now you had a new group appearing every day with some mediocre crap on a cassette tape. They get signed by some producer and a million albums get sold to the musically illiterate consumer public.

Arminius · August 28, 2015, 8:56pm

I have seen it, if you mean the following video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxB-ZePpS7E[/youtube]

Zoot_Allures · August 28, 2015, 10:25pm

Yeah that’s it. His writing is very idiosyncratic with an admixture of serious and comedic content. Compare the testimony in that video to the liner notes of the album You Are What You Is.

Zappa:

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PREPARED for publication in Newsweek magazine. After it was sent to them, they rejected it saying that it was too ‘idiosyncratic.’ Since we needed something to fill up this space, this article will now meet its destiny as decorative filler material.

Say Cheese …

It has been suggested that the Gross National Product is perhaps not the best indicator of how well we are doing as a society since it tells us nothing about the Quality of our Lives … but, is this worth dwelling upon as we grovel our way along in the general direction of the 21st Century? When future historians write about us, they base their conclusions on whatever material goods survive from Present-Day America, we will undoubtedly stand alone among nations and be known forevermore as ‘THOSE WHO CHOSE CHEESE.’

As you will recall, folks, nobody ever had as much going for them in the beginning as we did. Let’s face it … we were fantastic. Today, unfortunately, we are merely WEIRD. This is a shocking thing to say, since no Red-Blooded American likes to think of his or herself as being WEIRD, but when there are other options and a whole nation CHOOSES CHEESE, that is WEIRD.

Our mental health has been in a semi-wretched condition for quite some time now. One of the reasons for this distress, aside from CHOOSING CHEESE as a way of life, is the fact that we have (against some incredibly stiff competition) emerged victorious as the biggest bunch of liars on the face of the planet. No society has managed to invest more time and energy in the perpetuation of the fiction that it is moral, sane and wholesome than our current crop of Modern Americans.
This same delusion is the Mysterious Force behind our national desire to avoid behaving in any way that might be construed as INTELLIGENT. Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity. To cosmeticize it, many otherwise normal citizens attempt a peculiar type of self-inflicted homemade mental nose-job (designed to lower the recipient’s socio-intellectual profile to the point where the ability to communicate on the most mongolian level provides the necessary certification to become ONE OF THE GUYS). Let’s face it … nobody wants to hang out with somebody who is smarter than they are. This is no FUN.

Americans have always valued the idea of FUN. We have a National Craving for FUN. We don’t get very much of it anymore, so we do two things: first, we rummage around for anything that might be FUN, then (since it really wasn’t FUN stuff in the first place) we pretend to enjoy it (whatever it was). The net result: STRESSED CHEESE.
But where does all this CHEESE really come from? It wouldn’t be fair to blame it all on TV, although some credit must be given to whoever it is at each of the networks that GIVES US WHAT WE WANT. (You don’t ask – you don’t get). Folks, we now have GOT IT … lots of it … and, in our Infinite American Wisdom, we have constructed elaborate systems to insure that future generations will have an even more abundant supply of that fragrant substance upon which we presently thrive.

If we can’t blame it on the TV, then where does it come from? Obviously, we are weird if we have to ask such a question. Surely we must realize by now (except for the fact that we lie to ourselves so much that we get confused sometimes) that as Contemporary Americans we have an almost magical ability to turn anything we touch into a festering mound of self-destructing poot.

How can we do this with such incredible precision? Well, one good way is to form a Committee. Committees composed of all kinds of desperate American Types have been known to convert the combined unfulfilled emotional needs and repressed biological urges of their memberships into complex masses of cheese-like organisms at the rap of a gavel. Committee Cheese is usually sliced very thin, then bound into volumes for eventual dispersal in courts of law, legislative chambers, and public facilities where you are invited to eat all you want.
If that doesn’t fill you up, there is the exciting Union Cheese … the most readily available cheese-type offered. The thing that’s so exciting about Union Cheese, from a gourmet’s point of view, is the classic simplicity of the mathematical formula from which it is derived. In fact, it is difficult to avoid a state of Total Ecstasy if one contemplates the proposition that no import quota yet devised has proven equal to the task of neutralizing the lethal emissions generated by the ripening process of this piquant native confection.

Should we not be overtaken by some unspeakable emotion when we consider the fact that the smaller the amount of care taken in the preparation of each Union Cheese Artifact, the more triumphant the blast as the vapors stream forth from every nook and cranny of whatever it was that the stalwart craftsperson got paid $19.00 per hour to slap together?

Still hungry? Union Cheese might be the most readily available, but no type of cheese in America today has achieved the popular acceptance of Accountant Cheese. If it is true that YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT, then surely our national willingness to eat this stuff tells us more about ourselves than we probably wish to know. Obviously we have found The Cheese To Believe In. Why not? It is manufactured by people who count money, endorsed as nutritionally sound by Civic Leaders, and delivered by The Media door to door. The Quality Of Our Lives (if we think of this matter in terms of ‘How much of what we individually consider to be Beautiful are we able to experience every day?’) seems an irrelevant matter, now that all decisions regarding the creation and distribution of Works of Art must first pass under the limbo bar (a/k/a ‘The Bottom Line’), along with things like Taste and The Public Interest, all tied like a tin can to the wagging tale of the sacred Prime Rate Poodle.

The aforementioned festering poot is coming your way at a theater or drive-in near you. It wakes you up every morning as it droozles out of your digital clock radio. An ARTS COUNCIL somewhere is getting a special batch ready with little tuxedos on it so you can think it’s precious.

Yes Virginia … there is a FREE LUNCH. We are eating it now. Can I get you a napkin?

Arminius · August 29, 2015, 1:20am

“My idea of a good time is – the biggest problem facing the world today is mental health. If everybody had good mental health then all the other problems would be solved because in order to take care of mechanical and um… practical problems you have to have good mental health in order to attack those problems. If people have motives that are not worth while then those bad motives are always going to creep into their activities then – you see that everyday from the political people work, the people who are in just the position to have their minds functioning right then everything else would fall into line. That’s what I’m after – that’s my dream. Now that’s a dream – that’s probably not going to happen but that’s my dream.” - Frank Zappa.

Zoot_Allures · August 29, 2015, 10:42am

Yeah but that’s a vague statement, which is why Frank is no philosopher. I mean ordinary people might read that and say ‘wow, that was intelligent’, but we critical thinkers know better. What is ‘mental health’? There are volumes of work on that subject, and a single statement like Frank’s doesn’t explain anything.

Now of course Frank is smarter than any popular musician I’ve ever known, but a smart musician isn’t a smart philosopher. He had the intellect to develop philosophical thinking, sure, but he didn’t study it so it never happened… his life work was music. Frank handles the music, that’s his department; he’s an entertainer and propagandist. I handle the philosophy. We make a team, Franky and I.

Arminius · September 1, 2015, 7:52pm

In philosophy as a thinking system there are two general ways of thinking: (1) a restricted way of thinking, (2) an elaborated way of thinking. Both are philosophy - the former in a primitive way and the latter in a progressed way. If someone uses the former one, then this does not necessarily mean that this someone is stupid but probably not much interested in philosophy. So Frank Zappa, who was intelligent, used his philosophical statements not in the sense of the elaborated way of thinking. When a man like Zappa says that “the biggest problem facing the world today is mental health”, then this statement represents his way of thinking, because he uses the restricted way of thinking. That is typical for one who is more interested in science than in philosophy, although both have much to do with each other. That one does not want to be a great philosopher but probably knows that it is almost impossible to not think and that thinking becomes philosophy, if it is systematically exercised.

GreatandWiseTrixie · September 2, 2015, 2:11am

Oddly enough, his statement probably contributed to the subjugation of man, because they treat any hint of nature oruntamedness as a crime or mental illness these days.

Magnus_Anderson · September 7, 2015, 8:21pm

knowthyself.forumotion.net/t817p520-music#50764

For those who cannot hear and need to be told, this is the end of the evolution of metal. This is to metal what fusion was to contemporary jazz.

Polyrhythmic ‘math’ metal as it is sometimes called, is the most compositionally complex form this kind of music can take. It’s structural limits are reached here; metal is either simpler than this and therefore outmoded, or only as good as this. But metal can go no further than this. That is what I mean.

Magnus Anderson, that pretentious, fish n’ chip eating English prat, had the nerve to introduce me to this song and then tell me it sucked.

Verily, it was here that I learned Andy hath no ears.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmfzWpp0hMc[/youtube]

Meshuggah is another example (minus the obnoxious vocals). Dancers to a Discordant System for example has ridiculous time signatures.

From now on Know Yoself has a new rule. If you post in the genre of metal, it better be as good as this.

Clicked on your sig, found this post of yours. You’re talking behind my back, Zoot, and that’s not very fun. You realized that I don’t/can’t visit KT, so you took a chance to call me pretentious fish n’ chips eating English prat, none of which is true. I am neither pretentious, nor do I eat fish n’ chips, nor am I English. I am 100% Slav, only lived in England, I speak the truth most of the time and fish n’ chips I only ate once or twice in my life.

The song does not suck, that’s not what I really think, I like it, in fact, I like it better than what perpetual posted, but compared to classical and other fantasy genres (the ones in my head) it does suck.

Moreover, this isn’t the best metal song out there and it is far from being the end of metal evolution. There is no symphony in it, so it can’t be the end of metal evolution.

So what is better than AoL? Jakub Zytecki, of course.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlTDJ1CwyP8[/youtube]

Quick highlights:
Psychedelic madness
Tribal metal dance gathering
Love Song
Opening Track

I absolutely love complex rhythms and cannot understand people who are not attracted to them just as I can’t understand people who think that prog rock or prog metal or whatever prog is better than classical.

You don’t appear to be sensitive to timbre, among many other things. To you, it doesn’t seem like it matters what kind of instruments one is using.

Zoot_Allures · September 7, 2015, 9:27pm

Objection your honor. My client thought Magnus Anderson was an active member at KT and posted that thinking he would see it there. There is no intentional libel or punitive damage here, your honor. I request that you strike this statement from the prosecutors record please.

Zoot, do you realize what you’re asking this co…

Uh, If I may your honor…

Irrelevencio ad Slanderous Andersonius.

[ courtroom gasps ]

Section 4 paragraph subsection a.7 in the Internet Rules of Debate and Etiquette statutes state that if the slanderer believes the slandered is aware of the slander, it cannot be defined as a.6 subsection conspiracy to slander by way of pretentious fish, chip, pub or prat.

My client believed Magnus was there at the forum where he posted that. My client will not accept a plea to an a.6 conspiracy to slander charge.

Nothing more your honor.

Magnus_Anderson · September 8, 2015, 11:09am

This is what I’m saying, Zoot, I give you a truly badass piece of music, and you say nothing, and I give you some autistic mediocrity, and you go “OH MY GOD, THIS IS GREAT, MAX, THIS IS THE END OF THE METAL EVOLUTION!”

Hilarious!

What a magnitude of badassitude this is, just listen to it:
youtube.com/watch?v=LlTDJ1CwyP8#t=17m35s

Listen to it till the end, the badassitude starts at the very end, everything before it is just a warmup.

We can’t even agree on what’s the best prog metal out there.

And you know why is that? That’s because you’re an Arab and I’m a Slav.

All the great people were Slavs.

Nietzsche was a Slav.
Tesla was a Slav.
Unabomber is a Slav.
I am a Slav.
Historyboy is a Slav.
Jakub Zytecki is a Slav.
All the modern so-called Greeks are to a great extent Slavs (due to the Slavicization of Greece that occured long before they were born.)
Fixed is a Slav too, but he’s not a great person because he’s also a Jew.

Slav is the new Roman, Zoot.

Be a Slav, Zoot, that’s what’s cool these days.

Don’t be an Arab, what is an Arab, an Arab is just a man with a towel on his head in the middle of a hot summer day.

Who wants to be an Arab, noone wants to be an Arab, the greatest Arab ever and he’s not even a real person, he’s Disney’s Jafar, just a cartoon character.

Be a Slav, Zoot.

Repeat my mesmerizing words.

Be a Slav, Zoot. Be a Slav, Zoot. Be a Slav, Zoot.

Slavs are currently dominating most of the world sports. Who won FIFA World Cup U20? Who played Brazil in the finals? Who? Who, Zoot? Slavs, of course. Who played United Slaves of Africa in the FIBA World Cup 2014? Who, Zoot? Slavs, of course. Who has the highest number of world titles in basketball? Who, Zoot? Slavs, of course. It’s Yugoslavs right there with the United Slaves of Africa. Who’s dominating waterpolo? Who, Zoot? Even tennis, who’s dominating tennis, Zoot? Is it Rafael Nadal perhaps? Or an Arab? Who’s making fun of Spaniards these days on the ongoing Eurobasket?

Zoot, why do Americans imagine Slavs as their nemesis?

It’s a good day to be a Slav.

Be a Slav, Zoot.

Lev_Muishkin · September 8, 2015, 1:34pm

Slav is a meaningless word.

Arminius · September 8, 2015, 2:24pm

Nietzsche was not a Slav.

And this thread should not be derailed. This thread is about the Great Slav Musician Frank Zappa and his philosophy. So, please, stick to the topic.

Zoot_Allures · September 8, 2015, 2:37pm

I am a synthesis of the noble races, Mr. Anderson. I am both an original Aryan and a fake-ass 1930’s propagandic caucasian Aryan. I’m the whole package dude. My father’s side traces back to scottish and irish origins… no doubt part of the scandanavian stock migrating south into scotland and denmark during the dark ages. These folks were big barbarian bastards and now that you ask, my father’s father was just such a barbarian. Pop’s side was always violent. Like alcoholic Valhalla violent. Like I come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow violent. The kind of violence that only large angry white people can produce.

My mother’s side is Syrian and Lebanese… desert living snake charming belly dancing sand people with blue eyes and olive skin. Grandmother’s maiden name was ‘Saba’, so this most certainly indicates there was a Persian warrior tribe called the Sabians sometime in history of which she was a part, and which probably had something to do with the formation of the Hashishin Order. And who were they? The Arabic Ubermenschen.

Ergo, my uberwenchen grandmother carries in her heritage the secret order of hashishin, while my father carries in him the hyperborean soul of the viking conqueror and adventurer.

I am the Kwisatz Haderach!