YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS

Claims have stated that Zappa's 80's period never was that good at all but I have to disagree with this whole-heartly, and especially while listening to this album or "Ship Arriving.. ". Yes, the music is simpler and less demanding on the listener, but still very creative and humoristic. This is an extremely satirical concept album about the American societys stupid behaviours within different subjects such as drugs, teenagers and religion. Lyrically, Zappa captures these subjects perfectly through his lyrics in a satirical and rough but very entertaining style, and the music works wonderfully well together with them. The whole album has a good flow to it which never bores the listener and the music is pretty much catchy yet very good at the same time. Of course, you must like Zappa's more commercial stuff to fully appreciate this album or you might find it a bit uninteresting musically. The lyrics always stand out and still has a lot of thruth in them 25 years on.

As several other Zappa albums, You Are What You Is featured a handful of different genres spread all over, including country, reggae, fusion and hard rock and this can make this release uneven for some listeners. However, the album has such a good flow to it that you'll hardly notice actually. I must say that I wish there was a few more guitar solos here instead of only 4-5 ones, but the tight musicinaship and arrangements makes up for them. Of course, there are some tracks that could have been better, but I think this album overall deserves at least 4/5