Favorite/Least Favorite Zappa Tracks

Inca Roads

Waka/Jawaka

Big Swifty

Eat That Question

[and, hell, I'm adding more: Grand Wazoo, Cosmik Debris, Watermelon in Easter Hay and The Radio is Broken]

Least favourite:

The Dangerous Kitchen has never failed to make me laugh, and I love it, even if it's not one of his more praised songs.

What's the ugliest part of your body is short but sweet. Since I was a teenager, I've always loved the line, "..but I think it's your mind." which makes more sense within the context of the song.

The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing is pure genius and hilarious as well.

There's so many I like, and as for the ones I don't like...that's harder.

I never really liked Camarillo Brillo (which I know is controversial) and..honestly, I can't think of another Zappa song I don't like.

I can't seem get through the entire 200 Motels album, most of his classical stuff doesn't really move me, and I don't listen to his synclavier music for hours on end, but there is no loathing involved.

For the record, Zappa was not homophobic, nor was he very prejudiced. However, he was against phony people, and never wanted anyone to take themselves too seriously. Because of that, his satire often times is quite biting, or shrouded in intense irony (see Bobby Brown Goes Down). So sometimes, it sounds like he is making light of certain things that, at least today, doesn't really fly, despite not actually being a supporter of that kind of thinking/behavior/language/etc. In fact, he despised "macho men" who thought themselves irresistible to women (see Bobby Brown Goes Down again). I try to just envision it in the context of the time. And while he is certainly witty, and I find I often agree with many of his philosophies, his portrayal of those messages has aged poorly in many of his songs. And he DEFINITELY was trying to be provocative. Certainly, if someone today was making similar statements, they wouldn't get very far, and I'd honestly be ok with them not getting far. Now is different than then.

The exception, though, might be some of the tracks on You Are What You Is--like Jumbo Go Away and Suicide Chump. It's part of the reason they made my least fave list--not that great as music and quite pointlessly mean really.

Ben Watson makes much the same point in his excellent Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play.

I want to know prefers the way Farther O'Blivion (yes FARTHER, not FATHER) was better before or after it became the Be-Bop Tango. I want to know which version of Billy the Mountain is the best. Who despises the punk satire songs, but loves the doo-wop stuff. Who is underwhelmed by Camarillo Brillo, but is hooked on his modernist stuff hiding in the form of a rock/fusion outfit, like Moggio or Sinister Footwear II (that last one would be me).

I'm probably asking for too much...