THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY

Wow! What can we say to a record that touches the heights of perfection? Is this phase one to Lumpy Gravy, asks Zappa in the cover. How can that be? If we think about it, it is a record that, like is twin brother, tries to deal with the dialectics of commercialism. With the recording industry itself. It satirizes Sgt. Peppers and remembers everyone that music is made by people and not by gods like The Beatles were then considered. It remembers that composers need to eat to and most of it is lumpy and gravy and that they are really interested in money, after all they are in the industry only for it. Irony? Tons of it. The music is gorgeous: inventive melodies, complex collages, everything gathers to make this one of the best Zappa records ever. Mom and Dad is beautiful even if a bit creepy in the singing. Let's Make the Water Turn Black, The Idiot Bastard Son, Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance, Harry, You're a Beast, Absolutely Free are unforgetable melodies with marvellous arrangements. In terms of lyrics it is also important and it would be his more political record until Broadway the Hard Way twenty years later. Artistic statements tend to tell us more in a political level when they first confront us in a personal level, just like Zappa on this one: What is the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. Absolutely essential to any progrocker or listener or person who's interested in music in its best forms.