THE BEST OF FRANK ZAPPA

"The Best of Frank Zappa" is a compilation album by US experimental rock artist Frank Zappa. The album was released through Rykodisc in November 2004.

"The Best of Frank Zappa" is what I´d characterize as a completely unnecessary release from Rykodisc as all 15 tracks have already appeared on the "Strictly Commercial" compilation album from 1995 (which was also released by Rykodisc). "Strictly Commercial (1995)" even features four additional tracks so why go and purchase an album with exactly the same tracklist minus four tracks?

Judged on it´s own merits "The Best of Frank Zappa" is a pretty good best of compilation containing the most commercially successful material from Frank Zappa´s discography but I can´t rate it without taking into account that those tracks have already been released in almost the exact same form on "Strictly Commercial (1995)". So the choice of tracks deserves a 4 star (80%) rating but the idea to release "The Best of Frank Zappa" when "Strictly Commercial (1995)" already exists is so inappropriate and unnecessary that I can at the most rate "The Best of Frank Zappa" with a 2 star (40%) rating. This is a redundant cash in and deserves to be treated as such.