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

ABANDONED TO PERISH IN BACK OF A CAR, KENNY WILL STASH HIM AWAY IN A JAR!

I must admit that when I listened to the album, I didn't understand what I was listening to, or why... heh.

We're Only in it for the Money, Frank Zappa's fourth album (and actually the band's third together, The Mothers of Invention), is a concept album that parodies the cover of The Beatles' "Sgt. Peppers".

For this, the photographer and illustrator Cal Schenkel -who would go on to occupy such a role- subjected the Sgt. cover to a process of satirical metamorphosis. The clean blue sky is replaced by a thunderstorm, and instead of a host of popular and pristine personalities of 20th century culture including Edgar Allan Poe, Jung, Dylan, Monroe, Marx, Einstein, and others (with a few winks, such as Shirley Temple's rag doll jumper with the caption "Welcome The Rolling Stones"), we now see a series of B-listers and deformed figures totally outside the acceptable aesthetic parameters, such as Zappa himself and his band in drag. In the shot we also elucidate Jimi Hendrix who willingly lent his mug to the project, even though he was the first artist to pay homage to Sgt. Pepper within days of its release.

As far as I can gather, Zappa never identified with the cultural and counterculture trends of the time, despising the hippie sphere as much as the rock sphere, although, perhaps because of his carefree attitude that defied convention, he was often identified with the latter. But Frank was not a consumer, he loathed the record market and the rock journalists who dictated musical taste, and he was not at all shy about exposing it. In 1968, with his band The Mothers of Invention, he released the album "We're only in it for the money", which took direct aim at all the tricks of the music industry.

I would like to analyse the songs on the album in detail as I have been doing in previous reviews, but really, Zappa impressed me with this album... It's so wonderful that I can't even try to structure an opinion on any of them! I was really raving as I listened to the songs and the tracklist went by. At a certain point, I was afraid to keep listening haha, I felt like I was being brainwashed.

Zappa really is one of the most prolific musicians of the 20th century, and it stands to reason that to most, his art seems incomprehensible. I've shown Zappa to a lot of people, and they can't finish listening to his records! It's something from another planet. But anyway, undoubtedly one of the most innovative figures in all of music history.

8.5/10, 5 stars. There's a lot of savage irony, some eclectic vocals, some truly weird studio sounds and some sing- along tunes on here, but let's face it, nobody was doing what this guy was doing in those years. That is, something terribly eccentric, histrionic, important, innovative, historic, evolutionary... and I could go on like this for hours.

Thanks for so much Zappa!

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