THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: CRUISING WITH RUBEN & THE JETS

Zappa grew up with Doo Wop. He loves the greasiness of Doo Wop but also loves the repetitive and greasy piano triplets and embarassing lyrics, but likes the melody. This is indeed a concept album, and the concept here is to make fun of Doo Wop.

The most interesting part of this album is that while Frank is making fun of Doo Wop, each song here could have been a bonafide Doo Wop hit, because Frank purposely injected a lot of unused chord progressions and a lot of great melody. Mostly the songs are the same, give or take a few tempo counts, and give or take a few keys. Jelly Roll Gum Drop however is a stomping and upbeat song about, what else, tits! I heard Frank once count this song off and say "This song is about tits, 1, 2, 3, 4!"

All in all, this album was in a few ways a filler album for the record company and a project Frank really wanted to do but didn't treat it as serious because it wasn't necessarily something original and something with incredible compositions like we all knew he wanted to do. It's an interesting listen to hear what Frank did with Doo Wop, and how the Mothers' had good fun with this.

The re-release of this album have Arthur Barrow's bass and Chad Wackerman's drums. Try to hear the old master and the re-release to see if you like Barrow's bass and Wackerman's drums better than Roy Estrada's and Jimmy Black's. Most Frank fans were mad at the decision of the new bass and drum tracks, but Frank said there was a problem with the tape and it was a necessity to do so.

Good but non-essential indeed.