YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS

You Are What You Is, that Zappa mentality stuck with him for the rest of him career. Unfortunately, this album is not what it is cracked up to be, it is nothing more than a glorified pop-record. There aren't really any strong tracks, the melodies kind of blur together giving the illusion of one song, the vocals are weak, the lyrics are at their crudest, and Zappa doesn't even get one guitar solo. Next to Thing-Fish, this album is easily his weakest release.

Sure, there are some decent tracks, like Heavenly Bank Account and Suicide Chump, but they are few and far between. Within the 20 tracks of this album I can only find 3 songs really worth mentioning, the two mentioned before and Theme From the 3rd Movement of Sinister Footwear. The vocals are lush and textured, but there is no substance or soul in them, they all seem forced and unimaginative. The riffs kind of go together, they all have this quasi-reggae, overly poppy feel that doesn't even really feel like Zappa at all. Now if he had kept the original arrangement to Conehead (a little snippet is played on the Baby Snakes film), there might have been at least one track more worth mentioning.

Overall, there isn't much that this album truly is, other than a weak and otherwise bland effort from one of music's most creative talents. Fortunately, his next album would improve on this album and then some. Until someone convinces me that there is some good to it, I recommend you get this album towards the end of your Zappa collecting phase. 2/5