best Zappa albums - need recommendations!

Hmm...I can't necessarily do a top ten, but I will say that I enjoy the following:

 Hot Rats, Grand Wazoo, Roxy & Elsewhere, Waka/Jawaka, Uncle Meat, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Freak Out, One Size Fits All, and Apostrophe. 

Wait, that's 10 albums...alright, so there's a bit of each of his styles in there (except classical and synclavier) with a focus on his fusion/out there style stuff.  I've only got a few other of his albums, but these are definitely my favorites of what I have. 

In no particular order these albums are probably the easiest ( well Uncle Meat isn´t easy listening but it´s a favorite of mine) introduction to Zappa´s discography. Most people will probably include Hot Rats
too but it´s never been a favorite of mine:

One

Size

Fits

All

I'd highly suggest listening to a couple of his Live albums first .. Will be a nice mixture and really shows his versatility and humor..

You should listen to(firstly):

- Hot Rats
- Roxy & Elsewhere
- Zappa in New York
- One Size Fits All
- Over-Nite Sensation
- The Grand Wazoo
- Uncle Meat
- Joe's Garage
- Make a Jazz Noise Here
- Sleep Dirt


Edited by The Quiet One - November 18 2009 at 19:45

Plankowner wrote: I'd highly suggest listening to a couple of his Live albums first .. Will be a nice mixture and really shows his versatility and humor..

Yeah, The Best Band You Never Heard has good variety and some great tracks. I personally like almost every single thing FZ has ever done, but he has lots of styles in his music. I'd say the absolute essentials are:

Hot Rats
Over-nite Sensation
We're Only In It For The Money
One Size Fits All

And from there you can build. For example, if you really enjoy Hot Rats (as I'm sure you probably will), then you should check out Waka/Jawaka. If you like Over-Nite Sensation, then check out Apostrophe(') and maybe Sheik Yerbouti (great lyrics). If you like WOIIFTM, then check out the early Mothers of Invention stuff like Absolutely Free. One Size Fits all is just a masterpiece. I also highly recommend Uncle Meat, but as someone has said before me, it's a difficult listen, but especially the King Kong parts are great to me. If your interested in his later synclavier/compositional stuff, I recommend Orchestral Favorites. It's just old stuff redone in an orchestra but it's very good. And Joe's Garage 1+2 is good as well. But the stuff above is what you really NEED to get.