THE BEST OF FRANK ZAPPA

Frank Zappa has such a huge discography that it must be pretty hard to come up with a "Best Of" compilation for him. I'm a fairly new convert to the world of Zappa but this seems to be a pretty good effort to me.

Kicking off with what seems to be one of his most popular numbers, the jazzy instrumental "Peaches en Regalia", we are then taken to the bizarre story of husky wee-wee in "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow". This is the single version which appears to be made up of the first 2 tracks on Apostrophe (though I could be wrong). "Dancin' Fool" is one of my favourite Zappa numbers so far, with its insanely catchy chorus. I won't go through every number as most are well known to Zappa fans, but "Cosmik Debris" is a classic, "Fine Girl" has a nice reggae lilt to it and "Valley Girl", featuring Moon Unit, was one of his biggest hits.

No doubt long-term Zappa fans would quibble about some of the inclusions here, but that is surely unavoidable with someone who has released as many albums as Mr Zappa. As far as I'm concerned it has served its purpose - it's available at a reasonable price and has converted me to the bizarre world of Frank Zappa - and you can't say fairer than that.