THE MYSTERY DISC

"The Mystery Disc" is a compilation album by US experimental rock artist Frank Zappa. The songs are compiled from the two mystery discs from "The Old Masters, Box One (1985)" and "The Old Masters, Box Two (1986)" box-sets. A few songs have been omitted from the original releases to make it fit on a single CD format. Most notably the "Big Leg Emma/Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?" single from the Mystery Disc #1 from "The Old Masters, Box One (1985)" (the two track are included on the CD version of "Absolutely Free (1967)" so no loss there if you already own that), and part of the Mothers of Invention concert from the Mystery Disc #2 from "The Old Masters, Box Two (1986)" (the omitted part of the concert is included on "Ahead of Their Time (1993)" so again no loss there, if you own that release).

"The Mystery Disc" CD album concentrates on the early output of Frank Zappa and almost all 35 tracks are pre-Mothers of Invention recordings. Most are very short dialogue pieces or badly recorded blues or r´n´b songs and the most interesting parts of the album already appear on other recordings like "Ahead of Their Time (1993)" and "Lost Episodes (1996)". So to be quite honest I find "The Mystery Disc" to be a totally dispensable album and I wouldn´t even recommend it to the hardcore fans. Sure there´s the occasional hilarious dialogue or nice little section but as mentioned the best parts have already appeared elsewhere giving this album very little value. I can´t defend giving the album more than a 1 star (20%) rating.