THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY

Despite England's stranglehold on rock music after the highbrow sophisticating effects of The Beatles, The Who, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and a million other worthy acts, the USA can proudly boast FRANK ZAPPA who together with THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION single-handedly outwitted pretty much every single artist tucked away under the rock music paradigm. Emerging from nowhere with the slap in the face 1966 debut "Freak Out!," these wild guys were always 50 steps ahead of the contemporary scene and transmogrified their disdain towards the shameless sheepish compliance to corporate demands into some of the highest intellectual stimulation where parody, experimental rock, psychedelia, doo-wop and music concrète performed unthinkable acts of defiance.

While The Beatles officially launched the art rock scene at least to the masses with its groundbreaking "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club" designed to appeal to the largest swath of the public as possible, ZAPPA and the boyz took a completely different direction by taking on the man with a never-ending stream of iconoclastic middle fingers to both establishment lackeys as well as drug-induced drop outs who naively relinquished their own powers for the sake of a pretty flower power party. The year 1968 also began ZAPPA's prolific release of multiple albums per year fueled by a project called "No Commercial Potential" which produced the albums "Uncle Meat," "Lumpy Gravy," "Cruising With Ruben & The Jets" and this third and best gem of 1968, WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY.

Originally released with the goofy drag show album cover with the yellow background, ZAPPA quickly realized that the album could be the ultimate spoof of The Beatles' 1967 art rock project and soon the original March 4, 1968 cover art would be attempted to be replaced by the more familiar "Sgt Pepper's" parody cover but it was rejected which only fueled ZAPPA's contempt for the music biz and the parody cover would have to live on as interior artwork for a while at least. Thematically WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY took shots at both right wing and left wing extremists who simply follow their respective cult leaders as opposed to stepping back and looking at the larger picture. The album excelled at lampooning the culture of shallow superficial phoniness as well as law enforcement harassment that prevented the band from performing on the West Coast which forced a relocation to New York.

To say WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY was a strange beast is an understatement. Even by today's standards some 50 years after its release, it STILL sounds as fresh and relevant as it was when it emerged. While THE MOTHERS had successfully forged their unique wackiness on the previous releases, WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY is where it all came together in a glistening glob of sheer genius where every aspect of the juxtaposing musical ideas gelled perfectly in the context of spitting in the face of a soulless culture run amok. This album flows perfectly from the freakily bizarre opening "Are You Hung Up?" and the following psychedelic rock satire "Who Needs The Peace Corps?" to the patter song "Let's Make the Water Turn Black," the doo-wop comedy act of "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" all the way to the closing avant-garde mystique concrète fueled "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny."

With eight members in THE MOTHERS proper along with ten other guest cast members, WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY comes off more as a sophisticated sonic mind trip than anything else and is part music, part comedy, part experimental noise and 100% irreverence. While this album was only one of three released in 1968, it is by far the best and only the beginning of the all-encompassing masterpieces that threw in a million disparate ideas and crafted some of the most sophisticated musical experiences within the context of rock music. When listening to the molten madness so perfectly executed on WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY, it's not that difficult to understand why FRANK ZAPPA is considered one of the greatest musical geniuses of the entire 20th century. I, for one, will not even begin to refute that because it's so very, very true.