HALLOWEEN 81 - LIVE AT THE PALLADIUM, NEW YORK CITY

A massive collection, in light of how expansive these live shows were, but compared to Halloween 73 or 77 I'm not so keen on this one. Zappa's early 1980s band neither has the groundbreaking virtuosity and experimentalism of his mid-1970s incarnation of the Mothers or the exciting raucousness of his late-1970s group. It's all rather polished, but the polish is rather ruined when the band rush through the songs to this extent, Zappa deciding to go for quantity over quality.

That's kind of how his release schedule went in the 1980s - just look at how much stuff he put out in 1984, where you had classical releases (Boulez Conducts Zappa), plus a double studio album (Them or Us), plus a truly horrible Broadway-style musical (Thing-Fish), plus an adaptation of a long-dead composer's works to the Synclavier (Francesco Zappa). There, as here, Zappa provides an object lesson in the idea that just because you have the space to do anything you like, doesn't mean you should necessarily do *everything* you like - selectivity and editing is important.