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FRANK ZAPPA
ABSOLUTELY FREE |
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| | Reviews: 31 |
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| Average Rating: 9.42 |
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Absolutely Free Don't Make It
by Al Brooks Midwest, USA
Reviewed on February 11th, 2002
Much as I would like to be more positive about "Absolutely Free", the problem is it just doesn't stand up as well in the year 2002 as the Mothers' other 60's work. There is plenty to ADMIRE here but not much that's actually very LIKEABLE. Zappa got the balance between experimentation and listenability exactly right on his next album, "We're Only In It For the Money", here he overloads tracks with annoying and tuneless yelled vocals and interludes of dissonant "cleverness" which do little more than disrupt the flow of the music - believe me, few albums "flow" less than this one. Amongst the lowpoints is "Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin", which is an early example of Zappa's one/two-chord jams over which he can solo in his signature style, unfortunately he has to compete with some unforgivably feeble soloing on soprano sax(?) and it goes on and on endlessly and pointlessly. Lyrically, the album is brilliant, both pungent and hilarious and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" is a major achievement for the time it was recorded - having said that it's not something I find myself playing very often.A quick word on the two bonus tracks which, as someone else has pointed out, are carelessly and inappropriately stuck in between the side one and side two of the original record. "Big Leg Emma" is a piece of fluff as insubstantial and throwaway as the pop garbage Zappa regularly sneered at. "Why Don't You Do Me Right" however is a groovy grinding blues rocker with growling Beefheartian vocals from Zappa.
More "Absolutely Free" reviews:
[2005-01-06] The Best Mothers' (10)
[2003-12-24] Absolutely Indispensible (10)
[2003-11-27] An Underrated Mothers Album (10)
[2003-11-14] Comical and Extremely Cynical (10)
[2003-10-20] Gotta love your mothers (10)
[2003-09-11] good (6)
[2003-07-21] My favorite of the three early Zappa albums (10)
[2003-05-28] Zappa's sophomore outing shows his style (8)
[2003-05-04] We miss you, Frank.... (10)
[2003-04-05] Relevant as Today?s Headlines (10)
[2002-10-17] Absolutely Free-kin Good (10)
[2002-10-12] ONE OF ZAPPA'S BEST......AND WEIRDEST! (10)
[2002-09-29] Classic Zappa weirdness (10)
[2002-02-11] Absolutely Free Don't Make It (6)
[2001-12-09] sublime (10)
[2001-08-23] A Classic Album- Even 35 Years Later (10)
[2001-06-30] Brown Shoes Don't Make It (8)
[2001-03-18] Thirty-seven minutes of non-stop silliness! (10)
[2001-03-09] A classic from 1967 (10)
[2001-02-27] absolutely great (10)
[2001-02-07] The origin of many concert classics (8)
[2000-12-10] 60's and then some (10)
[2000-10-01] The vegetable WILL respond to you (10)
[2000-03-01] CHAPTER 2: A QUANTUM LEAP (10)
[1999-12-23] Exceptional (10)
[1999-12-22] One of the great works of art of the 20th century (10)
[1999-08-13] An amazing piece of work--warts and all (8)
[1999-03-24] The Mothers at their best. (10)
[1999-02-01] Frank was one of a kind. An absolute genius. (10)
[1998-07-27] A Classic!! (10)
[1998-07-25] Zappa begins to find his form in his enjoyable 2nd outing (8)
Displaying reviews from 1 to 31
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