by "ghengisadonis" United Kingdom Reviewed on July 14th, 2003
Previous reviewers have demonstrated - all too well - that this album, or rather its lyrics, may offend some people. Especially if they have a limited sense of irony as well as an outdated attitude to `language'. Hopefully for most visitors to this page this will not be an issue. Because this album is, along with `You Are What You Is', the crowning glory of Zappa's flirtation with "stadium rock" - high-volume, high-energy, dominated by uptempo ravers like `Jones Crusher' and `Tryin to Grow A Chin' and grand pop songs like `Flakes' and `Dancin' Fool'. And not forgetting `Broken Hearts...' in the first category and `Bobby Brown' in the second - yes, they're two of his best-known `offensive' songs but they're also musically terrific, like the album in general. In a way, this is his only real "stadium rock" record, being largely devoid of instrumental complexity (unlike its successors "Tinseltown Rebellion", "Them Or Us"). There are however a couple of doses of `pure' Zappa - the semi-improvised `Sheik Yerbouti Tango' (retrieved from a '78 arrangement of `Little House I Used To Live In') and the Latin-jazz tinged `Wild Love', with its choral vocals and disorienting sample from `Sinister Footwear'. (Live, this song was a 20-minute-plus epic with a string of solos - hopefully someday the ZFT will release an example). Elsewhere Zappa's experimentalism surfaces in the use of "xenochrony" (synchronisation of unrelated instrumental tracks) - with spectacular results in the legendary mini-guitar-concerto 'Yo' Mama', which is perhaps the main reason for recommending this album. Even an over-sensitive irony-impaired listener will be AWED by it.
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