On “Freak Out!”
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Released on June 27, 1966 on the Verve label, “Freak Out!” is the debut album from Frank Zappa’s first band, the Mothers of Invention. The Mothers were a unique and colorful group of individuals who were either in tune with Zappa’s unique brand of artistic expression or at least willing to go along with it. “Freak Out!” introduced the unsuspecting world of popular music to this brand, and although it was neither critically nor commercially successful in its time, the album has since grown in acclaim to become one of the seminal musical works of the 1960s. Generally considered ahead of its time, it is still remarkably inaccessible. It is dense, complex, and challenging. In fact, “Freak Out!” is expressly structured to force listeners to reexamine preconceived notions of what is musically, morally, and socially acceptable – an ambitious goal for a debut album!
Frank Zappa was the Mozart of the 20th Century, and consistently pushed musical, intellectual, and philosophical boundaries over the span of his thirty-year professional career in a way that no other popular musician ever has. A genuine artist who approached his work with the same enthusiasm, dedication, and deep understanding of his field as the great masters, Zappa was in a constant state of reinvention and renewal, and redefined what was possible in modern music. His unique ability to break a style or genre down to its component parts and reassemble them in his own distinct fashion was the hallmark of a musical project that spanned more than sixty albums in his lifetime and many more since his death. More than any of his contemporaries, Zappa understood the nature of music, and used it to deliver messages larger and more complex that the simple mantras of love and happiness (and/or societal disenchantment) that dominated his era. He was also a staunch advocate of freedom and liberty, a shrewd businessman who by the time of his death owned every note that he had ever recorded, and a vocal defender of individual rights. In short, he was the leading intellectual force in popular music during his lifetime, and his legacy will only continue to grow with time.