Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention Freak Out! CD

Full performer name: Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention.
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention: Frank Zappa (guitar, keyboards, percussion, vocals); Ray Collins (vocals, harmonica, percussion); Elliot Ingber (guitar); Roy Estrada (bass, vocals); Jimmy Carl Black (drums, vocals).
Includes liner notes by Frank Zappa.
Composer: Frank Zappa.
Personnel: Frank Zappa (vocals, guitar, harmonica, cymbals, tambourine); Roy Estrada (vocals, soprano, guitarron); Ray Collins (vocals, guitar, harmonica, cymbals, finger cymbals, tambourine, sound effects); Jimmy Carl Black (vocals, drums, percussion); Elliot Ingber (guitar); Plas Johnson (saxophone); Gene Estes, Ruth Komanofff, John Rotella (percussion).
Recording information: Sunset-Highland Studios of T.T.G., Inc (03/09/1966-03/12/1966).
Ensemble: Mothers Auxiliary.
Unknown Contributor Roles: Ben Barrett; Arthur Maebe; Roy Caton; Benjamin Barrett; David Anderle; Joe Saxon; Joseph Saxon; Neil Vang; Ken Watson; Roy Gaton; Emmet Sargeant; Paul Bergstrom; Eugene Dinovi; John Johnson ; Henry Vestine; John Johnson ; Edwin Beach; Carl Franzoni; George Price; Kurt Retar; Ray Kelloff; Kim Fowley; Ray Collins; Virgil Evans; Vito; Kurt Reher; Dave Wells ; Neil Levang.
Arranger: Frank Zappa.
One of the most ambitious debuts in rock history, Freak Out! was a seminal concept album that somehow foreshadowed both art rock and punk at the same time. Its four LP sides deconstruct rock conventions right and left, eventually pushing into territory inspired by avant-garde classical composers. Yet the album is sequenced in an accessibly logical progression; the first half is dedicated to catchy, satirical pop/rock songs that question assumptions about pop music, setting the tone for the radical new directions of the second half. Opening with the nonconformist call to arms "Hungry Freaks, Daddy," Freak Out! quickly posits the Mothers of Invention as the antithesis of teen-idol bands, often with sneering mockeries of the teen-romance songs that had long been rock's commercial stock-in-trade. Despite his genuine emotional alienation and dissatisfaction with pop conventions, though, Frank Zappa was actually a skilled pop composer; even with the raw performances and his stinging guitar work, there's a subtle sophistication apparent in his unorthodox arrangements and tight, unpredictable melodicism. After returning to social criticism on the first song of the second half, the perceptive Watts riot protest "Trouble Every Day," Zappa exchanges pop song structure for experiments with musique concrčte, amelodic dissonance, shifting time signatures, and studio effects. It's the first salvo in his career-long project of synthesizing popular and art music, high and low culture; while these pieces can meander, they virtually explode the limits of what can appear on a rock album, and effectively illustrate Freak Out!'s underlying principles: acceptance of differences and free individual expression. Zappa would spend much of his career developing and exploring ideas -- both musical and conceptual -- first put forth here; while his myriad directions often produced more sophisticated work, Freak Out! contains at least the rudiments of almost everything that followed, and few of Zappa's records can match its excitement over its own sense of possibility. ~ Steve Huey
In 1966, when even the Doors and the Grateful Dead were still at a garage band level, Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention took great pride in being the ambassadors of freakdom. The hippie/flower power culture was just getting under way, but the Mothers' debut album found them already taking great delight in turning Aquarian imagery inside out. No starry-eyed rainbow people, the Mothers were the living incarnation of underground comics such as R. Crumb's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers: nasty, ugly, and downright dirty.
Much of the musical template on this early effort is far more conventional than Zappa's later work. The framework isEntertainment Weekly (12/17/93, p.36) - "...The first Mothers Of Invention album is equal parts send-up and homage, chewing through everything from doo-wop to fractured Stones and Animals riffs....FREAK OUT's jeering anarchy was astonishing back in '66...."
Q (8/95, pp.150-151) - 5 Stars - Indispensable - "The greatest debut album of them all, certainly the most ambitious in scope and attitude. Zappa has the Mothers blast through an hour of pachuco doo-wop, R&B, garage-punk, protest, bubblegum and free-form jazz..."