Absolutely Free

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Absolutely Free
Studio album by The Mothers of Invention

Publication
(s)

June 26, 1967

Label (s) The Verve Music Group
Barking Pumpkin Records (CD)
Rykodisc (CD)
VideoArts Music (CD)
Rough Justice (CD)

Format (s)

LP vinyl
CD

Genre (s)

Progressive rock

Title (number)

13 (LP)
15 (CD)

running time

38:09 (LP)
43:45 (CD)

production

Tom Wilson

Studio (s)

Sunset-Highland Studios of TTG

chronology
Freak out!
(1966) 		Absolutely Free We're Only in It for the Money
(1968)
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Absolutely Free
  US 41 09/23/1967 (22 weeks)

Absolutely Free is a music album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention . It was released on the Verve label in 1967 and belongs to the progressive rock genre. The album is musically more complex than its predecessor Freak Out! , offers hitherto unheard sound experiments and collages in abundance and ironically and satirically criticizes political and social developments.

staff

The Mothers of Invention

production

  • Producer: Tom Wilson
  • Sound engineers: Val Valentine, Ami Hadani, David Greene
  • Cover design: Frank Zappa
  • Cover photo: Alice Ochs

content

Track list

All compositions are by Frank Zappa.

Oratorio No. 1 "Absolutely Free":

1. “Plastic People” (3:42) is a collage made up of many short pieces of music and deals with the demonstration due to the demolition of the “Pandora's Box” coffee shop in Los Angeles, popular with freaks, on November 12, 1966 and its violent breakup by the police. (P. 158f)
2. “The Duke of Prunes” (2:13) is the first piece of a three-part suite that introduces its main theme. The surrealistic love song avoids strong sexual expressions by replacing them with words such as “Prune” (plum) or “Cheese” (cheese). (P. 58f)
3. "Amnesia Vivace" (1:01) is the second part of the suite. The piece contains a quotation from Stravinsky from “ Le sacre du printemps ” and describes how the Duke (Duke) tries to hook up with two cheerleading girls who knock him out. (P. 60f)
4. “The Duke Regains His Chops” (1:50) closes the suite. The Duke not only comes to himself, but also “gets down to business”. (P. 62f)
5. "Call Any Vegetable" (2:20) introduces the main and secondary themes of another three-part suite. The content is about the fact that inactive people are not lost to humanity from Zappa's point of view - provided that they are addressed appropriately. (P. 64f)
6. “Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin” (7:00 am) opens with a pseudo-symphonic motif, which is quickly replaced by an instrumental passage including a guitar solo.
7. "Soft-Sell Conclusion" (1:40) concludes this suite. The piece provides a lofty, comical explanation of how a relationship with a vegetable can enrich life.

Mothers single (1967), bonus tracks on the CD re-releases:

8. “Big Leg Emma” (2:32) celebrates the dilemma of thick-legged Emma in the style of a 1950s shuffles .
9. “Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?” (2:37) is a simple rock song, the lyrics of which culminate in the statement: “All I wanted was a wife” (A woman was all I wanted).

Oratorio No. 2 "The MOI American Pageant":

10. "America Drinks" (1:53) parodies the pub atmosphere and the bar music that Frank Zappa played at the beginning of his career with "Joe Perino and the Mellotones". (P. 162)
11. “Status Back Baby” (2:54), the opening track of a three-part suite, reflects on how teenagers can make an impact in high school. The cheerful pop song also offers a quote from Igor Stravinski's ballet “ Petruschka ”.
12. “Uncle Bernie's Farm” (2:11) is the second part of this suite. In the form of a rock song, Zappa harshly criticizes toys that scream of nothing but murder and destruction. (P. 76f)
13. “Son of Suzy Creamcheese” (1:34) is a love song about Suzy Creamcheese - a fictional person who is often mentioned on Zappa's early records.
14. "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" (7:30) criticizes the legislation of the corrupt government and the government in the story of Rathaus-Fred, who issues regulations for young people and dreams of having sex with a 13-year-old mindless society. Musically, 20 themes are interwoven into a whole. (P. 162)
15. "America Drinks and Goes Home" (2:46) is the played-out version of "America Drinks", in which Ray Collins shines as a crooner , while drunken bar visitors behind him seem not to be careful with the bar furnishings.

meaning

Absolutely Free's pieces are excerpts from the rock musical "Pigs and Repugnant: Absolutely Free", which the Mothers performed several times a day for about half a year at New York's Garrick Theater. Compared to the debut album Freak Out! the musical happening is more complex and also rich in relationships. No less than ten of the 15 tracks contain music quotations. There are particularly frequent passages from pieces by Igor Stravinsky , namely from “Le sacre du printemps”, “L'oiseau de feu” (from the “Firebird Suite”) and from the ballet “Petrushka”. The quote from “Jupiter: The Bringer Of Jollity” from the orchestral suite “ The Planets ” by Gustav Holst also comes from classical climes . Throughout his life, Zappa quoted an R&B classic from the late 1950s particularly often - 22 times on his record releases: " Louie Louie " by Richard Berry & The Pharaohs. Other R&B and soul hits included are “Duke Of Earl” by Eugene Dixon alias Gene Chandler , “Baby Love” by The Supremes , “Little Sally Walker” by Don & Dewey and “Little Deuce Coupe” by De-Fenders . In “Soft-Sell Conclusion” the soprano saxophone picks up the melody from “God Bless America”, the vocals start “America The Beautiful” and the bass quotes the march “Marine's Hymn”. Other well-known melodies that are briefly taken up are "Entry Of The Gladiators" by Julius Fučík and "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin , which he wrote for the film "Holiday Inn" and which Bing Crosby made known in 1942.

In terms of technical production, the album was created with an effort that was “unparalleled at the time,” said rock journalist Volker Rebell ; For example, for the atmospheric background of the satire "America Drinks & Goes Home" alone, four different levels of events have been carefully nested together. (P. 259f) For his music collages, Zappa intensively used sound snippets, noise experiments, scraps of conversation, music fragments, passages with the layered solos of different instruments or rhythmically complex structures that he ironically wove together.

On the text level, the album ties in with the one on the album Freak Out! Offered to: The Mothers commented on the American way of life in a satirical, ironic and sometimes cynical way. The motif of plastic as a symbol for the increasing artificiality in the age of technology and the loss of naturalness is taken up several times. In "Uncle Bernie's Farm" the United States is characterized as a country that is governed by a plastic president and a plastic congress . In the piece “Plastic People”, reference is first made to plastic make-up (“plastic goo”, literally plastic grease) and plastic teenagers on Sunset Boulevard and finally to address the listener directly: “Go home and check yourself / You think we're talking about someone else ”(go home and check yourself out - you think we're talking about someone else). Indirectly, the mothers consciously question their own authenticity and ultimately arouse fears that true love is no longer possible in the “plastic society” of the United States (“I know true love can never be / A product of plasticity”).

Absolutely Free contains Zappa / Mothers classics such as the pieces “Plastic People”, “Call Any Vegetable” or the mini musical “Brown Shoes Don't Make It”.

Another special feature: Absolutely Free appeared without a title track. Zappa had left the title angrily after the record company cut the production budget in half compared to the debut album. (P. 41)

reception

criticism

The American music journalist Robert Christgau saw in Absolutely Free a "moderately amusing novelty record". Although he praised “real pop musicians who look at the other side”, the album was “far too obvious in its satire, with harmonies and tempo changes that herald Yes and Jethro Tull ”. In the verdict of the Zappa biographer Barry Miles , criticism and praise were mixed. When Zappa branded hippie demonstrators as “plastic people” in the song “Plastic People”, many fans would have asked “what Zappa wanted from them again”. On the other hand, Miles praised the piece “Brown Shoes Don't Make It” as a “masterpiece” that shows “Zappa in top form”. (P. 161f)

The German journalist Volker Rebell emphasized the musical complexity of the album, the density of its thematic structure, the extensive spectrum of the music styles cited and the music collage technique that Zappa further perfected. Rebell also reflects the range of reactions to the Mothers' live shows at the Garrick Theater at the time using the example of two American media outlets. On the one hand, a (not named) paper dismissed these appearances - with obvious reference to the Lakehurst accident - as the "largest accumulation of hot air since Hindenburg's time". On the other hand, the New York Post was less general in its judgment. After listing details from the show - "mini-rocked number girls, psychedelic light shows, plenty of fecal jokes and emetic humor, attacks against Ronald Reagan , parodies of the Supremes, superficial knowledge of Stravinsky ..." - the reviewer said: "Regardless of that, the music and that Can the musician be brilliant to great-fantastic. ” (P. 259f) From the point of view of Sparifankal co- founder, writer and journalist Carl-Ludwig Reichert , the album offered“ little new ”in terms of content, even if the music was“ excitingly played ”. Reichert concluded: "For many, the [album, note] was far too far from the underground." (P. 41)

successes

As is often the case with Frank Zappa and Mothers albums, most American radio stations refused to play Absolutely Free tracks . Nevertheless, the album climbed to position 41 in the US charts - the tenth-best position that an album by Frank Zappa ever achieved.

Publications

The album had become a sought-after collector's item. Even in the days of vinyl records, there were several official reissues. Even black copiers wanted to benefit from the demand and launched the first release as a bootleg. It was also released three times as a CD - almost 20 years after it was first published. The following overview illustrates the main distinguishing features of the album variants.

  • In America, Great Britain and Australia the LP was originally released in mono and stereo versions with gatefold covers . In the UK, the stereo version had a simple slip-in sleeve.
  • In Germany and France, the album was only released in the stereo version; the French edition had a simple slip-in sleeve, the back of which also differed from the other editions by a live photo.
  • An LP re-release was released in Great Britain in 1972, this time with a gatefold cover. Also known is a re-release with a white MGM label, which came on the market between 1972 and 1975.
  • As with the album Freak Out! There was also a facsimile LP bootleg from Absolutely Free , which, with poor technical quality, corresponded to the American first release.
  • The last re-release as LP came in 1985 when Barking Pumpkin Records released the first Old Masters box.
  • The album was first released on CD in 1989 by Rykodisc (US market), Zappa Records (Europe) and VACK (Japan). Further CD releases followed in 1995 on Rykodisc and VACK. The last time a CD version of Absolutely Free with a cardboard cover was released in Japan on Rykodisc / VACK in 2001 .
  • The single "Why Don't You Do Me Right" / "Big Leg Emma" was released in late 1967 on the Verve label. Both tracks are not originally from the album, but are part of all CD re-releases as bonus tracks.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Charts US
  2. ↑ a b c d Barry Miles : Zappa . German edition. Rogner & Bernhard at two thousand and one. 2005. ISBN 3-8077-1010-8 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Frank Zappa / Carl Weissner (transl.): Plastic People - Songbook, Corrected Copy . Two thousand and one, Frankfurt 1978.
  4. ↑ Review "Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin" (March 2007)
  5. ↑ Review "Soft-Sell Conclusion" (March 2007)
  6. ↑ Text "Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?" (March 2007)
  7. ↑ Review "Status Back Baby" (as of March 2007)
  8. ↑ killuglyradio: Brown Shoes Don't Make It - Notes About This Song .
  9. ↑ Review "America Drinks & Goes Home" (as of March 2007)
  10. ↑ a b Volker Rebell: Frank Zappa - freak genius with tailcoat habit . In: Rocksession 1 , Rororo Sachbuch, 1977. ISBN 3-499-17086-8
  11. ^ Robert A. Rosenstone: "The Times are A-Changing" - The Music of Protest, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , Vol. 383, 1969, p. 138
  12. ^ A b Carl-Ludwig Reichert: Frank Zappa . DTV, Munich, 2000. ISBN 3-423-31039-1
  13. ↑ Robert Christgau (as of March 2007)
  14. ↑ The Zappa Patio: Versions (March 2007)