We're Only in It for the Money

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We're Only in It for the Money
Studio album by The Mothers of Invention

Publication
(s)

4th March 1968

admission

March 14, 1967 - August 9, 1967

Label (s) Verve Records
DiscReet Records

Format (s)

LP , CD , MC

Genre (s)

Experimental , art rock , avant-garde , progressive rock , parody

Title (number)

19th

running time

39:19

occupation
  • Billy Mundi - drums, vocals
  • Pamela Zarubica - vocals and voice on the phone in the role of Suzy Creamcheese
  • Dick Barber - voice
  • Gary Kellgren - whisper

production

Frank Zappa

Studio (s)

chronology
Absolutely Free
(1967) 		We're Only in It for the Money Lumpy Gravy
(1968)

We're Only in It for the Money is the third studio album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention , released in 1968. The experimental concept album , the stylistic features of American dance music of the 1950s ( Doo-Wop ), surf rock and psychedelic rock of the 1960s, musique concrète and modern classical music , reached number 30 on the US Billboard charts and became Named 296 of the 500 best albums of all time by the American music magazine Rolling Stone in 2003 .

content

The album largely parodies the hippie movement and, in a satirical form, expresses criticism of the lifestyle and self-image of American society, and in particular of the '68 generation . The cover is a parody of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).

In Who Needs the Peace Corps , a young man is described who comes to San Francisco to attend the movement Hippie participate and consume drugs. His behavior is described as "phoney" (German: fake, put on) and touristy: "I will ask the Chamber of Commerce how to get to Haight Street and smoke an awful lot of dope" (German: I will register with the Chamber of Commerce inquire for directions to Haight Street and smoke an insane amount of weed). After a week the young man will go home by bus. The music critic Ben Watson certifies Zappa in this song, "enumerating the ridiculous dressing up of the hippie lifestyle with withering accuracy." The hippie movement is also a theme in “Flower Punk”. The instrumentation of the song alludes to psychedelic rock . The chord progression and the question-answer structure in the main part parody Hey Joe, made famous by Jimi Hendrix . The distortion and acceleration of the voices as well as the import of text and music collages intensify the psychedelic effect. In the text, the protagonist, the flower punk , is asked about the appearance of his clothing, with which he justifies his participation in a psychedelic band and thus documents his superficiality. Text example: “Hey Punk, where are you going with that flower in your hand? - Well I'm goin 'up to Frisco to join a psychedelic band "(German: Hey Penner, where are you going with this flower in your hand? - Well, I'm going to San Francisco to join a psychedelic band). The introductory question corresponds to the text passage "Hey Joe, where're you goin 'with that gun in your hand?" From the song Hey Joe .

The piece Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance paints a hopeful and in its freedom inviting utopian picture of the future, in which everyone is free to “sing and dance and love”, in which clothing and appearance no longer play a role and in which you can even take off your clothes while dancing.

The album was reissued in 1986 with newly recorded drums ( Chad Wackerman ) and bass ( Arthur Barrow ) on a CD together with the album Lumpy Gravy .

We're Only in It for the Money is difficult to assign to a genre, rather it combines influences and elements from contemporary popular music and avant-garde, in particular sound collage and musique concrète .

Track list

source rating
Allmusic
Frank Zappa (1977)
Jimmy Carl Black (2005)

All songs are written by Frank Zappa .

Page 1:

  1. Are You Hung Up? - 1:25
  2. Who Needs the Peace Corps? - 2:34
  3. Concentration Moon - 2:22
  4. Mom and Dad - 2:16
  5. Telephone Conversation - 0:49
  6. Bow Tie Daddy - 0:33
  7. Harry, You're a Beast - 1:21
  8. What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body? - 1:03
  9. Absolutely Free - 3:24
  10. Flower Punk - 3:03
  11. Hot Poop - 0:26

Page 2:

  1. Nasal Retentive Calliope Music - 2:02
  2. Let's Make the Water Turn Black - 2:01
  3. The Idiot Bastard Son - 3:18
  4. Lonely Little Girl - 1:09
  5. Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance - 1:32
  6. What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body? (Recapitulation) - 1:02
  7. Mother People - 2:26
  8. The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny - 6:26

production

  • Producer: Frank Zappa
  • Executive Producer: Tom Wilson
  • Sound engineers: Gary Kellgren, Dick Kunc
  • Remix: Dick Kunc
  • Editing: Dick Kunc, Frank Zappa
  • Arrangement: Frank Zappa
  • Concept: Frank Zappa
  • Artistic direction and design (cover): Cal Schenkel
  • Photos: Jerry Schatzberg
  • Fashion advice: Tiger Morse
  • Wardrobe: Billy Mundi

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rollingstone.com , November 1, 2003
  2. ↑ Ben Watson: Frank Zappa The Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play . Quartet Books Ltd, London 1995, ISBN 0-7043-0242-X , p. 110
  3. ↑ Dave March: Are you hung up (1993). In: Richard Kostelanetz and John Rocco (eds.): The Frank Zappa companion: four decades of commentary . Schirmer Books, New York 1997, ISBN 0-02-864628-2 , p. 53
  4. ^ 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. 144
  5. ↑ Review by Steve Huey on allmusic.com (accessed December 17, 2017)

Web links