We're Only In It For The Money [Original recording remastered]

I love it even more now than I did when it first came out in the 60's! I still know all the words even though I probably have not listened to it for 25 years or so. A true Zappa classic. Mom and Dad still tears me apart every time I listen to it.

I'm a huge Zappa fan (favorites are Hot Rats, Grand Wazoo and Waka Jawaka). However, this one is just a bit too off beat for me. I'm sure that at the time, the satire really struck a chord in the late 60's. And as a historical document, it has great value. But as for something that I'll want to listen to again and again, it fails miserably. I'd like to give it a 2nd and 3rd listen, on the chance that it'll grow on me, but alas, life is just too short.

This classic album, a devastating satire of the 1960s hippie scene, is comprised of mostly short songs interspersed with even briefer linking snippets. One of the most memorable songs, Who Needs The Peace Corps? is all about San Francisco with acerbic observations on an aspiring hippie daydreaming about the big time in Height Street. Concentration Moon and Mom & Dad are more serious social commentary but Harry You're A Beast and What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? bring out the laughs again.

Absolutely Free is a tuneful ditty and Flower Punk with its nervous rhythm takes the listener into the head of an ambitious, highly materialistic flower child. The instrumental Nasal Retentive Calliope Music is pure found sound a la Edgar Varese, Let's Make The Water Turn Black sounds like a singalong folk tune and The Idiot Bastard Son is a mix of talking vocals, sound FX and snatches of chorus. There are gripping instrumental textures in the lyrically sharp Lonely Little Girl and Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance.

Then follows the reprise of What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body, the penultimate track Mother People with lovely snatches of melody, including what sounds like classical music sequences. The album concludes with the only long track (over 6 minutes), called The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny, another excursion into Varese territory with its SFX. Overall, despite the different styles of music and the many short tracks, the album is quite cohesive. At first listen it sounds messy but repeated play will soon enough reveal the magic.