Customer Reviews

Freak Out

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great first album. Side A - typical 60's music. Side B - Blew me away!

I'm not going to pretend I understand all of Frank's music because I certainly don't. There are entire LP/CD's that are totally over my head but then, if you have read any of my previous reviews, that might not be difficult to believe. For me, "Freak Out" is, for the most part, quite understandable. If you like music that is off the wall, iconoclastic and different, this might be the ticket. But there's something much more than humour, parody and the unconventional to this record. Zappa rails against something much more sinister and specific. "Hungry Freaks Daddy", the opening track, is a call to arms to every underdog in America. It's a reminder that in a society where competition is seen as something to be worshipped, many less fortunate people get left behind. And it's scary. It is an anthem for those who weren't beautiful enough to be a cheerleader or who got cut from the football team. In short, it's for you, me, social freedom and the pursuit of happiness. What Frank Zappa is saying here probably needed to be said but it's the way he says it that is so alarming. There are other tracks here that are much lighter in tone, like the humorous 1950's doo-wop parodies such as "Go Cry On Somebody Else's Shoulder", "How Could I Be Such A Fool" and "Wowie Zowie". A favorite of mine is "Who Are The Brain Police?" whose verses sound sweet and lightweight but the chorus is harsh and ominous. "Trouble Comin' Every Day", a Zappa rap over a bluesy backdrop is truly powerful and an unusual recording for 1966. One of the downsides on this LP/CD is Frank's voice. Zappa cannot sing to save his life and should have employed a full time vocalist to perform most of these songs. Also, sometimes Frank's humor works but often, for me anyway, he is far too angry to be really funny. His rage and frustration with conventional American life is an underlying theme in much of his music that I have heard. Let's hope that this mastermind and madman has finally found peace and contentment.

I love the music on this CD so much, I fail to find the words. FZ makes so many observations on society via these cheeseball songs that sound so cool. This is the first and the best. If you really like Frank Zappa, you need to hear this album! It's like he's in your basement playing for your high school party, maybe. That's what I think of when I hear it anyway.

The cd includes cheeseball romantic songs with the awful truth mixed in.

"Freak Out!" has always been my favorite Frank Zappa album. There are FZ albums more amusing, more musically daring, but when considering what Zappa did with the state of American pop in 1965-66, the results can only be called astonishing (no wonder the Beatles were inspired by it). There was nothing even remotely like this album back then--from the proto-rap "Trouble Every Day" (to me the best track) to the schizo-dirge "Who Are the Brain Police"? to the avant-nut "HELP, I'M A ROCK", FZ laid the groundwork for his signature complex orchestrations here, albeit in lo-fi sound and doo-wop form, shredding fuzz guitar throughout (and shredding the occasional kazoo, too). His equally satiric liner notes fittingly illuminate how each song was its own flavor of commercial suicide while simultaneously poking fun at the burgeoning counterculture and any theoretical resistance against the "great Midwestern hardware store philosophy" (short of Freaking Out, that is). A tremendous debut album.

Never before has a musician flexed his songwriting muscles as much as Zappa did on the first MOI album. A must!

I don't get why this is considered to be the best all time Zappa album. Yeah, it was one of the first true concept albums, and yes, it's Zappa, and yes, it's talented, and yes, it's good, BUT Zappa did much better and this is definitely one of his lesser albums. The next two albums are MUCH better than this one. That's not to say that this album doesn't have it's good moments, because it does. All of the more "serious" tracks are fantastic, especially "Who Are the Brain Police?" and "Trouble Every Day". The last 3 tracks are very experimental for it's time (actually most of the CD is), and it's a very fun album. It's just that Zappa had so many better albums. 8.5/10

What a freshman release! Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention created one heck of a first album. It was one of the first double albums in rock history, and certainly one of the wierdest.

My approach to this review is to look at (a) the attractiveness of this release for the Zappa novice, (b) the attractiveness of this album for the Zappa devotee, and (c) the quality of the release.

(a) If you are just getting interested in Zappa, this is not really the best place to start. While there are some interesting tracks here, there's also a lot of what at first appears to be just wierd noise and people freaking out tracks too. Those tracks are not available as samples on www.Amazon.com, so proceed carefully.

(b) Of course you need this! It's great! The mix is a bit different from the original vinyl, with a lot more reverb than before. I'd say that the original vinyl is probably the way to go, but the cd is very good too. (Besides, the cd saves you flipping records over.)

(c) The sound quality is superb, although, as noted before, the mix differs from the original vinyl. The packaging includes all of the original elements, which helps you relate to what the heck the mood was in 1966.

Enjoy!

this is one of the most important rock albums of the 1960's. The Mothers were so "ahead of their time" (the title of another of their albums.......if you are into listening to something truly original, then this is the album for you. And if you like early Mothers of Invention, then get this album then buy the "Mystery Disc" CD. This is not Top 40 stuff, rather it is an encapsulation of the times. Frank Zappa was truly a genius and I, for one, miss his music, both old and new.

Remember when you used to hear, "If the Mothers of Invention didn't exist, someone would have had to keep it that way?" It was pretty daring for a rock group to take on the real and alleged hip cliches and pop music pretensions and mash them through what amounted to a musical Sunbeam Mixmaster, but that's exactly what Zappa and the boys did right out of the gate. They weren't exactly the first rock and roll satirists, but they were probably the first a) to make more than a one-trick career out of it, at least for a few years; and, b) other than periodically quoting from their own favourite songs, they were the first rock satirist/parodists to work with entirely original material. And, of course, in Frank Zappa the Mothers had one of the more commanding talents rock and roll had ever yielded.

They got craftier as musicians as they went along (their percussive work was hugely singular and frequently a critical ingredient in the band's funnier moments; Zappa was a spry guitarist, even if his real instrument was the band itself); they seemed as much befuddled as enraptured by their musical roots (especially their doo-wop and R and B roots - which didn't stop them from deftly copping, for "Wowie Zowie"'s coda, from the coda of the Four Seasons's "Sherry"). For deadly balloon-pricking of social and musical poseurism past and incumbent (though their political barbs became a little less engaging as time went on), this was as consistent and complete as the original Mothers of Invention - the first version of the band was the Mothers of Invention that really mattered - could be.

Aside from which, after all these years "Help! I'm A Rock" and, especially, "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet," in all its near-endless, steady-rising squall, remain two of the classic guilty pleasures of mid-1960s rock, and was at least as much ahead of its time for its brash experimentalism as the early Pink Floyd soon enough proved.

An incredible recording, important listening and socially relevant to the time that it was recorded. Many artists/musicians have undoubtedly been inspired by 'The Mothers' (I hear a little of Alice in Chains during the dual vocal intro into "Who Are the Brain Police?"). The first half is actually preferred listening, because the tunes are both silly and musically interesting. The orchestration is definetly 'of that time' and the 50's-ish pieces are also, but I really feel some connection to tunes like "How Could I Be Such A Fool?" and "Anyway the Wind Blows" (and I wasn't even alive during the style's hey-day).
There is plenty of social commentary on tunes such as "I'm Not Satisfied", "Trouble Every Day" and so on, addressing concerns, like suicide, depression, lonliness, and insanity. Coupled with silly tunes like "Wowie Zowie" and "Your'e Probably Wondering Why i'm Here", and you'll start to get an idea of just how diverse this recording is. The 'far-out' experimental pieces during the 3rd and 4th 'acts' aren't very listenable....funny and interesting at times, but I personally wouldn't run the last 25 or so minutes of the album very often.
I certainly cannot go without mentioning the sound quality. It was, of course, recorded in 1966, so there are problems. Also, the master didn't quite transfer very well to CD, yet the more recent re-issues have addressed most of the concerns. Actually, for when the music was recorded, it's actually very good. The recording isn't as reliant on special effects and tape manipulations as later releases, so it's a much more natural sounding recording.
As it's been mentioned before, if you're new to Zappa's music, get his greatest hits CD, or something like "Hot Rats" or "Over-Nite Sensation" first. This is something that fans of early rock music, rhythm and blues, Motown, and doo wop will love, as well as fans of music that addresses social concerns.