[itqwertz]

Captain Beefheart music is the type of music you’re _supposed_ to like , but really doesn’t live up to its reputation.

Zappa music, otoh, reveals the genius behind it once you pay attention. Then again, half of his catalog is just self-indulgent wankery he himself admitted he funded through the juvenile songs.

Listen to “Inca Roads” or the whole “Zappa in NY” album and you’ll see Zappa’s greatness.

[rwmj]

Beefheart's music is fantastic and certainly does live up to his reputation.

But having said that he did have a very variable and sometimes terrible middle period (Bluejeans & Moonbeams and similar).

[KwisatzHaderack]

Here is his acclaimed album “Trout Mask Replica” if anyone wants to hear for themselves https://youtu.be/aF0g-2SeoMM

[dpifke]

Normally, I avoid YouTube comments like the plague, but gotta give it up for the top comment there:

@bigman1688 4 years ago

oh ok, when captain beefheart does advanced polyrhythms and experimental time signatures he's a "visionary" and "avant-garde musician" but when i do it i'm "annoying" and "need to leave guitar center"

[rwmj]

It's a great album, but I probably wouldn't start there. Safe As Milk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_as_Milk) is a more straightforward blue album, or the more "experimental-yet-commercial" Clear Spot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_Spot).

Edit: I wanted to add that the first few times I listened to Trout Mask Replica I really didn't like it and didn't get why anyone would think it was good.

[DaoVeles]

I would defend Bluejeans & Moonbeams by itself, it is pleasant enough and I like the laid back vibe of the whole thing. But in comparison to everything else he had done, it was a low point.

[greenthrow]

Disagree with you 100%. This is why music is subjective.

[slothtrop]

I never understood Beefheart either, but wasn't without talent. Then again, I never understood the Mothers.

Zappa is great. I prefer his more progressive albums.

[vjulian]

I never understood Zappa until I listened to his orchestral and chamber music. I thought he was a rock guy and doing the usual trite “with Symphony Orchestra” music that rock guys did. I was wrong. He knows what’s he’s doing, and he’s outstanding.

I find his later compositions for rock ensemble are way out there but brilliant. Earlier stuff like in Burnt Weeny Sandwich (Igor’s Boogies, Prelude to Holiday in Berlin) I find brilliant and hilarious. I don’t understand the attraction to some of his pure rock music, but I can understand his interest in the vernacular.

Beefheart bore obvious similarities and parallels with Zappa in some respects, but I don’t think one way or the other about his music. He’s clearly one heck of an all round artist though.

[DaoVeles]

I would say they are both similar in that they both tried to push the boundaries of their art, even if it would come off as silly at times.

[nine_k]

Zappa is technically breathtaking; for instance, Steve Vai is listed in a few of his orchestra tracks as "doing impossible guitar stunts", and there are many more examples.

But Zappa was never, like, serious, he always was ironic, sarcastic, or downright clownish, and always, it seems, looked down at the audience. This makes his music sound great at a Saturday night show, and less so elsewhere.

[noefingway]

Always been a Zappa fan since the first Mothers album. I always found is humor in music and words appealing. His band was always tight, great musicians. I many of his albums but I have to say Live at the Fillmore East (1971) is my favorite.

[DaoVeles]

What makes you think he looked down at his audience? It always seemed more like the audience was the people that didn't take it too seriously and thus that is why they were fans.

[nine_k]

> In the old days it wasn’t like that. At that time the audiences were hostile to what we did. They gave us a bad time. Now, historically, musicians have felt real hurt if the audience expressed displeasure with their performance. They apologized and tried to make the people love them. We didn’t do that. We told the audience to get fucked.

Interview to The Rolling Stone,1968.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-rolling-st...

There are many more snarky comments which Zappa directed at his audience, and any audience in general, and likely the humankind as a whole. I think this is the reason he created technically brilliant and invariably ironic pieces: he did not think that a worthy audience exists, maybe except his orchestra and a few other musicians.

[the-rc]

That might have been 1968. It's not like he worshipped his audience later, but he did get to a point where the fan base was large enough and more "in tune" with his thinking, organically. He made the comment that nobody could get 100% of what he'd do, simply because everybody's life experiences are unique, but maybe someone somewhere has enough context for 50-60% of his output. In later interviews he said that he offered a certain kind of product, which many might not like, but enough people did like, kinda employing him for entertainment. He just wouldn't go out of his way to cater to them. And he did know that the people at his concerts or buying his records were not a monolith. The most he might have done for them was when the band learned Whipping Post a whole seven years after a fan had interrupted the 1974 concert in Helsinki to request it. :-)

(If you think he liked orchestras, you should read about his LSO recordings and how he had to rescue them by editing tapes with razor blades. He wasn't actually happy until he recorded with the Ensemble Modern at the end of his life.)

[vjulian]

Zappa in New York… it is truly amazing to me how exceptionally skilled his ensemble his. Without exaggeration, that’s one of the most skilled ensembles I’ve ever heard, and I’m not just talking rock music.

[the-rc]

The purple lagoon! That amazing lineup had a lot of the usual suspects, PLUS the Brecker brothers, yes, but... by the 80s, his bands had to rehearse even more: eight hours a day, for months, until they had mastered over 120 songs. On stage, he could make just one gesture, twirling his hair or grabbing his crotch, and they'd switch whatever tune to reggae or metal, because why not?

His 70s bands might have a slight edge in terms of pure talent, but they might have not survived the grind of the 80s (which contributed in no small part to the implosion of 1988...).

[karaterobot]

I tried to like Zappa. I like the idea of Zappa. My brother got a tattoo of Frank Zappa's face on on his bicep in the army, and we agree on a lot of music. Imagine my dismay when I admitted I couldn't like any of it. On the other hand Trout Mask Replica is at least an interesting album.

[jawilson2]

I feel the same about the Grateful Dead. I like jam bands, I like all of the bands and musicians that hung out with or played with them, all of my friends like them. Ripple is pretty nice. I should absolutely like them, but whatever magic is there my ears don't pick up on. Their studio version of Good Lovin might be the worst thing a "good" band I have ever heard recorded, like a shitty band at the community 4th of July party that 17 people are dancing to and the other 2000 are trying to ignore.

[zzzbra]

Zoot Allures was pretty good. besides that the only thing I like by him is his earliest stuff, like Lumpy Gravy. 90% of the his discography is unlistenable to me, and I listen mostly to stuff that people would classify as unlistenable.

[NDizzle]

You don't like ANY of it? Not even Apostrophe / Overnite Sensation?!

[the-rc]

There's not one Zappa, either. There's the one that gave us Hot Rats, which is quite different from The grand wazoo & Waka/Jawaka, which are different from Yellow Shark and Everything is healing nicely. Then there are all the guitar solo albums...

[nick12r55t1]

I just listened to a Zappa song for the first time... bobby brown. Sounds just like Reggie Watts to me! Add in some Weird Al.

[DaoVeles]

Zappa is the Dr Pepper of music. Either you like it or hate it.

[blast]

I prefer Beefheart to Zappa. Beefheart was a genius with a vision from another planet. Zappa was talented but his smugness and middle-school humor ruin it for me. His freakiness feels showy, like he's trying to prove how different and smart he is. Beefheart on the other hand was a being who absorbed different chemicals from Earth's atmosphere.

He was abusive to his TMR bandmates though - to the point of running a cult. They resorted to shoplifting just to eat.