The Frank Zappa Review Page
Sheik Yerbouti
(1979)
This
offering was Zappa's biggest selling album, it sold well over 3million copies,
the reason for this was largely on the back of the hugely successful single
'Bobby Brown Goes Down'. I hear you say to yourselves, ah so this must be one
of Zappa's greatest albums because it was so successful?Wrong. Sheik, is in my
mind a distinctly average album with a couple of very good songs. The amount of
filler material on the album is far too high this is not the first Zappa album
where filler material is way too plentiful, but as I say if it isn’t good
enough leave it out Quality is sacrificed for quantity. There is also no pattern to the album,
jazz is mixed in with pure pop and modern classical instrumentals, and it
doesn't work. The first side of the album is instantly forgetable starting with
'I have been in you' and going on with 'I'm so cute' and 'Jones Crusher' these
songs are some of the worst of Zappa’s “pop song phrase” the irony is that some
of his pop songs were the best stuff he ever did but there are some terrible
ones also and they seem to appear in abundance on this title. 'Bobby Brown' is a great pop song and
attempts to rescue the album half the way through, it is too late however. The album picks up a little in the
second half. 'Baby Snakes' is catchy and fun, 'Tryin to Grow a Chin' is a good
neo punk-rock track. 'Dancin' Fool' is vaguely entertaining and 'Jewish
Princess' is a great pop parody which retrieves some pluses for the album. The last track 'Yo Mama' at twelve
minutes is far too long although it is a nice song. There is also loads of
filler material in the middle of the album like 'Rat Tomago' and the 'Sheik
Yerbouti Tango'. All in all a disappointing album by Zappa's normally high
standards . I judge an album's worth on how often I listen to it, and I only
listened to Sheik Yerbouti about six times in my whole life, I rarely ever
pluck it from my collection for air-play, it is just a part of my discography!
So the advice is I am afraid buy this only if you are an ardent Zappa collector
who needs all his albums if not then I wouldn’t go out of your way there is far
better fare than this!
Rating 45%
