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Frank Zappa Review Page
Uncle
Meat 1967 - As we know many of Zappa's greatest albums came out
around this time, with Freak Out and Money there was intense
competition. Arguably this is the most eccentric of the early albums
and the style of music is far more varied than on his first two
albums. There is rock, doo-wop and a distinct bluesy feel about it.
Uncle Meat is a two sided affair and in truth i really do not enjoy
the second CD at all it is pretentious with a capital “P”.
What made Zappa think that we wanted to listen to nearly an hour of
sound samplings with no coherent thread On the plus side disc one has
some very good moments and a relative consistency . “Nine Types
Of Industrial” really kicks the album off in the right way and
soon after comes one of Zappa's greatest tracks of all time “Dog
Breath In The Year Of The Plague” this is bluesy, funky and
really great song writing it has everything as a pop/blues number and
is in the Zappa “hall of fame” for songs. “The
Legend Of The Golden Arches” is quaint and very Burnt Weeny ,
“Louie, Louie” is an interesting take on a classic rock
tune. “Aunt Gemima” is back on track and “Mr Green
Genes” is another Zappa classic, not quite as good as “son
of” but still a quirky little rock number with real style.
“Cruising For Burgers” plays out side one on a high . If
the whole album stopped here it would be worth a say 75% or more but
the second disc kills the album in my view.
Disc Two is dominated by “The King Kong”
saga which to me is a non sensical sound sampling experiment that
went badly wrong. It is painful to listen to and there is nothing
really positive to say about side two. Bear in mind that Uncle Meat
is a double Cd so nearly twice the price of other albums and there
are many better Zappa albums than this although there are som
classics on side one, as a whole it is a little disappointing.
Rating 58%
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