It's probably difficult for any fan of Frank Zappa's music to pick a favorite album of his, but mine just has to be Uncle Meat, my reason for such a non-obvious choice being that the compositional quality of the music is at once both more solidified and more subtle than anywhere else in the Zappa catalog. Here we can hear Zappa successfully cramming as many ideas as he can into compositions mostly no longer than five minutes, which makes sense considering that this was to be the soundtrack to The Mothers' film of the same name. The style of the music itself is an interesting, and for the most part, unique kind of "chamber rock": not quite jazz, not really rock, almost modern classical. There are also some excellent doo-wop parodies with stream-of-consciousness lyrics, live performances, and funny little interludes thrown in. A lot of great musicians perform on Uncle Meat, including Ian and Ruth Underwood, Jimmy Carl Black, Don Preston, and "guest" vocalist Nelly Walker. There is a strong rhythmic quality to most of the music, with all sorts of different things happening at once, but almost never becoming confusing. Zappa heavily employs percussion instruments of various kinds, which several musicians on the roster are credited with. This was the first Mothers album to feature prominent melodic percussion, and it was to become a fixture of Zappa's music on several future releases. A great deal of the compositions are based around variations on simple themes, and the variety Zappa achieved through the use of this technique shows just how skilled a composer he was. Despite all of these glowing traits, it took me some time indeed to really latch on to this album, so try to give this one a chance or two to soak in. Highlights include King Kong, and any composition with the word Variations in the title, but I wouldn't recommend skipping around much anyway.
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