Jerk Music Critic: Frank Zappa, Hot Rats

Zappa's first after jettisoning the Mothers of Invention, this brash and breathtaking landmark of acid fusion seamlessly blurs the lines between prog and jazz in over forty minutes of wild-eyed bliss. (Also wild-eyed: the GTOs' Miss Christine on the cover emerging hot, pink and bothered from a concrete crypt.) All six tracks are stellar but "Peaches en Regalia" is the undisputed jewel from its infectious hooks, fascinating multi-instrument harmonies and startling production effects like buzzy reeds yipping away at double speed like kazoos; its little brother "Son of Mr. Green Genes" is nearly as good for nearly the same reasons, and Zappa even got something consistent out of Captain Beefheart for a change as the sole vocalist on "Willie The Pimp." Loses its fifth star solely for its more meandering moments not being everyone's cup of tea, and that's truly the only reason, because instrumentally and technically the album is near peerless. Hardcore Zappatistas will menacingly scrap over the relative virtues of the original LP mix (resurrected on current CD pressings) versus the 1987 Rykodisc CD, the latter largely reflected in a substantially expanded "The Gumbo Variations," but I'm not that rabid and "frankly" either is excellent. It should also be noted that Zappa himself did the 1987 remaster, so there's no use appealing to authority. (Content: mild adult themes on "Willie The Pimp.")

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Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

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An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

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A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

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Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

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Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

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Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

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How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.