Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Hot Rats - Hot Zappa!, 10 Dec 2006
Apologies for the slightly corny review title but it's pinched from Chris Welch's piece from the 1969 issue of Melody Maker which reviewed Frank's wonderful instrumental masterpiece. The impact that Hot Rats made at the time was huge. One of the first ever 16-track recordings, we'd not heard anything like it before. The brilliant melodies, the beautiful interweaving flutes, clarinets, saxophones, keyboards, percussion and guitar, knitted together with FZ's distinctive, creative arrangements, were quite stunning. I'd hesitate to describe it simply as jazz-rock - but if you're new to FZ, it's a helpful enough definition of what you'll get. In reality, its boundaries spread somewhat wider, from the bluesy Willie the Pimp to the almost indefinable It Must Be A Camel, one of my favourite ever FZ compositions, which is kind of jazzy but has hints of the orchestral Zappa yet to come, notwithstanding the few titbits to be found on Lumpy Gravy. With Hot Rats, we get our first real taste of Zappa the incredible guitarist, from the acoustic coupled with a wah-wah pedal on Peaches En Regalia, through the rocking electric of Willie the Pimp and Son of Mr. Green Genes, to the fat, mellow jazz break on the final track. Yes, out of the blue, as if the rest of the album wasn't enough, we have a guitar hero too! Regarding the comments elsewhere about the mix of the CD, I would agree that it is very different from the vinyl. But words such as "disaster" and "beware" are ridiculous. However, if you only have the CD, then the LP is worth tracking down. Frank remixed almost his entire catalogue to CD in the early nineties, knowing he did not have long to live. I would guess that he was trying to bring the best out of the original master tapes and that must have been a tricky task with only 16 tracks to draw upon, given the complexity of the music. Maybe he fell short of his usual meticulous standard but you do hear things on the CD which were pretty well masked - or completely absent - on the original. Perhaps Dweezil will do another remix sometime - or maybe even re-record it. That said, almost forty years on - and still there is no musician in the world who seems able or willing to do stuff like this - Hot Rats captures the essential FZ and wraps it in a package which remains as accessible and enjoyable as ever.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A Great Album maybe the best, 6 Jan 2006
I've had this CD for years and I still play it all the time. It really is one of the best albums of all time, buy it you will NOT regret it. If you have never heard FZ before you may need to give it 3 or 4 listens before hooked but then you will have a life long addiction. I prefer the CD version myself as I like the way the tracks carry on. Willie the Pimp is just fantastic and I find myself humming it all the time, you just can't go wrong with a track with FZ's guitar and Beefhearts vocals. And if you like this album you will also love Chunga's Revenge.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Still great after thirty-two years!, 17 May 2001
By A Customer
I remember first hearing this LP when it came out in 1969, at a music club at school. I'd heard of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart but never heard their music.I bought the record the following year when I started at university and it was a huge hit with all my friends - especially "Son of Mr Green Genes". This track really is a tour de force. Perhaps for jazz fans the variations and returns to a theme (was this orchestrated or improvised?) will be familiar - to a rock fan like myself there is nothing else quite as good (although the Doors "Light My Fire" runs it close). While it's probably a bit too slick for hard-line MoI fans (and I think I would probably agree with this criticism of "Peaches En Regalia"), I still listen to this music with the same exhilaration I felt when I first heard it. Buy it.
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