FRANK ZAPPA — Lumpy Gravy (review)

FRANK ZAPPA — Lumpy Gravy album cover Album · 1968 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
AtomicCrimsonRush
A musical collage that may blow you away, or it may turn you away.

"Lumpy Gravy" is definitely not an ideal place if you are new into Zappa and I would go so far as to say it is perhaps his least accessible work.

It is essentially a musical collage juxtaposed with little bursts of inventive music and tons of hyper strange dialogue between stoned individuals about life the universe and nothing.

These dialogues reminded me of the type of stuff Andy Warhol used in his underground cult movies such as "Trash" where people seriously converse about ridiculous subjects such as; "they get on top of you and just tear you apart", the "one note" conversation, "I hear you've been having trouble with pigs and ponies!" And "the boogie man must be fought", and "now I lay me down to sleep... amen."

Seriously, you are not going to learn too much from this nonsense and it is mildly amusing heard once but not designed for repeated listens.

The transitions are amidst classics such as King Kong that was developed into a much more coherent piece on subsequent albums.

So "LG" is a sound experiment but as inaccessible as this is, its better than The Beatles Revolution 9.

I can stretch 2 stars rating out for Zappaholics but this will really put a lot of people off and understandably so.

It is made for its time in the psychedelic 60s but will have little appeal today unless you are a musical historian or Zappa freak.

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