The Mothers of Invention - Uncle Meat

It's time to listen to Uncle Meat. It's part of Zappa's much larger conceptual project No Commercial Potential. It was intended to be the soundtrack of a movie that never got finished. His larger vision was that it could all be cut up and spliced together in different ways but still be the same large scale experimental project.

I think we forget the most important part of Zappa's music, though. It's supposed to be funny. You're supposed to be in on the joke. He did all of this on purpose, to get you to think. He wanted you to question who exactly is telling you what's acceptable, normal, logical. He wanted you to see the humor in playing serious music on cheap toys and strange sounds on expensive technology. He wanted to read in depth sociological essays about his work so that he could respond by saying "no, i just put random crap together because it was funny." He wanted certain parts to be completely out of step with others so you couldn't actually tell which one was "right."

He wanted a bunch of talented, well practiced musicians making meticulous music that sounded like they were playing random garbage.

He wanted to be ridiculous on purpose.

There are some really fantastic and inventive pieces of pure music on this double album. I think it's hilarious, and i highly recommend checking it out if/when you get the chance.

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