Best Frank Zappa´s Recordings

Joe's Garage Days, Broadway the hard way and finally Ship arriving to late to save a drowning witch.

I love 200 Motels. The soundtrack was just remastered and released as two CDs, but the movie is still unavailable. I bought a pretty good copy on ebay for $15, though.

Looks like I'm late jumping into this one but I just noticed it. I'm another Zappa nut who owns the entire Verve catalog and roughly 45 releases overall. Most of his best has already been listed here, but I wanted to add a few thoughts.

Of more recent releases, both "Make a Jazz Noise Here" and "Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life" are astounding live performances (minus a little between song goofiness). "Roxy & Elsewhere" remains an all-time favorite. I'd love to see that one re-issued on heavyweight vinyl.

Jazz fans will likely enjoy the version of "Let's Move to Cleveland" found on Volume 4 of the "You Can't Do That On Stage" series - it features Archie Shepp on tenor!

Two other recent relases of Zappa material by other artists are welll worth it. The Persuasions relased "Frankly A Capella" on the EarthBeat! lable in 2000, very nicely done all-vocal renditions done with heartfelt feeling. And the "Ed Palermo Big Band Plays the Music of Frank Zappa" was released on Astor Place records in 1997 (well, I guess not that recent).

An incredible enigma of an artist!

Hot Rats is my favorite. 30yrs ago I bought this as a close out. First listen to this disc instilled gross anxiety. Put it away for several years. One day after many hi-fi evolutions and up dates I re-visited Hot Rats only to find real music that my old systems had never been able to unravel. Hot Rats progressivly becomes more involving as my hi-fi extends in resolution. Tom

In 1976 I bought a german import of Mothermania (an early hits record) at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville. It still sounds great today.

For content, Hot Rats, One Size Fits All.