Lumpy Post

Oh, I loved every second of Lumpy Gravy...  I don't know what else I can say about it.  It's different than anything else you can imagine, but it's different in the best kind of way.  When I think about it, this album isn't even as "different" as the majority of the Zappa that I have heard.  All in all, I just think it's amazing, and I could listen to it again and again.

On to the next lump in this post

Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians:  The performance that I listened to may have just not been done so well, but the beginning tone that is repeated throughout was a little too overpowering for the first minute or two, even as it occasionally changed by a note or two.  It was a little too much.  If it had been slightly more subtle, it probably would have held my attention better.

Next lump

Six Marimbas, again with the Reich:  Definitely worth the listen.  Very complex.  The repetition kind of got to me after a while, but it really did take a long time for that to happen.  Overall, I don't know that I would go out of my way to listen to it again, but I don't regret listening to it.  Although, it is rather hypnotizing, so there might be some interesting use to it, deep down...

Last lump

Plunderphonics:  I just have one question...  with that whole Canada Copyright Act, how would they know it was a copyrighted piece if you altered it beyond recognition?  How would they catch you, unless you explicitly said what you sampled from?

Lumpy Gravy

I can't say I liked "Lumpy Gravy" but I certainly didn't mind it. I thought it was interesting enough to keep my attention. I was kind of looking forward to see what would happen next. I'm not really sure if Zappa intended this to be a record from the beginning. It sounds to me more like an experimental project that got recorded and released achieving some fame afterward. The beginning of Part 1, "The Way I See it, Barry" reminded me a lot of Pulp Fiction's Misirlou. I think overall Lumpy Gravy has an interesting beat to it, a lot like the 1960s surf rock movement, but then suddenly everything falls apart and Zappa includes some random dialogues of ponies and pigs (what's up with the ponies?, really) to stitch the randomness together. A lot of what I heard is what my definition of musique concrete is, a bunch of sounds and noises with effects applied to them. I'm a little intrigued to listen to it again since according to some people "it gets better the more you listen to it".

Lumpy Gravy by Frank Zappa

Lumpy Gravy seemed to bounce between 3 emotional states to me. Between the dialog and the sound I found bits uplifting, humorous, and bothersome (there is a better word here but the only other one I can think of right now is horrific but thats far too strong). The music achieves the 3 emotional states by melody whereas the dialog achieves either humor or horror by the subject of the dialog. The monologue about wearing out women was funny while the discussion about being attacked by unicorns while giggling as if smoking a large blunt was a bit terrifying. With regard to the dialog I think the effect comes from the ability to relate to the state of the speaker - which is why people on drugs are often avoided and do not mix well socially with sober people.

Lumpy Gravy, however, still does not present content I would choose to listen to when I want to listen to music. The ever changing melody and content feels more like an audio track that has lost its movie than a piece of content meant to be enjoyed on its own. I suppose that actually raises an interesting question: why do we enjoy movies with such quickly changing contexts and perspectives while we (or at least many of us) abhor the idea of music which is always changing and presenting conflicting melodies?