Viva Lì

Look, Sexyajax is really in the hospital. But I'm not going to tell you what happened to him, because otherwise you would tell him to fuck off right away. I'll just say that only the fools with a capital P can mess up like that.

The album has gone down in music history, but it's certainly not a completed masterpiece. The musical whirlwinds of keyboards and guitars (explosive for at least 17 long minutes) and some unforgettable tracks are truly anthological. An explosive anthem of early California rock and, to some extent, hard rock. However, the desire to create leads to overdoing it, and this is perhaps the greatest limitation of this album that could have easily been an absolute masterpiece. It’s also true that, after this, what have the Iron Butterfly done that’s interesting?

Studio experiments and live performances. A bit of 'acid tests' and a whole lot of, too much, psychedelia. Curious musical effects that are somewhat successful, but also a lot of confusion. Unpredictable music, flashes of genius here and there, but also a bit of music-loving narcissism. In short, the Grateful Dead have certainly done better (I mention, just as an example, masterpieces like "Workingman's Dead," "American Beauty," "Reckoning").

I know, I wanted to take on an album that has already been excellently reviewed by Grasshopper. Roby86, in fact, for work I mainly use my talking skills, but I'm not an insurance agent; I'm an IT consultant. So, as you can see, I spend my life chatting and convincing people. I apologize if I'm verbose, and if in the end, I say everything and say nothing.

But can anyone tell me what happened to Sexyajax? For heaven's sake, it looks like he's worse off than Pessotto, just to know—acute thrombosis, viral hepatitis, lumbosciatica, emphysema, artery blockage, chickenpox, a common fever, the plague, rabies, scabies, measles, a herniated disc, a broken femur, food poisoning, gastric lavage—what's wrong with this guy?

yes yes Mandrake, when you write something I'll take you to the races (then I'll have to wait a long time) eh eh...

The little professor started it, since you began poking fun at my grammatical or typing errors; I just shot back. I may be childish, but why don't you write a nice review too? You can't, you're too much of a fool to write, you know nothing about music but you love to criticize. Oh, by the way, Mandrake wasn't just the name of the comic book wizard; it was also the name of a character from an Italian film from the Seventies. I bet you didn't know that, but it's not your fault; it's your lack of intelligence that prevents you from discovering new things. And anyway, if you want to be ironic, write books or become an actor, but your irony is pitifully shit. Fuck off.

Mandrake, I don’t see what’s difficult about the phrase "celestial musical notes and lyrics that are never trivial or redundant"; well, let me explain it to you: the music is very beautiful and the lyrics are stunning. Maybe you preferred it written that way, well, I didn’t, and I wrote it as you read it. Typographical errors happen to everyone (after all, we’re not robots), so either you want to play the little professor (but I see you’ve never written a review; if you’re so good, why don’t you write them?) or you’ve never read half a review on this site. They all have at least one typo or grammatical error; after all, I don’t teach literature in high school. Also, "Bobby Brown" is a studio-recorded track, and it seems quite remarkable to me. Now enough, if you don’t like this album, that’s your problem; I like it a lot, I’m crazy about it—maybe I’m silly?, it could be, but that’s life.

However, excuse me: for me, "Sheik Yerbouti" remains a pinnacle of Zappa's art (a subjective opinion, for sure, but not entirely solitary). Zappa used to say he got tired of the audience always applauding at the wrong moments (so he had a bit of a beef with everyone), and when he said that critics didn’t know how to do their jobs, he was speaking for himself; while that thought might be shareable, even Leonardo Da Vinci must have said some nonsense, right? Mandrake says my review is full of typos and then only cites one, contradicting himself. Also, musical tastes are always personal, so in my opinion, most of the albums Zappa released in the seventies are definitely inferior in quality to certain masterpieces like "Hot Rats" or this "Sheik Yerbouti." Furthermore, when I write, I always use a somewhat elaborate vocabulary; if you don’t like it, too bad, I’m not writing for everyone (even this sentence isn’t too bad; they should put it alongside Zappa's comments about music journalists). So, expect my next review on Peter Gabriel, and this time I dare the unthinkable: I will challenge Grasshopper (you’ll understand why later).

Kobe, you ask me for a vote, but it's tough here. I'm abstaining, also because you just quoted the lyrics of a song and didn't provide a review.