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Rating: Facing a musician like Frank Zappa is always a tough job precisely because he has always been a figure of great respect. Even interviewing him was challenging and about this, a music journalist like Massarini knows well, as he found himself in front of a keen interlocutor capable of logically dismantling any incorrectly formulated question. But also approaching him as a simple listener enjoying music conveyed on vinyl could (and can still) be a source of surprises (positive ones for me). In my case, the first acquaintance with Frank dates back to a long time ago, exactly in the mid-70s when I was attending the Berchet classical high school in Milan. At that time, interest in music of all kinds was deeply rooted among us high school students and was seen as an opening to weighty themes, precisely because music was appreciated as committed in social and political terms. Music had to, therefore, convey a message to the listener; a sound that simply promoted a sort of disengagement was inconceivable (certainly those were different times..). So one day a classmate lent me his copy of Frank Zappa's "Chunga's Revenge," warmly advising me to listen to the record attentively because it was the work of an authentic American radical. I, an enthusiast for other musicians like mainly the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, was filled with great curiosity and, having returned home, I set myself to listening to the record in religious silence. Needless to say, I was favorably impressed so much that in the following weeks, I purchased copies of Frank's albums, going to the trusted supplier (the glorious Buscemi store in Milan). I then began to listen to many of Uncle Frank's records (not all but a good number of those recorded from "Freak Out" onwards). Everything went smoothly and with great satisfaction until I tackled "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets." And here I stopped after the first listen because, although Frank has always been a musician of great level and solid preparation, a bearer of sounds that captivate the listener and also leave you ecstatic, in the case of "Cruising" I couldn't say I was convinced at first glance. It seemed like such a bizarre record to me that I suspected it was a namesake of Frank performing sappy and syrupy songs (coincidentally presenting himself as Ruben Sano). I asked for clarification from other high school students who loved good music (note well that at the time there were specialized music magazines but in any case, in Italy, musician Frank Zappa was somewhat considered an alternative niche artist) and learned that the record was even more peculiar than usual. This time, the target was a music genre popular at the end of the 50s called doo-wop, cultivated in Uncle Frank's youthful years. What I was told at least managed to put me in the right attitude to return to listening to the long-playing record and to understand that Frank Zappa knew how to be brilliant in practicing healthy satire of certain musical and social manners so widespread in the USA. In "Cruising" (an album that over time I have appreciated more and more), that saccharine sentimentalism that infects so many stupid songs is targeted, which would lead Zappa, in the album "Sheik Yerbouti" released in 1979, to title a song "Broken Hearts Are for Assholes" (broken hearts are for assholes, no less...). In "Cruising," good Frank doesn't hide how much he detests the cheap romanticism of certain love lyrics, so only to cite some tracks, one wonders why the loved one no longer calls you, maybe loves someone else (in the track "You Didn't Try to Call Me"), or acts like a stalker towards the loved one (in "Jelly Roll Gum Drop"), one swears eternal love by throwing coins in a fountain of love like the Trevi Fountain (as described in "Fountain of Love"), one implores the loved one not to end the relationship in the face of three letters sent without receiving a response ("Later That Night"), to end with the great regret that a relationship can end even if so much love has been given (song "Stuff Up the Cracks"). Lyrics, therefore, very acerbic and corrosive towards romance for its own sake, while on the musical side the execution is impeccable, a worthy revisitation of doo-wop with elegant vocal blends, excellent guitar phrasing (as in 'Stuff Up the Cracks") and an erudite citation of the Overture from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in the final passage of "Fountain of Love" (another demonstration of Zappa's great musical culture).
Basically, I think that "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets," although not reaching the qualitative peaks of other works by Frank Zappa like "Hot Rats," "Joe's Garage," "Freak Out," still remains an important piece to fully understand Uncle Frank's opus magnum.. And furthermore, reading the liner notes, one notices how Zappa, under a gruff appearance, still had a certain sensitivity in writing that "this is an album of sappy love songs and idiotic simplicity. We composed them because deep down we love this music (we are old rockers sitting in a recording studio reminiscing about the old good times).. In ten years even you, sitting with your friends somewhere, will do the same." Ah, nostalgia canaille!
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