Frank Zappa
You Are What You Is

THE REVIEW

I can just imagine good old Francone, while giving the final touches to his latest album in the recording studio, smirking under those now legendary mustaches. Maybe observed by Steve Vai, or Ike Willis, or perhaps bassist Arthur Barrow, or maybe some other talented musicians who accompanied him in the recordings of "You Are What You Is" (including David Logeman on drums and Tommy Mars on keyboards), released in 1981 but recorded the year before. Perhaps one of his collaborators, maybe two, maybe all of them, would have seen Francone smile and would have wondered if it was simply an amused grin or a satisfied one. Because, in the end, there's only one question: have we been beautifully conned by Frank Vincent Zappa, born in 1940, all this time?

Frank Zappa, native of Baltimore, a brilliant composer, a spokesman of total music, a brilliant talent scout and above all the leader of all freaks. The crazies, the weirdos, the monsters, the world’s outcasts brought to light and glorified by Francone, because he's the craziest of all. Beneath thousands of notes, dozens of albums, hundreds of songs, what remains of the big mustache is the lucid, wonderful seed of madness, the madness that all geniuses share. And so much anger towards the so-called "society".

The youth now burnt out, whose only common ideal seems to be the obsessive search for new ways to get high; unfaithful wives; men whose only universal language consists of expensive cars and designer clothes; this is the world Frank Zappa lives in, this is the society ridiculed by one who more than anyone else represents the people mistreated by the "normal," the "righteous," the "deserving".

But this time, no experimentalism. None of those avant-garde crazinesses that made the fortune of various "Absolutely Free" and "We're Only In It For The Money", as loved by critics as they were hated by the "generalist" public, the kind who listen to the radio while doing house chores or heading to the office. This time Francone wants to shove in everyone's face what he thinks, all his disgust, like how the much-acclaimed America in history books has now become the den of a bunch of idiots foaming at the mouth with a black hole in their skull, and to do so, he tries the hardest path: irony. Sharp, irreverent, as only the great authors can do. Irony mixed with an extremely catchy yet incredibly complex rock, because Frank Vincent Zappa never takes the easy road.

He, the king of freaks, the genius, never chooses the path; always the climb. And in taking the more complex route, despite the effort and criticisms, he never loses that grin on the verge of the ridiculous and the malevolent, which I imagine accompanied him at the end of listening to every piece of his work.

Because, in the end, his goal is achieved: Frank Zappa always manages to beautifully con us all.