The Mothers Of Invention
Uncle Meat

THE REVIEW

I believe this is the album that marks the beginning of Zappa's "symphonic" period.

The album was recorded in 67-68, but was released in 1969, on a double LP. This project was conceived as the soundtrack for a film of the same title, by the same author: on the cover and in the booklet, we find phrases like: "The soundtrack of a film that we haven't enough money to finish" or "Music from a film that you'll probably never get to see". To date, this film is untraceable.

The originality of this album lay in the fact that it contained many small (or medium) instrumental pieces, with few lyrics (some of which are incomprehensible). The total duration is about two hours - if we consider the second edition, which I will talk about later. The truly remarkable tracks are Uncle meat (Main title theme) and its variations, Nine types of industrial pollution, a brief Zolar Czakl (which brings to mind Igor's Boogie from Burnt Weeny Sandwich - later), Dog Breath, in the year of the plague and its variations, The legend of the golden arches, a live version of God bless America, Ian Underwood whips it out and Mr. Green Genes, a theme that will be extensively revisited on the album "Hot Rats", with a thrilling version (and various guitar solos). In this first part, we also have a wonderful prelude to the track that concludes the work, namely the colossal King Kong, divided into 6 sections, for a total of 18 minutes of pure fusion between rock and jazz.

Another curiosity: at certain moments, we can hear the voice of the historical Suzy Creamcheese, already mentioned in Zappa's first album, "Freak Out!".

In the more recent version, practically useless tracks have been added: two of these are extracts from the film, totaling over 40 minutes, which turn out to be boring, lacking meaning without being able to see the images, and above all difficult to understand for us Italians. Another additional track is "Tengo 'na minchia tanta", the only track in Italian (or rather Sicilian, to recall Zappa's origins) along with "Questi cazzi di piccione", published much later in the live "The yellow shark". The inclusion of these bonuses has been heavily criticized, also because it unnecessarily and disproportionately extended the total duration of the work, which could have easily remained at 1 hour and twenty or a little more.

Aside from this, the album is rich with more than excellent tracks, and these so-called "penalty tracks" will not deny it the 5 stars (because luckily nothing from the original version was eliminated). This is the perfect predecessor to the epic "Hot rats", and therefore cannot be overlooked. Enjoy listening, everyone.