Frank Zappa-Tinseltown Rebellion (1981)
Artist: Frank Zappa
Title: Tinseltown Rebellion
Format: 2LP
Cat: PW2 37336
Year of Release: 1981
Country and Year of Edition: US 1981
Date of Sale: 8/26/23
Sell Price: $12.06
Condition: VG+/VG cutout upper left corner
Discogs Last Sold: 8/13/23 NM/NM $30.00
Low: $5.38 G+/F
Median: $15.00
Average: $16;.36
High: $30.00
Current low price: $12.91 VG+/VG+
Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 70
Have/Want: 2647/335
Where Sold: Orangeville, PA
Time It Took To Sell: 11 years
Where and When Bought: new Al Bums Worcester mid 80's around $10
Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B
Sad To See It Go: No
"To get a record deal, he said/They would have to be more punk/Forget their chops and play real dumb/Or else they would be sunk/So off they go to S.I.R. to learn some stupid riffs"-Zappa, Tinseltown Rebellion
Early 80's Zappa albums I liked better than early 70's ones but not as much as 60's or mid 70's. So many records! So little time! We'll I had a free weekend, so I got a couple late night Saturday streams in before cranking the vinyl this afternoon. Now I have a good feel for the album, something I never really bothered to do when I bought it a few years after it came out.
The record kicks off with a studio track that was an actual AOR hit, the tongue-in-reggae "Fine Girl." The album didn't go Gold anywhere but it did peak at #66. Not as big as the previous Joe's Garage series and not as big as the "Valley Girl" aided Ship Arriving To Late To Save A Drowning Witch, but bigger than everything that came after it. There were a couple scuttled projects that were key in producing this era: a triple record called Warts and All, and a song oriented album called Crush All Boxes that is spray painted over on Tinseltown Rebellion. This album was part of a conceptual series of albums featuring different Zappa styles. You Are What You Is covered songs and Shut Up and Play Your Guitar covered instrumentals.
The live tracks were recorded all over the place. You get your "Frank comedy" and you get you television symphonies more in line with the early 70's live albums. The best of this is the title track, flying the flag for musicianship and against the dumb punk rockers and their inept playing. Frank plays his blue collar crowd, queer baiting all the way. Imagine the pearl clutching write-ups if Zappa were still alive and not shutting up to play his guitar! Not that his stage babble is particularly cool or even interesting, but telling it like it was is a bit of a time-warp cranked at full volume.
What saves Zappa live for repeated listens are the guitar explosions. The humor is often just pig banter whether spoken in a "Panty Rap" or couched in a good song, "Easy Meat." I never laughed at it in it's day, but am too desensitized to be offended by anything but the perpetually offended and only if they use it with religious zeal to impose their sensibility on my indifference. But that swings the other way as well, real bigots are some of the most insufferable bores the world has to offer. The world has it's wars, but poor taste isn't the top of the list of man's inhumanity to man. Ignored it is harmless, to suppress it helps clone bad taste amplifiers. Sometimes Zappa is...gasp...boring, whether or not you want to pin an -ist or -ism to his good name.
Maybe he buttered me up with the Great Italian Tributes!
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