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Absolutely Free
Absolutely Free is the second album by American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on May 26, 1967, by Verve Records. Much like their 1966 debut Freak Out!, the album blends complex musical composition with political and social satire. Its blend of jazz, classical, avant-garde and rock idioms within multi-sectional, suite-like compositions, referred to on the album cover as two “oratorios” (with librettos available by mail order), is seen as an important and influential precursor to progressive rock and rock operas. The band had been augmented since Freak Out! by the addition of woodwinds player Bunk Gardner, keyboardist Don Preston, rhythm guitarist Jim Fielder, and drummer Billy Mundi; Fielder quit the group before the album was released, and his name was removed from the album credits.
Freak Out! cost Verve $20,000 to make, more than double the cost of a typical album at the time. When it struggled to sell, the record company only allowed a budget of $11,000 for the follow up, which was recorded on four-track over just four days from November 15–18, 1966 at TTG studios in Los Angeles, with additional mixing and editing at MGM in New York City a week later. Tom Wilson again sat in the producer's chair, although it is generally agreed that he took a hands-off approach and let Zappa have full creative control. Unlike Freak Out!, which used extensive orchestration, the budget this time only allowed for orchestral additions to "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", with the band playing virtually live in the studio for most tracks. Since many of the songs were complex multi-sectional pieces, the group would do up to 30 takes of each specific section of a track, which were then strung together in editing. According to Zappa, the group had "one day with 15 minutes per tune to do all the vocals on that album. That's right. It's called 'sing or get off the pot'."
The album presented two oratorios, with all the songs continually linked, narratively, and musically, which at the time of recording predated the release of The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first suite, entitled "Absolutely Free", is essentially a send-up of a romantic love story with fruits and vegetables acting as a metaphor for people; the second suite, "The M.O.I. American Pageant", is a trenchant social commentary on American life including aspects of social status and mobility, consumerism, alcoholism, greed, and political corruption.
"Plastic People" evolved from the group's cover of "Louie Louie", with new lyrics. It opens with an announcement of the President of the United States, who is ill and needs chicken soup, before going on to critique the "plastic" hippies who hung out at nightclubs like Pandora's Box, the epicenter of the Sunset Strip Riots happening at the time of the album's recording. "Son of Suzy Creamcheese" later in the album goes further into the subject, which presages the themes of The Mothers' next album, We're Only In It For The Money.
The primary subject of the suite, food, appears on this mock-AOR love ballad with comedic lyrics improvised by Ray Collins, who, as the Duke of Prunes, attempts to pick up a woman at the supermarket by using food references that are meant as euphemisms for sex. The track was based on an original piece called "And Very True", which Zappa had composed for the score of a Western called Run Home, Slow.
According to the album's libretto, the Duke attempts to pick up two cheerleaders in a parking lot when they bash him in the face with a rock, giving him amnesia. This is portrayed musically as a one minute free jazz freak out which eventually quotes Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird.
The Duke suddenly recovers his memory as a reprise of "Duke of Prunes" appears in a faster tempo before the Duke attempts his final pick-up by singing a Supremes-like tune reminiscent of "Baby Love".
The food imagery continues in this frantic rock song, although Zappa claimed "vegetables" referred to people who are inactive in society but who might be "woken up" if moved sufficiently and stirred from their apathy.
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Absolutely Free
Absolutely Free is the second album by American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on May 26, 1967, by Verve Records. Much like their 1966 debut Freak Out!, the album blends complex musical composition with political and social satire. Its blend of jazz, classical, avant-garde and rock idioms within multi-sectional, suite-like compositions, referred to on the album cover as two “oratorios” (with librettos available by mail order), is seen as an important and influential precursor to progressive rock and rock operas. The band had been augmented since Freak Out! by the addition of woodwinds player Bunk Gardner, keyboardist Don Preston, rhythm guitarist Jim Fielder, and drummer Billy Mundi; Fielder quit the group before the album was released, and his name was removed from the album credits.
Freak Out! cost Verve $20,000 to make, more than double the cost of a typical album at the time. When it struggled to sell, the record company only allowed a budget of $11,000 for the follow up, which was recorded on four-track over just four days from November 15–18, 1966 at TTG studios in Los Angeles, with additional mixing and editing at MGM in New York City a week later. Tom Wilson again sat in the producer's chair, although it is generally agreed that he took a hands-off approach and let Zappa have full creative control. Unlike Freak Out!, which used extensive orchestration, the budget this time only allowed for orchestral additions to "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", with the band playing virtually live in the studio for most tracks. Since many of the songs were complex multi-sectional pieces, the group would do up to 30 takes of each specific section of a track, which were then strung together in editing. According to Zappa, the group had "one day with 15 minutes per tune to do all the vocals on that album. That's right. It's called 'sing or get off the pot'."
The album presented two oratorios, with all the songs continually linked, narratively, and musically, which at the time of recording predated the release of The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first suite, entitled "Absolutely Free", is essentially a send-up of a romantic love story with fruits and vegetables acting as a metaphor for people; the second suite, "The M.O.I. American Pageant", is a trenchant social commentary on American life including aspects of social status and mobility, consumerism, alcoholism, greed, and political corruption.
"Plastic People" evolved from the group's cover of "Louie Louie", with new lyrics. It opens with an announcement of the President of the United States, who is ill and needs chicken soup, before going on to critique the "plastic" hippies who hung out at nightclubs like Pandora's Box, the epicenter of the Sunset Strip Riots happening at the time of the album's recording. "Son of Suzy Creamcheese" later in the album goes further into the subject, which presages the themes of The Mothers' next album, We're Only In It For The Money.
The primary subject of the suite, food, appears on this mock-AOR love ballad with comedic lyrics improvised by Ray Collins, who, as the Duke of Prunes, attempts to pick up a woman at the supermarket by using food references that are meant as euphemisms for sex. The track was based on an original piece called "And Very True", which Zappa had composed for the score of a Western called Run Home, Slow.
According to the album's libretto, the Duke attempts to pick up two cheerleaders in a parking lot when they bash him in the face with a rock, giving him amnesia. This is portrayed musically as a one minute free jazz freak out which eventually quotes Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird.
The Duke suddenly recovers his memory as a reprise of "Duke of Prunes" appears in a faster tempo before the Duke attempts his final pick-up by singing a Supremes-like tune reminiscent of "Baby Love".
The food imagery continues in this frantic rock song, although Zappa claimed "vegetables" referred to people who are inactive in society but who might be "woken up" if moved sufficiently and stirred from their apathy.