Your views on Frank Zappa?

[Quin]

It's a weird question, I know, but what is your opinion on Frank Zappa morally? The reason I ask is that he has been kind of a person I've looked up to for the past few years and I am just realizing now that in a lot of the things he has done and said, he resembles someone right out of one of the Ayn Rand novels. Here are a few examples of things he's said that go nicely with my point:

"Basically I'm in the idea business — whether it's a musical idea or a spoken idea ... If you wind up with a political system that wants to put idea men out of business, then you have worry on your hands."

"The most important thing to do in your life, is to not interfere with somebody else's life."

"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."

"The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your ******* mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions."

"Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There's a world, you see, which has people in it who believe in a variety of different things. Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence"

Edited September 28, 2007 by Quin

[softwareNerd]

What I remember of one interview I've seen is similar to the remarks you quoted. He's an atheist, but neither does he have certainty about any particular secular philosophy.

[KevinD]

Frank Zappa can be amusing and funny, and occasionally he has some good things to say. Musically and philosophically, he's basicially an anarchist: he's against all sorts of things, but it's hard to tell what exactly he's for.

As a friend of mine once said about Zappa: "I enjoy listening to his albums — once."

[TheEgoist]

His music is certainly top notch. I try not to dwell on political and philosophical leanings of an artist unless they make them evident.

[Clawg]

Frank Zappa can be amusing and funny, and occasionally he has some good things to say. Musically and philosophically, he's basicially an anarchist: he's against all sorts of things, but it's hard to tell what exactly he's for.

He makes some clear statements in this discussion:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6526525473785351949 ("Crossfire", 1986, about censorship in music)

[LiberTodd]

That's one of my favorite Crossfire debates .

I think he was an incredible musician and a true intellectual. He knew what he believed in and he stood by it. He's one of my guitar idols because of his innovative style and the dedication he had to the instrument.

[JJJJ]

"The most important thing to do in your life, is to not interfere with somebody else's life."

Well that is certainly not something from Ayn Rand's books..... I thougt the most important thing to do in your life was to live and pursue your own happiness.

[Maximus]

I love his music, regardless of his personal beliefs. He was a unique individual, and followed his own bliss. We could do worse than to do the same.

[Yes]

Favorite Frank Zappa quote:

"I'm a businessman, not a hippie."

Zappa was popular in the 60s and 70s when hippies were also a prominent part of our culture. His refuting hippies still gets my attention.

I loved that comment!

[Grant]

Well that is certainly not something from Ayn Rand's books..... I thougt the most important thing to do in your life was to live and pursue your own happiness.

In a sense, they go hand in hand. If you're not interfering in someone else's life, your sole attention is devoted to your own life.

Update: I love his other appearance on Crossfire,

Edited August 23, 2008 by Grant

[rickthepick]

His symphonic album 'The Yellow Shark' is one of my all time favorites . He may be one of (if not the) most technically proficient and prolific composers in the past 50 years. He worked tirelessly at his craft-composing in many genres. He was very satirical in most of his rock and jazz compositions. The symphonic work he did was world class-using the best musicians and unparalleled sonic engineering. I particularly like how unique and complex his melodies could be while remaining catchy and playful. His use of dissonance as a slight coloring or contrasting effect is a much better approach than the minimalist or serial style. Zappas music really doesn't fit into any particular genre or technical category, because he was so able to blend compositional tools at will.

He wasn't like Richard Halley in that he had a completely rational or even a well defined philosophy. Perhaps more like Frank Loyd Wright in that he thought everything outside his specific craft non-essential unless it was something interfering or threatening an artistic goal. Still the guy is easily the smartest rock guitar player ever, an innovator in computer aided music composition, and an independent artist with his own label and distribution (when no one else did). He might have been a libertarian politically, but I still give him a thumbs up morally due to his great achievements in music that he worked hard for.

Edited August 31, 2008 by rickthepick