Having the player on your phone set to shuffle is probably the norm for most music consumers these days. You have, more or less, your entire collection there, ready for your enjoyment, so why limit yourself? Well, I’ve been engaging in a radical exercise in recent weeks – setting the damn thing to play whole albums. Yes, I know – I am severely restricting my “choice” here, but I suddenly remembered how much I love the album format and I think that it’s in danger of dying out in today’s diminishing world of pop music. One of the reasons I expend so little effort investigating new music now (besides being obsessed with my own) is the fact that I have hardly any time to devote to properly listening to an entire album (it requires a lot of attention for me), and this was an activity I gave so much to when I was younger. Usually, you’d be drawn in by a single you heard somewhere; then the group/singer would have the audacity to follow it up with another good song – that would often be the cue for me to track down if the artist in question had an album in tow. If so, I’d take a punt, buy it and then pore over the new purchase for any signs that the protagonists were consistently commited to excellence……….More often than not, I’m afraid, it wasn’t the case.
The Beatles and Frank Zappa were the benchmarks for me in that respect. In what they did, they were consistently excellent. Coming back to my initial discourse, I had my phone’s music player set to Frank’s late-80′s album “Broadway The Hard Way” and soon arrived upon the song “Any Kind Of Pain”. I’ve listened to the album and this song for many years and, as with a lot of Frank’s material, I’m still amazed at the guitar solo he dropped smack in the middle of it. So now, I’m going to indulge in an exercise where I ask any visiting Zappa fans to “shuffle” through their album collections and submit what you consider your best five Zappa guitar solos and the reasons for your choice. Here’s mine:
1 Penguin in Bondage – from the “Roxy & Elsewhere” album, it’s like a blues solo from Venus. One of the first albums of Frank’s that I got soon after I discovered him – the backing he had on this, from his two drummers and the great George Duke on keyboards, also drew me in never to escape.
2 Sofa – the version from “Live In New York”. Still makes the hairs on my neck go funny. That’s reason enough.
3 Watermelon In Easter Hay – from the album “Joe’s Garage, Acts II & III”. Stunningly different technique, underpinned by a conventional melodic accompaniment (conventional for Frank, although he threw a bar of 5/4 in every other bar….), it seemed like Frank’s guitar really was talking it’s way through the piece.
4 Any Kind Of Pain – see above.
5 Inca Roads – from the One Size Fits All album. I learned years later that the backing to the track came from a US TV show recording, while the solo was peeled from a multi-track live recording of a concert in Finland, edited and layered over the top. A technically stunning achievement from a producer’s point of view, but the notes are pretty good too.
There you have it. At a future date, I’d like to spread the scope of the topic to cover solos by other artists. Look forward to any considered responses.
Categories: Discussion.