Zappa, Frank - David Fricke
DAVID FRICKE
[Sheik Yerbouti] reaffirms (at least for the faithful) Zappa's chops as a bandleader and rock & roll wit who doesn't have to be socially relevant to get a laugh. The opening salvo, "I Have Been in You," is a marvelously snide sendup of Peter Frampton's wimpiest hour ("I'm in You") that does for putzy love songs what "Dancin' Fool" does later for uncoordinated nerds with fatal John Travolta complexes. Indulgent scatological exercises like "Broken Hearts Are for Assholes" and "Bobby Brown" (in which the artist unleashes a few zingers at record companies) continue to raise the question of Frank Zappa's lyrical gift and just what's left of it. But even when Zappa and crew come on like the avant-garde answer to Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts, they do so with such self-parodying panache ("I'm So Cute," "Jewish Princess") that you're just as likely to laugh with them as at them.
David Fricke, "Records: 'Sheik Yerbouti'," in...
[The entire page is 190 words long]
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