Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Zappa, Frank - Lester Bangs
Zappa, Frank - Lester Bangs
LESTER BANGS
[Frank Zappa] ran out of topical relevance even quicker than most of his musical contemporaries, largely forfeited lyrical cogency early on, and has for several years been recycling adolescent grossout yuks interspersed with random verbiage…. Zappa's lyrics only begin to work [on One Size Fits All] when they redelve into the Southern California greaser suburb murk-Montclair mentality …, and even then whatever possible effectiveness they might have is usually obscured by his … melodic quirks which tend to keep the vocalist gibbering like a Pachuco on whites humping the glory hole of a pinball machine. (pp. 65-6)
[Frank] loots enough styles to make music that sounds complicated, throws in a melange of words big … and little …, and markets the whole stew in equally jumbled packages, so that if you compound the already dim with dope the result may be perceived as some bastard's dada or at least far out. There are those who will eat...
[The entire page is 195 words long]
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