Sheik Yerbouti

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Product Reviews

(3 stars) - I love it - Do You?
Sheik Yerbouti - and we did it. Here in Sweden, (were I come from) we dance, and dance, and dance to .... Bobby Brown .... Yes I know the lyrics... Byt if you not realy understand it, the beat in this song is great. (Sorry all... ;-) )

(5 stars) - Zappa at his best!
Okay, Okay, this is not my favorite Zappa album. No album can be as good as "Apostrophe" but this one comes close - so very close. If you like Zappa then this is probably one of your favorites. If you are trying to expose someone to Zappa this may be the album with which to do it. If you have never heard any Zappa then snatch this one up and listen to it quickly. You will probably wear it out.

Musically, this is a great example of Zappa'a genius. I feel that Zappa's intelligence put him on a much higher plane than the rest of us. This album proves it.

Comically, this album will make you laugh till you hurt. Yes, humor does belong in music. This album is high-lair-e-us!

I can't praise it enough! This album is great! Buy it!

(4 stars) - ap
If you like Joe's Garage, or any of his albums released between 1981 - 1984 you will enjoy this. He is very unique artist with a interesting look at life.

(5 stars) - Iconoclast to a T.
Frank Zappa.

Rail thin, gawky, Grouch Marx mustache and wild hair topped off with a huge schnozzola. His was the type of visage that would ordinarily subject one to all sorts of snickering, unflattering remarks.

Ask the average person old enough to have known about him and you're likely to get some nonsense along the lines of: "Isn't he that guy with the funny songs?" relegating him to the dung heap of novelty acts, that is, when they don't ask if he's the guy who ate his own excrement on stage.

For the record, he didn't. In fact he didn't so much as even pretend to do that even with prop poop. He was not that kind of performer.

Many an artist has been anointed by both the public and critics as icons, this is generally accepted as the ultimate compliment and when you look at the list of those few lucky enough to have had that title bestowed upon them it's easy to understand the impact of that word.

Take Elvis, The Beatles, Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Michael Jackson, even Madonna (you don't have to be dead to be an icon) and many others. Regardless of how one may feel about any or all of these artists, their iconic status is unmistakable.

Frank Zappa is not an icon. He is an iconoclast and anyone who has ever dared to immerse themselves in his works and has attempted to know him via those works, as well as interviews and anecdotes, will understand that this iconoclastic status is not bestowed upon him as some sort of consolation prize but instead as an honor of the highest order.

Frank Zappa was a man who never ever compromised his principles in regards to his art and instead took control of his own marketing and production and found a way to achieve tremendous success on his own terms. His greatest hit was Valley Girl and that peaked only at number 32 on Billboard's top 100 songs list at the time of its release. If you are familiar with Zappa's work you know that this was purely accidental and not in any way an intended consequence.

In 1995, two years after his death, Frank Zappa was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame and many Zappa fans believe that were he alive, he would have stubbornly refused his inclusion into the hall of fame but personally, I believe he would have good naturedly accepted his induction with supreme amusement and then somewhere down the line find a way to deliciously skewer the very idea that an establishment would dare to decide who is great in something as unquantifiable and personal to an artist and their fans as music. Or any art form for that matter.

Yes Frank Zappa was funny looking and yes quite a few of his songs included funny lyrics but ahhh, such music!

Zappa was an iconoclast in that he challenged and skewered the buffoonery of all sorts of people and establishments be they governmental, industrial or religious. He managed to accomplish this with some of the greatest music ever composed by an American as evidenced by the top notch musicians he attracted.

He was also an iconoclast in the sense that he defied conventions with his music. You can't really classify Zappa in respect to a musical genre, for me fusion jazz artist comes close but this is far from being accurate.

Of the sixteen or so Zappa albums that I own (there are reputed to be around sixty, mostly live) Sheik Yerbouti, Tinseltown Rebellion and You are What You Is are the three albums I would choose to introduce novices to his works.

The first four tracks of Sheik Yerbouti (which range from a smooth, soul, love song to punk rock) alone serve as a just the barest of hints of his broad range, the fact that these four seamlessly merge from one into the other is particularly impressive. Although some of the, shall we say... unconventional lyrics in this album may turn some people off as well as make it difficult for some to appreciate the music , at least upon the first listen.


Try this practical joke. Find an old school soul aficionado, preferably a big fan of The Temptations or a similar all male singing group and play Track one, "I Have Been in You" for them, then sit back in amusement as you wait for their faces to go from serenely appreciative to sour when certain lyrics kick in. Cruel but fun.

Except for Jones Crusher which is arguably the most conventional song of the album as it is straight ahead blues rock the rest of the album is similarly all over the map with some impressive instrumental passages, mostly fusion jazz and some blues riffing, interrupted by more high weirdness but of the accessible kind, not the avant-garde type which many people tend to regard as self indulgent (regardless of the artist).

The subjects on this album run the gamut from an, expression of love, the lack of skilled professionals in fields as diverse as auto repair and creative plumbing, a man desperately trying tell people how cute he is, a macho man on campus turned gay, a young boy trying to grow a chin, to a man who finally learns to disco dance complete with a "Shirt half open to show you my chains and a spoon for up my nose". Side note: Strangely enough although Frank Zappa was a chain smoker he never did drugs as he feared that it would interfere with his craft.

There is also, on this album a highly offensive meditation on Jewish Princesses (I married a Jewish gal who defies the descriptions depicted in this song but god help me I can't help cracking up every time I hear it. The only defense I offer is that Frank Zappa like Howard Stern was a universal offender.

Sheik Yerbouti finally ends on a high note with Wild Love segueing into Yo Mama; two pieces that refocuses one's attention back onto the fine musicianship exhibited previously on this album. Musicianship that you would have noticed had you stopped laughing long enough to pay attention.

Also recommended:

Tinseltown Rebellion
You Are What You Is
Hot Rats
Wakajawaka (which features an illustration on the cover in which the words "Hot Rats" appear but this is not Hot Rats)
Joe's Garage
Over-nite Sensation
Zoot allures (Which signaled his departure from his Mothers of Invention days),
One Size Fits all
Chunga's Revenge
The Grand Wazzo
Ship Arriving Too Late To save a Drowning Witch
The Man From Utopia


For the adventurous:

Freak Out
Lumpy Gravy
We're only in it for the money
Shut Up N play Yer Guitar
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Uncle Meat
The Yellow Shark
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Thing Fish (yes I know this album is universally hated but I like it anyway).

Wished I never bought it:

Cruising with Rueben and the Jets

(2 stars) - More Jazz/Rock fusion jamming than his standard stuff
I like Zappa's music and I like some of the songs on this two cd album. But, I had forgotten how much junk are on these albums.
This one is some jazz/rock/orchestral fusion phase I guess he was going through. That woldn't be so bad, but it's so not Zappa and some clips are painful to listen to ... they're so bad. On the other hand, there's a few truly excellent instrumentals on it and a bit of his typically amusing lyrical pieces.

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