FRANK ZAPPA — Joe's Grage Acts I, II & III (review)

FRANK ZAPPA — Joe's Grage Acts I, II & III album cover Boxset / Compilation · 1987 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
Warthur
I'll stick my review of this here as opposed to under the individual album entries since really they all form one single piece. Joe's Garage is an epic narrative concept album by Zappa in which Zappa really doesn't show that much interest in maintaining a narrative but goes about shoehorning one in anyway in as irritating a way as possible.

Don't get me wrong - there's some fun material on here. True, Acts I and II continue Zappa's tedious pandering to the novelty rock crowd, though at least Catholic Girls and Why Does It Hurt When I Pee are catchy. And Act III has some nice guitar solos if empty classic rock guitar heroism is your thing. That's all fine. But the material is padded out by tedious, monotonous, and unspeakably dull narration by Zappa in his goofy Central Scrutinizer voice, which completely ruins the flow of the album and completely fails to disguise the fact that Zappa took a bunch of utterly unrelated songs and crammed them into something resembling a story.

And on top of that, even though there are good moments such as I have outlined, they're hardly of the standard of the material on Uncle Meat, We're Only In It For the Money, One Size Fits All or other classic Zappa creations. It's far from Zappa's worst concept album - that would have to be the horrendous Thing-Fish, with its shamelessly recycled material botched with mammy-isms and the horrible acting from the "cast" - but it's a long way from his best concept album, or his best novelty rock record, or his best fusion album, or his best guitar solo collection.

There are as many different reasons to listen to a Frank Zappa record as there are Frank Zappa fans, but they all have one thing in common: pick any type of enjoyment you might wish to derive from a Zappa album, and there'll be one that delivers it better and with less bullshit filler than Joe's Garage.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

My Ship Hard Bop
WILLIE JONES III
Buy this album from MMA partners
Ice Breaking Post-Fusion Contemporary
DAG ARNESEN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin : Brasil Latin Jazz
LEE RITENOUR
Buy this album from MMA partners
From The North - Gogo Penguin Live In Manchester Nu Jazz
GOGO PENGUIN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet : Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022 Third Stream
ANTHONY BRAXTON
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

03 Willie Jones III My Ship #NightIsAlive
WILLIE JONES III
snobb· 10 hours ago
Fall
SUNNY KIM
js· 1 day ago
Twilight
RANDY SCOTT
js· 2 days ago
Trifecta - Beck and Call - official video (taken from The New Normal)
TRIFECTA
js· 2 days ago
Phoenix
GRÉGORY PRIVAT
js· 3 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed