SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION – FREAK OUT! (60th ANNIVERSARY SUPER DELUXE EDITION)

THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION
FREAK OUT! (60th ANNIVERSARY SUPER DELUXE EDITION)
ZAPPA RECORDS/UMe

Has it really been 60 years since Freak Out! by The Mothers Of Invention (led by Frank Zappa) made its debut? Yes, it has, and to celebrate a new box set has been released with a lot of previously unreleased songs. Freak Out! – 60th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition includes five CDs plus one Blu Ray (for the wonderful 5.1 and ATMOS sound). Of course, you could settle for the simple reissue, but then, one would miss all of the wonderful bonus material and it is absolutely wonderful. When the double album arrived in the summer of 1966 (one of the first double rock albums ever released), Zappa and The Mothers revolutionized rock ‘n’ roll. Freak Out! contains rock, plus doo-wop, rhythm and blues, orchestral music, free jazz, tape manipulation, and biting social satire. It is a remarkable achievement and even 60 years later.

“Help, I’m A Rock,” “Wowie Zowie,” “Who Are The Brain Police,” and “It Can’t Happen Here” took rock into entire new directions. Zappa lampooning suburbia and hippies is funny and also somewhat eerie. He was (as he always was) bang on the money. He was not afraid to shy away from the hypocrisy of the ‘youth movements’ and the ‘counterculture scene’. The end result is very musical, yet discordant music with odd vocals that must have hit the record buying public in a similar vein as The Velvet Underground. Musically, Zappa was a perfectionist, his guitar playing and arrangements are perfect and he gets the best from his band. The album seems to fly by quickly because it is so good. But listen and relisten, because there is so much to discover on each and every song.

The first three CDs of the set are three different versions of Freak Out!. The first disc is a 2026 remaster of the original stereo. Then there is the pre-master mix and finally the mono mix. Each version is different, and having grown up with the mono mix (my original copy is mono), it is still the mix I prefer. The sound of each CD is fantastic, and an excellent job has been done on not only restoring the original audio but keeping the warmth of the original analogue sound.

The real treats are CDs four and five, which contain live material (from 1966 at the Fillmore in San Francisco) and demos. The demos are the most fascinating, as one can hear the origins of “Trouble Every Day” and “I’m Not Satisfied” along with songs that did not make the final cut, such as “I’m So Happy I Could Cry”, which is a lost gem, and “Love of My Life” which would wind up two years later on the Ruben And The Jets album. But here is a very different version.

All of this serves as a historical document. Hearing Zappa and The Mothers live in 1966, not quite the beginning of the career, but certainly early, is an absolute treat.

The entire box set is extremely well put together with a great deal of information about the restoration and the album itself.  Freak Out! – 60th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition joins the other Zappa/Mothers box sets. Once again, the Zappa team (which includes his son, Ahmet Zappa and Joe Tavers (official archivist and “Vaultmeister” for the Frank Zappa estate, managing Frank Zappa’s massive collection of unreleased recordings, master tapes, and videos) have put together a brilliant box set. Not only is Freak Out! – 60th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition jammed full of great music, but it is an important historical document.

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