What does it sound like?:
“Overnite Sensation” is one of my favourite Frank Zappa albums. Not too many snorks, turn-on-a-dime playing, a pile of knob jokes, and it’s kind of funky. (In fact, very funky; “I’m the Slime”, “Dirty Love”, “Zomby Woof”, “Dinah-Moe Humm” and “Montana” had Tina Turner and the Ikettes on backing vocals. “What is this shit?” Ike is alleged to have asked, as he insisted Zappa pay the singers, including Tina Turner, no more than $25 per song.) This album got me through many a 1970s “Good Friday”, providing a little victory to the stultifying miserabilist piety of my childhood home.
The 50th anniversary release – gosh, is it really that long? – has been made even more pristine, though was always a very well-produced album. Remixes have instruments leap out, but to me they always did. The earlier and alternative takes reiterate niallb’s observation re “The Yes Album”, that to a working musician, the album version of a song is often just one of a series of variants which passed a variety of decisions to become, to the listener with the album alone, the “definitive” version. There is lots to enjoy in these alternatives; » Continue Reading.