Frank Zappa Hot Rats 180g LP (Translucent Hot Pink Vinyl)

Hot Rats cemented Frank Zappa as a musical force to be reckoned with. The album, recorded on a prototype 16-track recorder and first released in 1969, was the first album Zappa recorded as a solo artist after the dissolution of the original Mothers Of Invention. Hot Rats is also Zappa's first time focusing on one genre of music - namely jazz rock. Blending rock and jazz stylings with top call studio musicians, the album opened the door to "Fusion Music" while putting Zappa on the guitar player map. Five of the six songs are instrumental; the other, "Willie The Pimp", features vocals by special guest Captain Beefheart. It truly is "a movie for your ears".

Hot Rats' genius lies in the way it fuses the compositional sophistication of jazz with rock's down-and-dirty attitude -- there's a real looseness and grit to the three lengthy jams, and a surprising, wry elegance to the three shorter, tightly arranged numbers (particularly the sumptuous 'Peaches en Regalia'). Perhaps the biggest revelation isn't the straightforward presentation, or the intricately shifting instrumental voices in Zappa's arrangements -- it's his own virtuosity on the electric guitar, recorded during extended improvisational workouts for the first time here. His wonderfully scuzzy, distorted tone is an especially good fit on 'Willie the Pimp,' with its greasy blues riffs and guest vocalist Captain Beefheart's Howlin' Wolf theatrics. Hot Rats still sizzles; few albums originating on the rock side of jazz-rock fusion flowed so freely between both sides of the equation, or achieved such unwavering excitement and energy.