When Frank Zappa was working on what would become his final
\nalbum (at least that he had control of), one would have thought
\nthat the music contained within would have been angry and
\nenergetic, almost as if Zappa were giving the finger one final time
\nto the cancer that would claim his life in December 1993.<\/p>\n
Instead,
\nCivilization Phaze III<\/i>, a disc meant to be a continuation of
\nthe story of the piano-dwellers first breached on
\nLumpy Gravy<\/i>, sounds tired and resigned to the fate that
\nsadly awaited Zappa.<\/p>\n
It’s long been said that
\nCivilization Phaze III<\/i> was the sequel to
\nLumpy Gravy<\/i>. Okay, let’s follow that line for a minute and
\ncompare the two.
\nLumpy Gravy<\/i>, admittedly, wasn’t the easiest disc to follow
\nat times, but contained snippets of music that one could actually
\nget into as well as some pieces of conversation that kept some
\nlevel of the listener’s interest.
\nCivilization<\/i>, in contrast, takes the leftovers from the 1967
\nsessions and tries to work in on the second half new conversations
\nrecorded in 1991 that were supposed to keep the story moving
\nahead.<\/p>\n
The problem with this is twofold – and, remember, we’re just
\nfocusing on the “piano people” right now. First, one gets the
\nfeeling that Zappa used the best portions of his recordings on
\nLumpy Gravy<\/i>, and the more I listened to the “piano people”
\non the first half of
\nCivilization<\/i>, the more I’m convinced that these snippets
\nshould have stayed in storage. As for adding in new conversations –
\nwell, I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work for me. The participants
\n– including members of Ensemble Modern, who Zappa was working with
\nat the time to produce
\nThe Yellow Shark<\/i> – almost sound embarrassed to be doing
\nthis, as if they’re treading on sacred ground against their
\nwill.<\/p>\n
Musically, Zappa finds himself almost completely alone again
\nwith the Synclavier – and I don’t care how far technology moved
\nahead from 1984 to 1993, or how far it has evolved or will evolve,
\nmusic coming out of a machine sounds
\njust like it’s coming out of a machine<\/i>. The humanity and
\nsoul of the music is completely shot to hell, making it a dead
\ngiveaway that this wasn’t coming out of live musicians. It would
\nhave been fascinating to have heard how Zappa could have made a
\nrock band (had he still been following that career path) and
\norchestra to use on tracks like “Reagan At Bitburg,” “Amnerika” and
\n“N-Lite”.<\/p>\n
The one track that should have been the most lively,
\nregrettably, turns out to be almost akin to the funeral march for
\nZappa. “Beat The Reaper” should have, at least to me, been a full
\ncelebration of life and a final thumbing of Zappa’s nose at his
\nimpending death. Instead, this track is slow, plodding, and not
\nterribly interesting to listen to. That, kids, is a damn shame.<\/p>\n
Granted, it took me over a decade to finally comprehend what
\nLumpy Gravy<\/i> was about and get to the point where I could
\nlisten to it and enjoy it. But we’re talking about 40 minutes’
\nworth of music in that case, all being performed by actual
\nmusicians. Somehow, I highly doubt I’ll ever get to that point when
\ntalking about
\nCivilization Phaze III<\/i>, even in another 20 years. For
\nZappa’s last official disc, this is a big letdown.<\/p>\n
2005 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault.” All rights
\nreserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
\nwritten permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of the
\nZappa Family Trust \/ record label, and is used for informational
\npurposes only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5625],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-38560","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-frank-zappa","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38560"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38560"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}