The Composer – Early ‘80s

Zappa’s dreams were finally coming true: his “serious” compositions were now being widely accepted in contemporary music circles. The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) performed some of his music and the Inter Contemporain ensemble of Paris commissioned a piece.

In 1983 he asked Kent Nagano (conductor of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra) to fly with him to London and conduct the LSO. Kent agreed noting that, “not only were they complex, but they were well written compositions.” Zappa’s work soon earned him respect from all of the musicians, even though it was “difficult music for the conductor to count [...] and also exercised little-used upper and lower ranges of instruments that were difficult to play, particularly in such unusual time signatures” [Miles p. 312] Zappa wasn’t pleased at all and called it a disaster. With four and a half days of rehearsal for music, which normally would merit four or five months, it’s safe to say Zappa was being overly harsh and demanding.

However, his “regular” music wasn’t fairing any better. People now often found him to be out of touch with the younger generation and his audiences became constantly smaller. Blaming punks for it all he was provided with new ammunition and so came Tinseltown Rebellion. The album featured more tracks against the women’s liberation movement, now accompanies by songs describing how punks were all insincere, plastic and hypocritical.

1981 welcomed three volumes of Shut Up and Play Your Guitar, which solely featured his best guitar solos from the years he had spent on the road.

In 1982 Zappa bought the Beach Boys’ mobile recording truck and was then able to record all of his live performances and most of the albums that followed used live material which he cut and paste according to his mood and desire. That same year came an unexpected radio hit for Zappa – Valley Girl. Moon had been craving to spend time with her dad and she slipped a note under his studio door proclaiming that she wanted to sing on one of his songs. One night, Zappa took her up on it. He woke her up in the middle of the night and asked her to do a monologue in her famous San Fernando Valley Girl accent. It was a hit with folks who mistakenly thought the song was celebrating Valley Girls and it lead to a line of merchandise including clothing, dolls, cosmetics and more. It even earned them a Grammy nomination!