Sandwiched as it is between Freak Out!, Zappa's 1966 debut with the Mothers of Invention, and We're Only in It for the Money, arguably his artistic zenith, Absolutely Free comes in a distant third--but that's only because the competition is so darn fierce. Absolutely Free is a continuation of the weird freakiness--both in sounds and concepts--introduced on Freak Out! "Plastic People" and "America Drinks & Goes Home" continue the artist's lampooning of Middle American values, while this time out, Zappa also seems obsessed with the fruits and vegetables that "keep you regular" ("The Duke of Prunes," "Call Any Vegetable"). The music here jumps from avant-garde jazz snippets to gritty garage rock to operatic vocals in a manner that was truly innovative at the time; in fact, it often sounded like true musical insanity. The definitive highlight here, however, is "Brown Shoes Don't Make It," a seven-and-a-half minute mini-operetta that initially ridicules America's suburban culture of the era before comically looking at the repressed sexual perversions hiding underneath that same culture. With its 13-year-old "Teenage Queen" ("who's rockin' and rollin' and acting obscene"), the Lolita-like obsession of the brown-shoed gentleman in the title, the track was a precursor to the naughty sexual themes later found in tracks like "Dinah Moe Hum" or the entirety of the Fillmore East, June 1971 album--themes that became Zappa's artistic stock in trade. --Bill Holdship
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