Absolutely Free – THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION*

Plastic People/The Duke Of Prunes/Amnesia Vivace/The Duke Regains His Chops/Call Any Vegetable/ Invocation & Ritual Dance Of The Young Pumpkin/Soft Sell Conclusion & End Of Side 1/America Drinks/Status Back Baby/Uncle Bernie’s Farm/Sun Of Suzy Creamcheese/Brown Shoes Don’t Make It/America Drinks & Goes Home

Some artists are adored by the public but panned by the critics. Others are indulged by the music pundits but shunned by the punters. Zappa and the Mothers come into the latter category. Their 'humour' and musical approach are likely to be very much an acquired taste for most. (US:41)

"Absolutely Free is an example of 60s social satire. It's probably a lyrically important album for the icons in Zappa's conceptual continuity. The tension between being a 'plastic person' associated with the social machine and 'calling any vegetable' and having a mindless rapport with nature drives the subject material for Absolutely Free. As with a lot of his work with the original Mothers, the satire is particularly dry. There are strong messages, but their dry delivery makes them come off more surreal than humorous, as in the case of The Duke Of Prunes. In other cases, like Uncle Bernie's Farm, the lyrics might even be construed as preachy or aloof."

"This album is where Zappa finally gets to show his personal style, segueing tracks together with blasts of noise and musique concrete, having reprises of songs, crazy vocals, it's all here."

"At first one really loses one's way through this mess - the vegetable suite is so ridiculously clumsy, with stretches of good melody running throughout all of it but often falling apart to reveal 'horrendous' scream feasts and other excesses, until suddenly the totally stupid combination of doo-wop and hysteria gives way to an even more stupid guitar jam. The second 'mess' is even messier, culminating in the multi-part, all-genre-synthesizing Brown Shoes Don't Make It that looks like Frank taking half a dozen doo-wop tunes, ripping them to shreds and gluing some of these shreds to one another in no special order."

"Zappa went a bit overboard here. This album feels very directionless and random, and not in a good way, with too much focus on the nonsensical lyrics and goofing around and not enough on the music. It's not very funny but tries to be often. I don't know whether it's completely dated or just simply too immature and meandering."