Thursday 14 January 2016

Frank Zappa Captured Why We Hate TV News

Frank Zappa Captured Why We Hate TV News

Any respectable playlist assembled to memorialize the recent terrible events in San Bernardino and elsewhere would include “Trouble Every Day” from the 1966 Mothers of Invention debut album, “Freak Out.” Written and sung by Frank Zappa (who coincidentally also wrote a song titled “San Ber’dino”), the song’s original inspiration was the 1965 Watts riots, but Zappa’s lyrics resonate just as strongly today, most notably on how media reportage of unfolding events shirks both responsibility and professionalism.

Zappa’s disdain for television was evident throughout his career despite his appearance in a vignette on “The Monkees” in 1967 and hosting “Saturday Night Live” in 1978. Perhaps his most popular derision of television is the song “I Am the Slime” from the 1973 Mothers’ album “Overnight Sensation.” While that song simply catalogued Zappa’s disdain of TV, however, it was the lyrics of “Trouble Every Day” that were prescient.


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Frank Zappa is considered to be one of the most influential rock musicians of the late twentieth century. Between the start of his career in the late fifties and his death in 1993 he recorded and rele..



On September 19, 1985, Frank Zappa testified before the United States Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music organizati..

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