History YMMV / FrankZappa

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Now has [[EnsembleDarkhorse/FrankZappa its own page]]

* FirstInstallmentWins: His first and third albums, ''Music/FreakOut'' and ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'', are the only ones on the 2003 version of ''Magazine/RollingStone'''s ''500 Greatest Albums Of All Time'', despite being listed as one of the 100 greatest musicians by the same magazine.
** In general, despite many of his subsequent groups being held in high esteem, the Mothers Of Invention remain his most iconic.

** Some of the songs on ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'' are based on the ludicrousness of the idea of cops killing hippies. Two years after the album's release, the Kent State murders happened.

** Bassist Roy Estrada messing around with the inflatable sex doll in ''Film/BabySnakes'' wasn't quite as funny after Estrada was [[http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/22/3754559/former-frank-zappa-bassist-imprisoned.html arrested and convicted for child molestation in 1994 and 2012]]. Which also makes the ShoutOut in "The Illinois Enema Bandit" rather awkward.

** "Trouble Every Day" was written about the rioting in Watts some decades ago, but it sounds like it could've been written within the 2010s or 2020s. Not one word of the song even needs to be changed to be relevant to today's political and racial climate after the killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and many others.
* HilariousInHindsight: In the former category, the line about hippies getting crabs in "Who Needs The Peace Corps?" became even funnier when Joe's Crab Shack released a psychedelic advertisement promoting [[AccidentalInnuendo "Peace, Love and Crabs"]].

** Zappa's work has also become somewhat popular among neo-Reaganist and/or traditionalist conservatives as of TheNewTens, despite Zappa having spent much of the 80's being a vocal critic of Reaganism, traditionalism, and neoliberal conservatism as a whole (to the point where his one and only conventional music video-- "You Are What You Is"-- got banned for depicting Reagan in the electric chair).
* NotSoCrazyAnymore: An almost immediate example: When ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'' came out a lot of people thought he was crazy because of all the references to cops shooting hippies. This was intended to be somewhat over-the-top, but it was a nod to contemporary police brutality and was intended to reflect what could happen if things got worse. Slightly under three years later, they did; the Kent State shootings happened. They were done by National Guardsmen rather than the police, but other than that, it occurred almost exactly as he predicted. The proximity of the events has also led to several cases of [[ArtisticLicenseHistory Artistic License Rock History]] as people have claimed that the songs on the album were ''inspired'' by the Kent State shootings.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: For the 1985 remasters, Frank remixed ''We're Only in It for the Money'' and ''Cruising With Ruben & the Jets'' with '80s production techniques as well as replacing the bass and drums with then members Arthur Barrow and Chad Wackerman, prompting a backlash from long time fans as well the Mothers, most of whom filed lawsuits for unpaid royalties.

** Initially derided for its bawdy humor and held as [[ReplacementScrappy replacement scrappies]], the Flo and Eddie Band has gained a better reputation over the years with fans, if not to the extent of what surrounded it.

** Frank himself. He did receive some critical attention and a loyal cult following, but since his work was such a GenreRoulette from the start, rock fans, jazz fans or classical music fans all had the idea he operated in a different genre then theirs. Thus, they mostly ignored him. Other people were put off by either his intellectualism or the bawdy sex comedy he used in his songs. The latter aspect was also the reason why some people saw him more as a kind of musical clown/novelty artist, like Spike Jones. Since Zappa's death in 1993, his reputation has only grown as the true scope of his work became better-known. His collaborations with classical orchestras, like ''London Symphony Orchestra'', ''The Perfect Stranger'' and ''The Yellow Shark'' have gained him more respect as a classical composer too.

** From just the Mothers, ''Music/FreakOut!'', ''Music/AbsolutelyFree'', ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'', and ''Music/UncleMeat''. Highly innovative for their time, they still remain fresh all these years later.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Long before scandals erupted around Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, Zappa was mocking the hypocrisy of televangelists and religious fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority in songs like "Heavenly Bank Account", one of the first musical artists to do so. Before this, the idea of musicians taking aim at religion was nearly unthinkable. However, decades of mockery and ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' sketches have made the jokes in Zappa's songs seem tame and unimaginative to current-day audiences.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: Frequent, especially on his sound collages.

** "Trouble Every Day" was written about the rioting in Watts some decades ago, but it sounds like it could've been written within the past 3-5 years. Not one word of the song even needs to be changed to be relevant to today's political and racial climate after the killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and many others.

* FaceOfTheBand: Didn't even found the Mothers of Invention, but took over almost instantly.

* TrueArtIsAngsty: Mostly [[AvertedTrope averted]]; he frequently derided this and stuck to comedy. However, played straight with some of his more fervent protest songs, like "Heavenly Bank Account". ''Music/CivilizationPhazeIII'' also has elements of this, as he composed it when he knew he had a terminal illness, and it reflects his impending death.

* FandomRivalry: Obviously with fans of Music/TheBeatles (although as shown above John and Paul liked Zappa despite not sharing it back) considering how ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'' is [[TakeThat a middle finger]] to both the band itself and its "hippiedom" and basically [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids overall philosophy]].

* [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Czechs Love Frank Zappa]]: Besides the fact that he was very influential in the country's underground scene and regarded as a symbol of anti-authoritarianism, Czechoslovakia's first post-Communist president, Václav Havel, was a huge fan of Zappa and wanted to name him government consultant on trade, cultural matters and tourism. The Bush administration, probably still pissed about the PMRC thing, torpedoed the entire idea, and Havel made Zappa a cultural attaché instead.
** Havel was imprisoned due to listening to Zappa albums - this is where the huge Czech love comes from. Also, the Bush administration flat out said that they'd break off relationships if he were to be named so.

* EpicFail: One of his albums, ''Music/JazzFromHell'', almost got censored for having inappropriate lyrics, problem is the entire album was full with {{Instrumentals}}.
** Reportedly, the issue the [[MoralGuardians PMRC]] had with the album was the track title "G-Spot Tornado".
** Truthfully though, the record store that added the label did so only because they knew nothing whatsoever about the album.

* AcceptableTargets: For Zappa, this was basically anyone who conceived their role in life as being ''telling other people how to live'', especially if they failed to live up to the high standards they insisted other people live by, which they invariably did. He was capable of being endlessly amused by relatively mundane things (people's dating habits; wet t-shirt contests; the French, etc.) and would poke fun at them, but the people who really got him irate were those who spent their lives wagging their fingers at people, and then secretly committed the same sins that they liked to condemn. So he thought hippies were funny, because they were so naïve, but considered them basically harmless; but he '''hated''' hypocritical televangelists who ranted about sexual immorality and then had sex with hookers.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: Frank made some of the most bizarre music ever recorded, but his only drugs of choice were caffeine and nicotine. All the more remarkable given he created 53 albums in the span of 20-25 years, on top of touring, managing his record company, verbally bitch-slapping the PMRC, and raising four kids.[[note]]Although he didn't so much raise four kids himself, as earn enough enough money to enable his wife to raise them more or less single-handed, while he was doing other stuff. Zappa's workaholism was notorious; when Moon wanted to ask him if she could make a recording with him, the only way she knew to get his attention was to slip a note under the studio door. (Happy ending: the result was "Valley Girl".)[[/note]]
-->'''from the ''Film/BabySnakes'' film:''' What is that, a joint? No... get that dope fiend device away from me!
** As he points out, a lot of his stuff is so complex that you have to be sober to play it. For an example of what can happen, check out the Music/LondonSymphonyOrchestra's drunk version of "Strictly Genteel."
* WidgetSeries: The Weird Humorous American Thing variety.

** "Stuff Up the Cracks" from ''Music/CruisingWithRubenAndTheJets'' is [[LyricalDissonance a lighthearted number about committing suicide via oven gas]] that nevertheless is kind of sad, especially the anguished cry of "[[PleaseDontLeaveMe Don't leave me]]" prior to the instrumental portion in the cut from ''Greasey Love Songs''.

%%* GeniusBonus: The premise behind the story of ''Music/JoesGarage''.

* BizarroEpisode: ''Music/CruisingWithRubenAndTheJets'', a straightforward doo-wop under the premise of a ficitional Chicano group called Ruben & The Jets. Even for Frank Zappa it sticks out like a sore thumb.

* AcceptableTargets: For Zappa, this was basically anyone who conceived their role in life as being ''telling other people how to live'', especially if they failed to live up to the high standards they insisted other people live by, which they invariably did. He was capable of being endlessly amused by relatively mundane things (people's dating habits; wet t-shirt contests; the French, etc.) and would poke fun at them, but the people who really got him irate were those who spent their lives wagging their fingers at people, and then secretly committed the same sins that they liked to condemn. So he thought hippies were funny, because they were so naïve, but considered them basically harmless; but he '''hated''' hypocritical televangelists who raged about sexual immorality and then had sex with hookers.