Line #55 Music/TinseltownRebellion


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/e80428ae86d353e21453ab4d1ef5b69f.JPG]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: ''For the young sophisticate.'']]
3
4	''Tinseltown Rebellion'' is a 1981 [[DistinctDoubleAlbum double]] LiveAlbum by Music/FrankZappa, mostly containing older hits, but also some new material, such as "Fine Girl", "Easy Meat", "For The Young Sophisticate", "Bamboozled By Love" and "The Blue Light". The CD version made it one disc again. The album is further notable for marking the first appearance of guitar virtuoso Music/SteveVai.
5
6	In a case of WhatCouldHaveBeen Zappa was originally planning two albums, "Warts And All", intended as a triple LiveAlbum, and "Crush All Boxes", intended as studio recordings. He eventually found "Warts And All" too long and spread the live tracks over ''Music/YouAreWhatYouIs'' (1981), ''Tinseltown Rebellion'' (1981), ''Music/ShutUpNPlayYerGuitar'' (1981) and later the ''You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore'' (1988-1992) series. "Crush All Boxes" was renamed "Tinseltown Rebellion" and got some more live recordings added to it.
7
8	!!Tracklist
9	!!!LP One
10	[[AC:Side One]]
11	# "Fine Girl" (3:31)
12	# "Easy Meat" (9:19)
13	# "For The Young Sophisticate" (2:48)
14
15	[[AC:Side Two]]
16	# "Love Of My Life" (2:15)
17	# "I Ain't Got No Heart" (1:59)
18	# "Panty Rap" (4:35)
19	# "Tell Me You Love Me" (2:07)
20	# "Now You See It - Now You Don't" (4:54)
21
22	!!!LP Two
23	[[AC:Side Three]]
24	# "Dance Contest" (2:58)
25	# "The Blue Light" (5:27)
26	# "Tinseltown Rebellion" (4:35)
27	# "Pick Me, I'm Clean" (5:07)
28
29	[[AC:Side Four]]
30	# "Bamboozled By Love" (5:46)
31	# "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" (7:14)
32	# "Peaches III" (5:01)
33
34	[-CD reissues are on a single disc.-]
35
36	!!Personnel
37	* Music/FrankZappa: vocals, lead guitar
38	* Arthur Barrow: vocals, bass
39	* Vinnie Colaiuta: drums
40	* Warren Cuccurullo: vocals, rhythm guitar
41	* Bob Harris: high vocals, keyboards, trumpet
42	* David Logeman: drums
43	* Ed Mann: percussion
44	* Tommy Mars: vocals, keyboards
45	* Patrick O'Hearn: bass
46	* Music/SteveVai: vocals, rhythm guitar
47	* Denny Walley: vocals, slide guitar
48	* Ray White: vocals, rhythm guitar
49	* Ike Willis: vocals, rhythm guitar
50	* Peter Wolf: keyboards
51	* Cal Schenkel: album cover design
52
53	!! ''Sophisticated Tropes''
54	* AlliterativeTitle: "'''N'''ow '''Y'''ou '''S'''ee '''I'''t - '''N'''ow '''Y'''ou '''D'''on't".
55	* AntiLoveSong: "Bamboozled By Love", despite its title, is about a man who catches his girlfriend giving oral gratification to another man and murders her as a result:
56	--> ''I ain't the type for beggin' ''
57	--> ''I ain't the type to plead''
58	--> ''If she don't change those evil ways''
59	--> ''I'm gonna make her bleed''
60	--> ''She can scream and she can holler''
61	--> ''Bang her head all along the wall''
62	--> ''If she don't give me what I want''
63	--> ''She ain't gonna have no head at all''
64	--> ''(...) And the reason you have not seen her''
65	--> ''She is underneath the lawn''
66	* AudienceParticipation: "Panty Rap" has Zappa ask the audience for underpants and brasseries and during "Dance Contest" he asks people to get up on stage to dance.
67	* BrokenRecord: "Fine Girl"
68	--> ''We need some more like that''
69	--> ''We really need some more like that''
70	--> ''In this kinda town''
71	* CallBack and ContinuityNod:
72	** "Fine Girl" mentions the girl was "built like a mule with a thong sandal", which ties in with Zappa's conceptual continuity item of footwear. The "thong sandal" is reminscent of the "thong rhine" from "Andy" on ''Music/OneSizeFitsAll'' (1975).
73	** A different live version of "Tell Me You Love Me" first appeared on ''Music/ChungasRevenge'' (1970).
74	** "For The Young Sophisticate" would later appear in a different live version on the posthumous album ''Music/{{Lather}}'' (1996). The song mentions a "bad aroma", which is a throwback to "Dental Hygiene Dilemma" (''Film/TwoHundredMotels'' (1971)), "Dirty Love" (''Music/OverNiteSensation'' (1973)), "Jewish Princess" (''Music/SheikYerbouti'' (1979)), where aroma is also mentioned. The final line "radiate a Butzis aroma" refers to Officer Butzis, a character from ''Music/JoesGarage'' (1979).
75	** "I Ain't Got No Heart" made its debut on ''Music/FreakOut'' (1966).
76	** "Love Of My Life" debuted on ''Music/CruisingWithRubenAndTheJets'' (1968).
77	** During "Panty Rap" Zappa says they won't play "Cheepnis" [[note]] A song originally from ''Music/RoxyAndElsewhere'' [[/note]].
78	** "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" appeared as a studio track on ''Music/AbsolutelyFree (1967)'' and was announced during a concert, but not actually performed on ''Music/BurntWeenySandwich'' (1969).
79	** This album features a "Dance Contest". On ''Music/RoxyAndElsewhere'' (1973) such a contest was heard for the first time on a Zappa album.
80	** "The Blue Light" mentions "brut cologne", mentioned before during "Debra Kadabra" from ''Music/BongoFury'' as "Avon Cologna". During ''Music/ThingFish'' it is referenced as "Galoot Cologne".
81	** "Tinseltown Rebellion" uses the line "Chop up a line now, snort it up now", which Zappa would re-use to open "Cocaine Decisions" on ''Music/TheManFromUtopia'' (1983). The song also mentions "leather groups and plastic groups", referencing the conceptual continuity items leather and plastic.
82	** "Peaches III" is another live version of "Peaches En Regalia", which appeared earlier in different versions on ''Music/HotRats'' (1969) and ''Music/FillmoreEastJune1971'' (1971).
83	* DistinctDoubleAlbum: The original vinyl record was a double album.
84	* {{Doowop}} and DoowopProgression: "Fine Girl" and "Love Of My Life"
85	* FaceOnTheCover: Zappa, as part of a collage is seen in the back of the cover.
86	* GroupieBrigade: "Pick Me I'm Clean", about a groupie trying to be picked out by rock members by saying this line.
87	* HairyGirl: The novel in "For The Young Sophisticate" describes a sophisticated youngster rejecting his girl because "she doesn't shave her underarms". Yet the protagonist of the story doesn't mind if her hair grew "all down the side of my kimono (...) if it did not cause you to trip."
88	* HeteronormativeCrusader: During "Dance Contest" an obviously drunk or a high man in the audience keeps repeating that he is "not queer".
89	* IAmSong: "Pick Me, I'm Clean".
90	* {{Instrumental}}: "Now You See It - Now You Don't" and "Peaches III".
91	* IntercourseWithYou:
92	** "Fine Girl"
93	--> ''Oh yeah, she was a fine girl''
94	--> ''She go up in the mornin' ''
95	--> ''She go down in the evenin', all the way down''
96	** "Easy Meat"
97	--> ''This girl is easy meat''
98	--> ''I seen her on the street''
99	--> ''See-through blouse an' a tiny little dress''
100	--> ''Her manner indiscreet ... I knew she was easy, easy, easy meat''
101	** "Pick Me, I'm Clean", which was a line Zappa once heard a groupie say.
102	* LiveAlbum: All tracks are live.
103	* MisogynySong: "Fine Girl" in which an a woman working in almost slave-like conditions is described as "we need some more like that." "Bamboozled By Love", in which an adulterous woman is killed by her boyfriend. "Easy Meat" where a girl is apparently so easy to get she is compared to "meat".
104	* MundaneMadeAwesome: "For The Young Sophisticate", about a girl crying over a book with a love story about a young sophisticate who falls in love with an "aggressive agitator", but hates her later because she doesn't shave her underarms.
105	* MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting: "The Blue Light"
106	--> ''You go to Shakey's to get that American kind of pizza''
107	--> ''That has the ugly, waxey, fake yellow kind of cheese on the top''
108	* OneWomanSong: "Fine Girl"
109	* {{Pun}}: "The Blue Light"
110	--> ''The future of your language''
111	--> ''Your meat loaf''
112	--> ''Don't let your meat loaf, huh huh huh!''
113	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: "The Blue Light" is basically this.
114	* RecordProducer: Music/FrankZappa.
115	* ShoutOut:
116	** Various photos on the album cover are publicity stills from old Hollywood movies of the 1920s and 1930s. Among the many people we recognize are Warner Oland (Literature/CharlieChan), Creator/LonChaney (''Film/LondonAfterMidnight''), Creator/GretaGarbo and Creator/JohnGilbert and actors from one of Zappa's favorite films ''Film/{{Freaks}}'' (1932).
117	** "The Blue Light" makes puns on the names of ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'': Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Interestingly enough "Muscateer" is a star on the back cover of ''Music/OneSizeFitsAll'' (1975).
118	--> ''Your ethos''
119	--> ''Your pathos''
120	--> ''Your Porthos''
121	--> ''Your Aramis''
122	** "The Blue Light" also mentions Music/{{Donovan}}'s song "Atlantis"
123	--> ''Well, the puddle is rising''
124	--> ''It smells like the ocean''
125	--> ''A body of water to isolate England''
126	--> ''And also Reseda''
127	--> ''The oil in patches''
128	--> ''All over Atlantis, Atlantis''
129	--> ''You remember Atlantis''
130	--> ''Donovan, the guy with the brocade coat''
131	--> ''Used to sing to you about Atlantis''
132	--> ''You loved it, you were so involved then''
133	** "Tinseltown Rebellion" mentions Music/TheDoors lead singer Jim Morrison
134	--> ''The Tinsel Town aficionados''
135	--> ''Come to see and not to hear''
136	--> ''But then again this system works''
137	--> ''As perfect as a dream''
138	--> ''It works for all those record company pricks''
139	--> ''Who come to skim the cream''
140	--> ''From the cesspools of excitement''
141	--> ''Where Jim Morrison once stood''
142	--> ''It's the Tinsel Town Rebellion''
143	--> ''From downtown Hollywood''
144	* SingerNameDrop:
145	** During "For The Young Sophisticate" Zappa mentions Vinnie Colaiuta's first name a couple of times. Vinnie is mentioned again in "Pick Me I'm Clean" and someone named "Peter".
146	** While telling the audience they are collecting underpants Zappa mentions Tommy Mars. Later during the song he also names all the musicians in his band who will perform that night.
147	--> ''Chicago, if you'll recall, was the town in which we received the very famous Voodoo Butter Underpants … heh, heh … the pants that nearly broke Tommy Mars' neck. As soon as he took a whiff of those, his head went back this far, and he was heard to mutter 'Jeezus.' ''
148	* SpokenWordInMusic:
149	** "The Blue Light" is sang in a "Sprechstimme" singing voice, where one combines singing with talking. Zappa would make other songs like his on ''Music/YouAreWhatYouIs'' (1981) and ''Music/TheManFromUtopia'' (1983).
150	** During "Panty Rap" Zappa announces that the audience may hand over underpants and brasseries, for they are making "a quilt of them."
151	* StopAndGo: "Easy Meat" has an interlude in the middle, where someone says "There just not gonna stand for it", whereupon the song changes into a guitar solo.
152	* TakeThat: "Tinsel Town Rebellion" satirizes PunkRock, the record producers who exploit them and the magazines who promote them.
153	--> ''They used to play all kinds of stuff''
154	--> ''And some of it was nice''
155	--> ''Some of it was musical''
156	--> ''But then they took some guy's advice''
157	--> ''To get a record deal, he said''
158	--> ''They would have to be more punk''
159	--> ''Forget their chops and play real dumb''
160	--> ''Or else they would be sunk''
161	--> ''So off they go to S.I.R. to learn some stupid riffs''
162	--> ''And practice all their poses''
163	--> ''In between their powder sniffs''
164	--> ''Chop up a line now, snort it up now''
165	--> ''And when they think they've got it''
166	--> ''They launch a new career''
167	--> ''Who gives a fuck if what they play''
168	--> ''Is somewhat insincere?''
169	** Unflattering references to the media/companies:
170	*** "Easy Meat"
171	---> ''She wanna beat me off with a cover of Magazine/RollingStone''
172	*** "The Blue Light"
173	---> ''You also go to Winchell's Doughnuts'' (...)
174	---> ''(...) Sometimes you'll go to a pizza place''
175	---> ''You go to Shakey's to get that American kind of pizza''
176	---> ''That has the ugly, waxey, fake yellow kind of cheese on the top''
177	---> ''Then you go to Straw Hat Pizza''
178	---> ''To get all those artificial ingredients''
179	---> ''That never belonged on a pizza in the first place''
180	* TitleTrack: "Tinseltown Rebellion"
181	--> ''They're a Tinsel Town Rebellion Band''
182	--> ''From downtown Hollywood''

Context Music / TinseltownRebellion