YMMV / Sheik Yerbouti

• Broken Base: A big one regarding "Bobby Brown Goes Down". Some fans, mostly heterosexual ones, think it's just hilarious. Then there are other fans, including heterosexual ones, who think it's incredibly offensive towards LGBT people. There's also a sizeable number of LGBT people who think it's so Crosses the Line Twice that it's funny, and that the melody and arrangement are so gorgeous that it's basically a rather twisted Self-Empowerment Anthem.^note From an LGBT perspective, Bobby's story makes sense if you regard him as starting out as a self-hating closeted gay man who ends up as a happy gay BDSM fan. The only dubious note is the line about how Bobby "fucked this dyke by the name of Freddie," but since Bobby at that point is still a misogynist, he could have been using "dyke" simply as an insult.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Despite being controversial enough to get banned in Zappa's native America, "Bobby Brown (Goes Down)" was a massive success in Norway of all places; Zappa was so bewildered and amused by this that he tried hiring an anthropologist to see just what made the single such a hit over there.
• Retroactive Recognition: The album features guitar and vocal contributions from Adrian Belew, a then-unknown musician who would achieve greater recognition a few years later as the longest-running frontman in King Crimson.

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