We're Only In It For The Money

I have to apologise to Frank Zappa but I simply don’t get this one, random non-musical noises and vocals throughout. I listened to this on a flight and there was a kid who shat himself screaming like he was being exorcised and I thought it was part of the album. (I wish this was a lie)

Frank Zappa is really sticking it to big Good Music on this one

???????? i much prefer zappa when he.... actually tries to play the guitar and make interesting music. like, this music is experimental and satirical, but to no end. maybe i don't get it? i feel like i do get it, but just don't like it. what a boring bit. satire has evolved so much past this point. this is irony-poisoned nonsense. there are moments where i chuckle, but it's not enough to hold up an album that just doesn't hit the mark.

Aggressively juvenile. I guess once had to be there to get the joke. I wasn't, and I don't

тоже немного психоделичное 60е ее whats the ugliest Party of your body

Let me take a minute to tell you my friend…this was a super interesting album that I’ll probably never listen to again. 😂

I mean for a Zappa album, this is better than many. You know the father of Dwezel and Moon Unit is gonna bring the weird and this one has it in spades. The odd conversational chatter really stood out to me. Overall, it's like art at a museum where you look at it and think Well I wouldn't want it in my house, but I'm glad it exists. Like that.

The fuck is this shit? It's not making any kind of statement, so it doesn't even feel like an art piece. It's just a bunch of stupid unfunny skits and noises that they've released and called an album. It's like the secret track you find at the end of a normal album where they're just messing about with a personal in-joke or two, only, you know, doing that for the whole thing. This is utterly embarrassing and they should all be ashamed of themselves.

It thinks of itself as satire, but it’s just a cynical asshole calling everyone else dumb because it thinks that no one else is as enlightened as them. Squares: dumb. Hippies: dumb. People who enjoy listening to music: dumb.

Maybe when this came out it was earth shattering and cool and trippy. Now it just sucks.

No

I’m quite apprehensive about this album. Having heard only one Frank Zappa album before, I go into this with pretty low hopes. I actually went back to look at my last review for Joe’s Garage, and I’m surprised I rated it as highly as I did, because I thought I didn’t like it. I guess I was wrong and I just have a bad memory. Songs I already knew: none Favourites: Absolutely Free I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that this album was absolutely awful. There is lots of noise that I wouldn’t really consider music, parts where music is played backwards instead, and generally just comes across as really annoying. The only times where I’d find myself saying, “Well, this song is decent at least,” was only because it came after something that made my ears bleed. Taken in isolation, even the better songs on this album are still pretty bad. Don’t listen to this album. Do something better with your time.

Really enjoyed this one. Having heard some of the best and worst of San Fran psychedelia over the course of doing this, it is refreshing to hear true weirdo music that wants to poke fun at the whole scene. Who Needs The Peace Corps, Let's Make the Water Turn Black and What's The Ugliest Part of Your Body are all highlights. The album is packed too - one of those great albums where nothing sticks around longer than absolutely necessary. Hot Rats did nothing for me, I enjoyed Freak Out, but this is a bone fide classic.

Sophomoric, anti-hippy sound collage psych.

"We're Only in It for the Money" is the third studio album from The Mothers of Invention. It is a concept album satirizing left and right-wing politics especially the hippie subculture and The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Why not? The original album cover which is now the album cover but on the initial release was not the album cover parodies that Beatles album including the band dressed in drag. At times, this album is hilarious. As with all Frank Zappa albums that I've heard, there is a lot going on. Voices and noises from everywhere, multiple instruments, time signatures, spoken word songs, telephone conversations, etc. The music is classified as experimental, rock and psychedelic. Hard to classify Frank. This album was the first album in a project called No Commercial Project which included the next two Mothers' albums and a solo instrumental Zappa album. It is included in the National Recording Registry for its "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significance" and "a scathing satire on hippiedom and America's reaction to it." "Are You Hung Up" starts things off with various people talking including a stuttering Eric Clapton. This song rolls into "Who Needs the Peace Corps" which is a satire of the hippie culture. Very funny. Sort of pyschedelic Indian-sounding music. "Absolutely Free" begins with a piano and then goes into a waltz with a harpsichord and various sound effects. Another song criticizing hippies and the Summer of Love. Next is "Flower Punk" and it is just great. It parodies garage rock and is a carnival version of Hendrix's "Hey Joe." The distorted vocals are hilarious sounding like the lead singer was huffing helium throughout. On the second side is "Let's Make the Water Turn Black" probably the song I've heard most from this album. Frank sings like a teenager/kid and it's about two kids he grew up with: how they fart, pop pills, go in the army and make alcohol with raisins turning the water black. On "Lonely Little Girl" you finally hear a Zappa electric guitar. The music and vocals kind of go pyschedelic. Definitely 60's sounding. "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny" ends things with a piano and various noises - musique concrète - recorded sounds modified through audio techniques into a song montage. A very Frank way to finish. This is one of those albums that if you like Frank you'll like it and if you don't you won't. The parody started wearing thin on multiple listened but was initially hilarious. There's always enough going on experimentally with Zappa's music to appreciate a lot.

This album has way too much of what I don't like about Frank Zappa. On paper, he's on the money - brassy, irreverent, stylistically eclectic, freewheelingly creative, larger than life but weirdly relatable. In reality, this may be intended as sharp satire, but it's mostly a hodgepodge of ideas that are hard on the ears. The album lacks any musicality to temper its sharp edges, and the jokes don't land 50+ years later. This just isn't fun to listen to. It doesn't even sound like it was all that fun to make, although knowing what I know about Zappa, I'm sure he was endlessly entertained at least. On behalf of weird kids everywhere though, God bless Frank Zappa. The man was one of a kind. Fave Songs: Nasal Retentive Calliope Music, Mom & Dad, Are You Hung Up?, What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?

Just too big brain and quirky for me. Seems like interesting jazzy music, but then it is nerds doing skits and songs they think are funny. It's not that clever.

We’re Only In It For The Money I looked back on what I wrote for Freak Out! And I think I feel largely the same about this, even if my patience for Frank Zappa has maybe worn a little thinner since then. I get the feeling he resented the hippies becoming a part of mainstream culture, not out of ideology, but because he wanted to be the popular outsider, so he just took the piss instead. On the one hand I like that idea of satirising hippies and ’straights’ pretensions and phoniness equally, but on the other his relentless cynicism is can be a bit tiring, particularly on the first side of this, where that joke is rather one note. That’s not to say it’s not funny in parts though, Who Needs The Peace Corps and Flower Punk are probably the most successful plays on the concept and there are some other great lines and amusing punchlines and images scattered throughout, and his dryly sardonic descriptions of violence I guess were kind of prescient for what happened in the rest of 1968 in the US. I also like the multiple ‘I’m Jimmy Carl Black, the Indian of the Group’ Musically I think it's a bit more interesting than what I can remember of Freak Out, although musical excellence isn’t the point obviously, particularly on the more skit like tracks. There are passable, deliberate approximations of Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, Vaudeville and Acid Rock/Blues bands, and there are some nice musical passages and playing elsewhere; Concentration Moon’s bass and organ are pretty good, and Mom & Dad’s fuggish atmosphere is nicely delivered by the bass, organ and drums, The Idiot Bastard’s Son’s Doors-esque organ is very good and the riff on Lonely Little Girl is great. I suppose the question is what criteria to use to rate this. Of course on a pure musical level there isn’t a great deal of interest, so I guess it comes down to the tolerance/appeal of the surrealism, cynicism, contrariness and iconoclasm, and the ambition and intent to do something different and poke at things. Rather like Freak Out I do like that intention and that someone is out there doing this kind of stuff, and I think that appreciation just about outweighs some of the tiresome aspects. I gave Freak Out a 3 and I’ll give this the same. 🫰🫰🫰 Playlist submission: Who Needs the Peace Corps

i find frank zappa's musical vision compelling enough that i regularly get re-obsessed with his music and check out a few new live records i havent heard yet, the mothers were one of his best bands (not his best tho...ull have to hit up the roxy/one size fits all era for that), and this represents a lot of his best and most memorable material in his Filtering 50s And 60s Pop Melodies Thru His Avant-Garde Stravinsky-Obsessed Hyper-Ironic lens. but its so, so hard to tolerate man...frank here shows a complete and utter unwillingness to do any material analysis of why hippies existed (multiple references and a full song about how their parents failed them, but nothing about vietnam???), and his most cogent criticism is reduced to a sexual assault joke with cartoon voices. the parody angle is frequently musically amusing, because any type of art that asks for a certain amount of buy-in can be easily detached from and made to look silly, and that is just not a style of pastiche that interests me at all anymore (unless you, say, genuinely like 70s art rock as much as ween does on the mollusk). this creates the impression that frank's problem with hippies is just that he finds them annoying and silly, which is fine as an opinion ig but rly weak for supposedly genius satire. a real criticism of hippies might be, for example, that they idolized the abstract ideal of freedom but were still mostly imperial white people whos idea of freedom was often self-centered rather then having any understanding of the shape of global power...but if zappa criticized that, the hypocrisy might be a bit too obvious!

I can appreciate what they were trying to do, but I don't think it works. It's too juvenile to be satirical.

The lowest attention span of anything I've ever heard. Mostly sounded like British campfire songs mixed with noises they made with any random objects they could find around the studio

I get that this album is supposed to be modern satire, but honestly it sounds like a couple of kids from the 60s recording fart noises into an old tape machine.

Erm, I feel like I lack the cultural context to understand the importance of this album. Nothing in here particularly stuck with me such that I would listen to it again. 2/5

Just found this all a bit silly and irritating. Too jaunty!

There are people who are obsessed by Zappa and proclaim him a genius. Whenever I listen to him I feel like I am on the outside of some elaborate joke that is impossible for me to find funny

The parts that were actually music were just ok, the rest was insufferable noise. Not at all for me

Frank is an acquired taste. This album was a little too odd for my liking

Apology for missing the point, that this is satirical and experimental. But it’s just the run out groove turned into a whole album. I Get from reading the background that this is a supposed satire on what was happening at the time. But it just sounds aloof, that they think they are clever, as no one else is as aware and informed as them, but was the joke to take the piss out of anything resembling musical talent by showing none? (They may be talented but to my simple ears I can’t tell from this). Probably would have worked as a sketch on a comedy programme better, because for me as an album it’s awful and just plain shit. Can they actually write songs? Humorous?? lyrics and sound collage to the most basic of song structure that seems to have been knocked up on the spot, damn this is straining the idea of must hear music for me, I want the time back… next.

Een soort satirisch album. Satire werkt een stuk beter als het actueel is. Dit is uit 1968. Afgeven op hippies is al meer dan een halve eeuw niet meer relevant. Wat blijft er dan over? Niet zo heel veel. Schijtlollig puberaal geëmmer over platjes met afwisselend flarden van muziek en een soort anti-muziek. Heliumstemmetjes, willekeurige overgangen, gekraak en gepiep. Hihi hoho kijk naar mij ik ben zo lekker random. Eén van onze liedjes heet 'Hot Poop' hihi hoho. Dan ga ik grappig lullen over de producer terwijl ik stiekem zelf de producer ben hihi hoho raap me op. Er is een kans dat dit stiekem geniaal is, als je er een soort studie bij pakt inclusief bronvermeldingen en referenties, maar daar hebben we nu even geen tijd voor. Ik ben hier echt veel te zuur voor. Tussen de 1 en 2 sterren. Hou het maar op 1.

Don’t imagine they got much money for this.

Man Zappa sure showed those hippies! Unlistenable and unpleasant boomer shite masquerading as lame satire that was apparently cutting-edge and biting 50 years ago.

erm what the sigma

The Mothers of Invention’s We're Only In It For The Money is such a wack show. Its like the JPEGMAFIA of the 60’s, except Peggy makes good music. This is just so unbelievably cluttered. If thats what they were going for, kudos I guess, but it was a horrible listening experience, as I didn’t get anything out of it, and the every other 30 second interlude was just stupid. All in all, We're Only In It For The Money is a horrible. Best Song: Flower Punk Worst Song: Nasal Retentive Calliope Music

Juvenile crap

Uhm, if this is a joke, I don't get it. If it's music, I don't get it either.

Okay this was just actual noise.

So what if my asshole brother revered Frank Zappa, holding his every creation as the pinnacle of music deemed to be good and worthwhile? So what? I fucking hate this shit and I'm way cooler than you, bro.

“I'm completely stoned / I'm hippy and I'm trippy / I'm a gypsy on my own / I'll stay a week and get the crabs and Take a bus back home.” That’s all I can say. It’s like Zappa was attempting to take the most drug fueled parts of the Beatles and wash it down with a speed ball and a bottle of French Absinthe. Van Gogh wasn’t making an artistic statement when chopped of his own ear, he was listening to this album. Pass…

Albums like these are why people hate shit like this or why people give up.

What on God's green earth am I listening to? This is horrible and nonsensical and artistically worthless in my view. It's like a bunch of strung-out ferrets invaded a recording studio and proceeded to muck around with unknown gadgets to make random noise. (Apologies to ferrets, as this is not intended to offend you.) What a waste of my time. Why is this drivel a part of a list like this?

Even as a joke album, We're Only In It For The Money is a pile of hot, steaming garbage. Meandering and obnoxious, the music of the album seems to require the listener to be actively tripping on LSD or Shrooms to understand a single thing that's going on, and I simply have not fried enough of my brain cells to consider these toilet sounds 'music'

I don’t get it but I like it!

Brilliant. Psychedelic whilst also being a damming critique of psychedelia. Musically so creative, lyrically brilliant. One of the best albums I’ve heard since starting this. Individual tracks are good but it’s the play through the whole thing that makes it great.

One of Zappa's best albums and the greatest of the early mothers.

Sorry, I love this.

9/10

If you don't love this you don't know music.

Whoa…. I listened to this album on a treadmill while doing an entire expert sudoku perfectly, taking pride in my concentration. And I imagined Zappa saying I wasn’t listening at all. I’m going to need some time with this.

Certainly a masterpiece from Zappa and the Mothers. Brilliantly satirical, complex, innovative musical experimentation, and of course: controversy and censorship. Not everyone was ready for Zappa's scathing rebuke of both the mainstream and the counterculture of the time.

Fun and Funky

Sehr speziell. Das ist so schräg, dass es schon wieder toll ist. Ein ganzes Album wie „A Day In The Life“.

bem trippy e experimental pra epoca, gosteimas pode ter sido a maconha 5 estralas

I listened to this album so many times in high school and college that, even after not listening to it for at least 10 years, I was able to hum and sing along to every song. Great album. Satirical lyrics aside, Zappa was an excellent musical craftsman. These are really more like musical vignettes, but there's so much here in terms of melody, harmony, and instrumentation, mixing doo-wop with rock and jazz and everything in between. Excellent blast from the past.

The first real conceptual rock album? Biting satire and social commentary? Making fun of hippies (bums - bad karma thing to do)? This album has it all and is an absolute masterpiece. Zappa was a genius

I got into Zappa at the perfect time. The summer before college. I wish I could Eternal Sunshine this album out of my mind so I could hear it again for the first time. Wonder what I would think…

Not For Me™️ The steely dan biography was actually written about mothers of invention

Oh, this one is perfect in every tiny psychedelic detail. Great!

Love that album!

I don't do publicity balling for you anymore The first word in this song is "discorporate, " it means to leave your body Discorporate and come with me Shifting, drifting Cloudless, starless Velvet valleys and a sapphire sea Unbind your mind There is no time to lick your stamps And paste them in Discorporate and we'll begin Flower power sucks Zappa stands alone. This album is very much a response to the time it was created, but it stands up 55 years later. 5/5

zappa is an acquired taste and i have acquired that taste. this album is really smart, really funny, really wild, and genuinely a fun, frenetic listen. zappa pushed the limits on what rock and roll music was, and is. i suspect that most people will not get this album or will find it annoying and weird, which, fair enough. i appreciate zappa's zanyness, his avant-garde flair, and the point he was trying to make about how society handles social issues, which i think still stands true to today.

Loved it! Super creative.

Sick

I always enjoy the disorienting nature of Frank Zappa albums and this one is no exception. This album is mostly a send up of late 1960s hippie culture and (rightly) critiques its superficiality and lack of nuance while wrapping the whole thing up in a delightfully experimental package punctuated by vocal effects, spoken word parts, and sound collages. The effect is overwhelming, funny, and remains relevant today.

Pretty great stuff here. 5 stars.

Groovy

OMG! This was amazing for the moment that I listened. I can’t quite describe it…it elevated my current state to something euphoric and I want to stay here forever..except that I want all my friends and loved ones with me!!!!

This was a totally wild, crazy psychedelic trip that had me excited and delighted throughout!

Iconic.

lets make the water turb balck

Zappa! Experimentation and commentary. Awesome album.

Loved it! I enjoy good avant garde rock music and Frank Zappa is the best at it.

First, the label's inversion of the artwork was and always will be bullshit. This is not just the proper cover but the better cover. And a better indication of what you're about to get. Which is absolute madcap genius and blazing satire. This is my absolute favourite Zappa album, easy. Brilliant takedowns of hippies, right-wingers and the LAPD. There is a lot going on throughout and some of the transitions and oddities will likely drive many folks a bit bonkers, but I think it just makes the whole thing all the more brilliant.

This shit is tight.

Yes boys and girls this album was done without the use of drugs Frank Zappa was an amazing musician and composer. This album should be listened to multiple times to get all the lyrical inside jokes and the complexity of the music To use a late 60’s phrase, this album was a mind blower

I don't know what else there is to say about Zappa...

Wonderful album.

zappa é mor doidão né

Frank Zappa was a genius and every musician top shelf. Best, the attack on hippie culture is ruthlessly hilarious.

I'm convinced Zappa's brain must've naturally produced too much DMT or something. He didn't need to use them to get it. For someone who not only didn't use, but despised psychedelic drugs and its entire culture, he truly made some of the greatest psychedelic music this world has ever seen, and this unique work is absolutely no exception. "What's there to live foooorr"

9/10 always love hearing a Frank Zappa album don’t get me wrong, Sgt. Peppers is one of my favorite albums but it’s so much fun hearing these guys parody it

Yeah, wow.

DUH

I was shocked on how much I liked this strange album

Wowwww this is as a weird ride. I think I need to eat some gummies and truly settle in but I did enjoy it enough. Kept me entertained, good humour with some good music. It’s a 3.5 rounded up to 4 to balance out the dorks who surely will give this a 1. 4 stars for weird

Wonderfully weird

Some of these songs made me double take by the weirdness of it so for that 4/5

Frank Zappa is a hero and a legend. I love it.

As weird as you'd expect

A strong early highlight for Zappa and his Mothers, and the only psychedelic rock classic I can think of that seems to hold the genre in such contempt. There are sneering condemnations of the performativity of hippie culture and the album title is an attack on psych pioneers selling out while the album cover seems to conversely criticise commercially successful artists capitalising on the street cred of the genre at the time, with both approaches diluting its integrity. And at the same time, it’s a funny and freaky collection of weird sounds, feedback, and pitch shifted vocals. It’s a bit front heavy, and not as fully realised or virtuosic as something like Hot Rats or Apostrophe, but it’s a lot of fun

Ik vind dit allemaal best grappig en kwalitatief een stuk beter dan de meeste 'we maken er een potje van'-platen. Volle muzikale vrijheid en lekker veel steken onder water geven naar de maatschappij, naar hippies en naar andere popcultuur (de Beatles afzeiken, joehoe!). Voor mij als luisteraar vraagt het dat ik enigzins moet gaan opletten waar ze het allemaal over hebben. Dat kan natuurlijk nooit de bedoeling zijn. Toch ben ik deze keer mild voor Frank en zijn partners in crime. Dit is toch best origineel en vaardig in elkaar gestoken. Als je ervoor in de stemming bent kun je dit best vaker luisteren.

highlights: who needs the peace corps?, concentration moon, what’s the ugliest part of your body?, absolutely free (jun 10 2024)

A psychedelic freak out by someone who hated drugs. Go figure.

Honestly, this is way more musical than I was led to believe it would be. Sure, it's not radio-friendly, but there's some wonderful musicianship here, the production is great, and it's genuinely goofy and sounds like they're having fun. I laughed multiple times. The least musical parts of this album are comparable to Revolution 9 or some bullshit that Pink Floyd put out and is seen as revolutionary for reasons beyond my understanding. I've tried listening to Beefheart and Zappa a few times over the years and found no entry point. Even when I found one or two songs I thoroughly enjoyed, it still wasn't an entry point into a deeper understanding of their larger catalogs. But this might actually do it for me. I have lots of respect for Zappa, and used to enjoy watching old interviews of him speaking out strongly in defense of free speech, but respect doesn't equate to enjoyment. Now I finally feel like I get some of the hype. That said, I don't expect this to go into my regular rotation. I might put one or two songs on a playlist though. I am genuinely glad I listened to this before I die.

Sans aucun doute mon album préféré de tous les projets de Zappa à date. La musique, bien que souvent étrange, reste très accrocheuse. L'humour et la satire sont ultra bien faits. C'était vraiment un album divertissant. Pas le genre qu'on écouterait à tous les jours, mais vraiment une oeuvre bien faite et consistante. Aucunement monotone. 8/10

Another genius at work

Here’s an album I haven’t heard since I was like … 15… trippy. Very …. Trippy

Frabk showcases the time tested loathing of something you help create. I thunk it's especially funny knowing the Freaks became the boomers we have to deal with today. It's like they fell into a mirror machine and took the criticisms from Zappa too seriously.

One of the great Zappa albums. Its beatle baiting cover apparently impressed the Fab Four. Zappa was always somewhat ahead or apart of his time so this sounds like something from 1979 or 1983 One of the very few artists I’d accept more than one album on such a list.

Interesting

are you hung up- 6 who needs the peace corps- 7 or 8 concentration moon- 6 or 7 mom and dad- 7 or 8 telephone conversation- that sure was a phone call bow tie daddy- 8 harry youre a beast- 7 whats the ugliest part of your body- 7 absolutely free- 7 flower punk- 6 or 7 hot poop- 7 nasal retentive calliope music- 7 or 8. real lets make the water turn black- 7 the idiot bastard son- 6 lonely little girl- 7 take your clothes off when you dance- 8 whats the ugliest part of your body reprise- 7 mother people- 6 or 7 chrome plated megaphone of destiny- honestly this is the funniest way to end this album. 7 👍 good job gang