We're Only In It For The Money

I'm sure Frank and the gang had a great time making this but I for one didn't enjoy listening to it at all. I'm all for experimentation and weirdness but I'd at least like the music to not be shit. You can have weird stuff in a song or album but an album of weird shit and noises just isn't enjoyable.

Knew this would suck from the cover.

WTF

I’m glad it’s over. I am a big fan of the Beatles, but, admittedly, Sgt. Peppers is pretty low on my list. I give them credit for the “creative” nature of the dubbing and production, but I don’t enjoy the music as well. How could I, then, enjoy a parody of that? Zappa didn’t invent the technique, he simply used it as his personal protest against “the machine”. I liked Hot Rats, but this is hot garbage.

bullshit

All. The. Drug. Frank Zappa is a weird dude.

A Zappa haiku (for Jimi): I am into the idea of Frank Zappa. But I don't like this.

Yeah, not sure who this appeals to, but it ain’t me. The thing with music is that it should sound… well, you know, good. This doesn’t.

Really? They may be a group of creative musicians but for my tastes overly creative. I want music. Lyrics are secondary. This a collage of sounds, very 60's improvisation. Honestly, boring.

Not entertaining

Cannot understand or appreciate this at all. Even as satire, it is very difficult to listen to

This was a wildly uncomfortable listening experience.

An eclectic sound, but nothing memorable ... the esteem that some people hold for TMOI is not deserved.

Once again tried to listen but just can’t get through it

Maybe some good satire in the 60s but this is just some strange stuff. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so their digs on the Beatles must say something. Cool that John Lennon actually joined them onstage at a concert in the 70s. A weird, messy album. Yikes, did these people not have anything better to do!? Chipmunk voices, seriously?! 1.5 stars at best. Maybe more like 1. Shocked this made it on the list. 😬

I thought I had heard some strange albums but this is by far the strangest album I have ever heard. It is so odd that it starts to get disturbing. The lyrics even started touching on some serious topics in a very creepy way. It felt like a window into someone's mind on a bad shroom trip displaying their insecurities and deepest thoughts in a twisted fashion. Im not sure why anyone would want to produce or buy this album. Did I like it? No. Did it do something unique and interesting. Yes. Was it really grating and stressful to listen to at work. 100% 1 star

"We're Only In It For The Money" seems to be the motto of the album. It's an attempt to squeeze some money out of junk.

nok den største "hvad laver den her på listen" endnu. don't get the joke

Interessant at høre virkelig dygtige musikere spille noget virkelig fjollet musik, men der var godt nok langt imellem ting der lød godt sys jeg. Og jeg er med på at det er satire, men tror måske man skulle ha være der? (der = San Francisco, 1967)

I did not enjoy this album at all. Too much random noise with odd dialogue, and the music is all over the place. Not my type of music, and it truly must be an acquired taste. Will definitely not listen to it again. Favorie Song(s): N/A

I wish I could give this zero stars. Nothing but random annoying noises and bad vocals. I'm sure art snobs could call it a masterpiece, but it's dog shit.

En tiedä, kestääkö vitsi. Muusikon kykyjä jengillä on, mutta onko tarpeeksi, kun menee niin kolinaksi - ylilyönti.

I'll never understand Zappa

Grating nonsensical sounds and conversations are interspersed annoyingly throughout, which ruins any musicality of the album. It's a lot worse than the music that it attempts to satire.

Has me seriously considering abandoning this project

Frank je te pisse au cul tu es le pire artiste de l'histoire de la musique.

Ich freue mich schon auf den Tag, wo hier ein Album erscheint und ich denke: Geil! Da habe ich richtig Bock drauf und freue mich, es rauf und runter zu hören. Zuletzt waren es für mich eher Ausflüge, die ich machen musste und gar keinen Bock drauf hatte.. Aktuell bin ich vielleicht zu kritisch und zu wenig offen für Musik, die nicht der aktuellen, stereotypischen Elektro-Pampe entspricht. Ich frage mich aber wirklich, warum manche Alben hier drin sind. Ist es, weil sie anders sind? Ist es, weil es irgendein Detail gibt, was es zuvor nicht gab? Achte ich zu wenig auf die Texte? Bin ich das Problem? Ist es, weil das Albumcover eines der bekanntesten Alben ever parodiert? I don't know. Für mich ist "We're only in it for the money" wie ein Spielball von LSD-Trippenden Menschen, die beim jammen zufällig das Mikro an einen Kassettenrekorder angestöpselt haben. Ist auch mal schön, dass ein Album nicht nach Jahrzehnten nochmal hochglanzpoliert wurde und man die Qualität von früher konserviert. Angenehm ist es trotzdem nicht. Oder meine Boxen sind kaputt.. "Bow Tie Daddy" fand ich zwischendurch mal erfrischend, das hat aber nur 33 Sekunden angehalten. Die Rifffolge (Bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich das Richtige meine) bei "Absolutely Free" hat mir gut gefallen. Und "Nasal Rezeptive Calliope Music" hat mich abgeholt. Eine entspannte Abfolge von harmonischen Klängen, die ich sofort verstanden habe *hust*. Es soll ja auch Horrotrips beim LSD-Konsum geben.. "The Idiot Bastard Son" hat mir noch einigermaßen wenig verschreckt. Ansonsten frage ich mich, was ich hier gerade gemacht habe..

- Ne danke! Rating: 0 / 5

Great satire is also great art. This is neither. This is just a lazy collection of cheap shots taken at easy targets with slipshod production and no care put towards making anything resembling good music.

Noise fest

Sounds like a bunch of people trolling

You'd need drugs to bother with this shit.

This is an accurate representation of insomnia. And why would you want to listen to that?

Wow. So aggravating and annoying. Unlistenable.

Its like if someone let a bunch of hippies of the street and said we've got a ton of money so sure we'll make an album out of whatever you do and the hippies were like yeah okay and just pretended to sing/talk nonsense into a mic and bang on the instruments in the studio fro an hour.

You ever get on the bus and there's some students on there talking loudly because they think everyone should hear how funny their banter is?

Just weird

Did they invent ASMR back in the 60s?

Listening to this is what it must have felt like being on all those drugs for them.

Batshit.

Pass. Not really my scene, man…

So first off, I'm a fan of Zappa and weird music. That said, this was all over the damn place. I enjoyed the music enough to finish the entire album but can't say I'd ever listen to this again. I appreciate the satire of the album but a little more focus would have done wonders for re-play-ability.

Nope

OK Best album cover ever I rarely describe music as awful, but. oof.

Lil too druggy for me

1/10, no, bad, don't listen to this

Not for me. I want to like Frank Zappa but it's all just too random for my liking.

the cynical viewpoint is not interesting because it is so simplistically expressed. The music is interesting in very short bursts but the vocals are aloof and robbed of richness they could have had if they were just straightforward recordings and not sped up. I can't say I will ever actively listen to this again because there is nothing of enduring interest to me. I like humor, criticism and experimentation but I am not interested in this desire to just reactively kick something in a slapped together fashion.

I had a vague idea because my ex is a huge Zappa fan but this is worse than I imagined. Unlistenable. And taking pot shots at an easy target. And personally I don’t think The Beatles were ‘only in it for the money’. Even if they were, so what? They wrote some classics that survive the decades unlike this nonsense. Get the feeling Zappa always thought he was the smartest person in the room, in a condescending way. O stars if that was a thing

Favorite songs: none Interesting to listen to from a historic perspective but the concept album is not my thing.

Nothing better to describe it than straight trash.

This is not for me. Maybe you had to be there?

If you have any questions, listen to 'The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny'.

What in the actual F@#$. I am so confused. Much of the content is on serious subjects but the music is so random and so horrible that I cant take it serious if tried. I only know that if there is "concept album" in the description I need to be worried.

This album was total garbage.

Weird and dissonant

Gets one star only because there is no 0 option

This was hell on my ears. Very tough listen and I hope to never hear another album by these clowns again. I am assuming they'd appreciate being called clowns since they make clown music. Go away with this bullshit. I wish I can score in the negatives.

1 Oh God, it gets worse than Freak Out. The majority of this album is just noise, and when it isn’t, it’s pretty much just Zappa ranting and telling hippies to get off of his lawn. While I would like to at least appreciate the group taking a shot at The Beatles with the album title and cover, is Sgt. Pepper’s really the most exemplary of the group vying for commercial success? If anything, the album was probably a bold jump for the group. I have quite a few criticisms to aim at The Beatles myself, but being overly greedy is probably not one of them - I don’t think they would have broken up the group if that was the case. Just because someone makes their music listenable doesn’t automatically mean they’re a sellout, Zappa. It’s pretty clear that the music here is intentionally made to be unpalatable, so with that in mind, I would say my biggest issue with this album (and Zappa’s work in general) is its cynicism. People seem to think Zappa’s attempts at attacking and satirizing American culture and music has a punk spirit to it, but for me, punk music should stand for something, and this doesn’t stand for anything - it’s just about hating everything, and I think that makes Zappa come off as kind of an asshole. So, bad takes, bad music, what does that leave us with? Oh yeah, a 1.

Wasn't for me.

What's the ugliest part of this album? Some say it's the goofy vocal interpolations. Some say it's the mean-spirited jabs at hippie culture. But I think it's the music. I think it's the music. Sometimes Frank Zappa was too smart for his own good. Don't get me wrong, quite often, this record is a great parody. I only wish some of the jokes about both "phony hippies" and their square counterparts didn't repeat themselves so much. But I guess such a wearisome repetition is part of the dada-inspired endeavor suggested in the album's title. So, OK. You see, kiddies, the cultural war that's currently going on in the US isn't anything new, and if this record has one merit, it's that it documents that sixties version of it. Also appreciated the jabs at the music industry, by the way. The line between blatant cynicism and shrewd opportunism has never been all that clear when it comes to Zappa's ethos, so maybe one shouldn't take those jabs at face value. That's still an interesting ambiguity here, one among many others. If you add all those ambiguities up, Zappa's lyrical program might even remind you of a Thomas Pynchon novel, where the author mindfucks with you on one page only to give in to slapstick comedy on another--both acts being actually part of the same program, of course. All of this is fine and well, but the problem is that if the music in this LP was as interesting as its concept, I would *really* have my fun. Newflash: apart from a couple of moments on the second side, the music in *We"re Only In It For The Money* is dull and ridiculous. Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous *on purpose*. Doesn't change the fact that it's dull. Of course, a record bearing such a provocative name needs to have "stupid" music in it. But did it need to be stupid *to such an extent*? What works so well in *Freak Out* or *Hot Rats* is that most of the compositions in them are great. Only later, when you finish counting all the layers of irony--slyly sprinkled at first, then bellowed through a bullhorn at the end--that's when you finally understand where Zappa is really coming from. This is how you execute a dada concept well in my book. By giving to your audience different ways to look at it. And incidentally, it's also how you can make your work go through the years better. I mean, who really cares about the structural hypocrisy of American flower power today, apart from us music geeks and historians? That's right, nobody. So in comparison to other Zappa records that I know of and can appreciate, I think *We"re Only In It For The Money* ultimately falls victim of its own titular program. The album is an important one in terms of "concept", sure. But it's mostly an excruciating listen. And jeeze louise, Zappa can call me "square" from his grave all he wants, god rest his soul, I'm still taking that album business seriously. At least seriously enough to call the man's bluff. For all intents and purpose, *We"re Only In It For The Money* is a dud. At the end of the day, a self-conscious dud is still a dud no matter what. 1/5 for the purposes of this list, translating to a 6/10 grade for more general purpose, mostly for "historical" importance (5+1). Number of albums left to review: 425 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 264 Albums from the list might* include in mine later on: 141 Albums from the list I won't include in mine (many others are more essential to me): 175 (including this one)

It's not good. It was short but even then it was too long. It was really eccentric. Go ahead skip it.

This is what happens when (-surprise!) your commune wants to start a band and you're force to sing or move out. I had this happen to me once in 'Frisco. We had this head honcho, we'll call him "Dave" he was in charge of growing all the food in the backyard, but he really wanted to play music and thought himself quite the comedian. Truth is, everyone hated "Dave", but he grew the best eggplant. Anyhow, Dave and his jokes, that only he laughed at, and his overinflated eggplant decided the commune should start a band. And, this band would be dedicated to making silly songs and being as 'far out' as possible. That's about the time that I decided to head to another commune across the street where they just ate mushrooms, smoked a ton of weed and had group sex all day. But, that's a different eggplant story.

This feels like music that was meant to be listened to while high, but if I got stoned and listened to this it would give me a massive panic attack so I’m not really sure who this is for.

Cheesy. I don’t do the drugs required to enjoy this.

like nails on a chalkboard

Previously rated Hot Rats as 4 stars. Also own a copy of WOIFTM on cd, but had not listened to it for at least 20 years or so. In my memory: a 3-star perhaps 4-star album on a good day. 2023 view: Anti-hippie and right-wing mockery is fine of course. However, the typical Frank Zappa way in which this is done makes the whole album (not only the final "song") almost completely unlistenable and highly annoying, despite some catchy tune here and there. It is just not funny at all in contrast to the Real FZ autobiography, which is a great read! So: 1 star (2/10) despite its historical value.

Apart from some suggestions of melodies (e.g., Flower punk) this is completely unlistenable.

Ik dacht dat ik dit wel leuk zou gaan vinden na de beschrijving gelezen te hebben. Maar dit is gewoon een bende van een album. Ik weet niet wat voor drugs je op moet hebben hiervoor, maar ik zal wel op het verkeerde gezeten hebben.

Too weird for me. Frank Zappa is very strange

Highlights: Mother People Leave Em's: Nasal Retentive Calliope Music, Harry, You're A Beast, The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny Overall Thoughts: I do not comprehend what I listened to in this album. This is one of the strangest things I've ever heard. Everything from the song titles to the rip off of the Beatles album cover conveys such a crazy vibe. I didn't like hardly any of it and the stuff that was reminiscent of music was quickly cut into by either abrasive sounds, or off the cuff lyrics. This feels like a satirical album, however most satirical music that I have heard in the past has been some fun to listen to, this was not. Score Breakdown: 1.627 & 1 -> 1.314

not a fan

This record is a time machine. 40 minutes feels like two hours. And it's a long two hours. This sucks.

Isso me pareceu como completamente datado. Esperava que tivesse efeito ma minha mente, só senti que precisava de algum aditivo para entrar na onda do disco.

Shit

Actually questioning my own taste in music as I read all these 4 and 5 star reviews.

TRACKS: Are You Hung Up? [1] Who Needs The Peace Corps? [3] Concentration Moon [2] Mom & Dad [3] Telephone Conversation [1] Bow Tie Daddy [2] Harry, You’re A Best [1] What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? [3] Absolutely Free [2 Flower Punk [1] Hot Poop [1] Nasal Retentive Calliope Music [1] Let’s Make The Water Turn Black [2] The Idiot Bastard Son [1] Lonely Little Girl [2.5] Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance [2] What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? – Reprise [3] Mother People [3] The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny [1]

Interesting and satirically relevant to its time as it may be, it's not something I can casually experience, so it's difficult to truly enjoy. I've heard it, so it met its purpose on the list. Don't think I'd ever chose to go back to it.

Hard to listen to, and not enjoyable. Novelty songs about all of the people they don’t like.

3/10

Perhaps funny in the 60’s. Not today though.

Mmh

Sucesión de canciones extrañas sin ningún tipo de orden ni filosofía. No sé por qué está este disco metido en este ranking. Lo definiría como pop-rock psicodélico

I honestly have no idea what the fuck to do with Zappa's work. There is a lens that you need to view his work through and boy I don't got it. This is satyrical, absurd, and a real chore to listen to.

Album blague. Haha. Critique des Beatles et des bricolages sonores chiants expérimentaux. Sauf que résultat l'album est rempli de bricolages sonores expérimentaux idiots qui dénoncent les bricolages sonores des autres. Haha. Résultat c'est répétitif et chiant, le côté subversif s'est perdu dans le temps aujourd'hui que les Beatles sont toujours aussi écoutés et que Franck Zappa est plutôt oublié. Quelques chansons qui copient la veine pop des Beatles sont ecoutables, mais toujours bien en dessous des originaux. Seules quelques paroles sauvent l'ensemble. A la limite "the ugliest part of your body". Donc un grand bof bof qui a du être drôle et polémique la semaine de sa sortie, mais difficilement supportable aujourd'hui.

Expletives warning... "Hot Poop"? More like hot fucking garbage. Jesus fucking Christ whenever I see something Zappa related I swear a part of me dies and falls off. I have nothing positive to say about this shite. Total dogshit.

Very weird musical experience and lyrics

Wow was this irritating.

What... was this album?

Utter rubbish. If this was experimental, then I'm glad. So we can mark this down as a failure and move on.

There are several things I think of as I get through my second listening of this album. Firstly, I've never been a fan of Frank Zappa. That hasn't changed here, and also doesn't help when it comes to unpacking this album as a whole. Secondly, the fact that it comes as a parody, utilises a parody of The Beatles album cover, and was recorded in 1968 leads me to believe that to truly appreciate its quirkiness, I need to be stoned or on LSD or both. Thirdly, I'm certain the lyrics are clever and cutting, but given it was recorded over 50 years ago leads me to believe it has... dated somewhat in that arena. In the long run, it is the first point that I think weighs so heavily on my own rating of this album. It's hard to get past an artist that you don't really have a connection with to try and get the most out of an album. "Absolutely Free" appears the closest to a song that I could accept. The rest is rather average in my opinion.

Yeah, it's a no for me.

This has been such a tough one to get through. I don't know if they were aiming for being funny, but I personally cannot find enjoyment in this at all. 1.25/10

not for me ta.

There are only a couple of tracks here that can generously be called songs. It's mostly enlightened centrist anti-zeitgeist horseshit. Best track: Let's Make the Water Turn Black

Dit gaat echt weer veel te ver, hoor!

Hier kan ik echt werkelijk 10x niks mee

De mensen die vinden dat dit een baanbrekend album zou zijn moeten zich laten nakijken.

Dirge.

This was horrible. I really like some Zappa, but the chipmunk singing...

Just.....no. A lot of noise.

Nah

I've heard about Frank Zappa for a long time and wondered what the best entry point is for his music. This wasn't it for me. Impish and experimental, the album makes fun of 60's culture and music. I'm sure this felt radical at the time but it feels like a relic now. There aren't enough standout moments to elevate it beyond being a curiosity of the era. "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" was my favorite. Absurd and goofy and parodies 60's R&B very well, but it's real goal is to shake you out of your mundane existence and tell you that your life is a lie. I think that's the goal of the whole album but this was the only time that message really clicked and worked for me.

The whole album is obviously a commentary on some world/societal topics. Lots of lyrics about abuse from cops- I'm up to track 4 and I think I've heard a lyric about that in 3 songs so far. There's this thing that pervades in Frank Zappa projects that just sort of annoys me... so much of his music comes across as weirdly pompous, even though his whole shtick is that he makes experimental music and fights conventionality (which is usually attractive to me). I don't fully understand why I feel this way, and to be honest I've probably only heard maybe like a third of his released material across all of his projects so maybe I'm not well versed enough to give it an objective critique. I feel this in this release too. There's just these overwhelming concepts that I feel like are just being screamed at me from Zappa / the band. "THIS IS ART." "LISTEN TO OUR ART AND FEEL SOMETHING." "OUR ALBUM COVER IS LIKE SGT. PEPPERS." "LOOK AT ME IN A DRESS ON THE ALBUM COVER." Maybe it's because I'm in a great mood and I don't feel like ingesting art that is critiquing everything, but in the simplest form of experiencing music, this just isn't enjoyable for me to listen to. There's a lyric on track 7, "Harry, You're a Beast": "You paint your head Your mind is dead You don't even know what I just said That's you, American womanhood" [then burping pig sounds, cacophonous chimes] "You're phony on top, you're phony underneath You lay in bed & grit your teeth" I just, I dunno man. Maybe if the music here was some amazing melody or some really incredibly written hook or something I would enjoy this part, but I can't help but think "who hurt you?". I do understand the idea that this was experimental at the time, and also could be seen as a form of "punk" music in a rebellious sense and without typical punk timbres like distorted guitars, fast drums, and aggressive vocals. It's outsider (ish)! It's the artists saying "we are seeing things in the world that we don't like and we are using our music as a vehicle to express these feelings" and I respect and appreciate that. It's interesting to me that an overarching theme in this listening project is the listener's context in experiencing the music. On a different day, maybe I would be enjoying this more- even now, I'm listening to track 9, "Absolutely Free", and it is cool sounding. It has meter changes, interesting melodies, instrumentation at times that isn't what I would expect for the 1960's (like the ending 20 seconds of music). But I guess that's just part of the experience and listener context is inherent, ubiquitous, and unavoidable. I read that Jimi Hendrix on the album cover (far right) is actually him in person. I just gotta give it a 1/5.

Not my cup of tea.

Just noise. Couldn’t wait for it to finish.

Not good.

Прослушано! Откровенная Мура, вообще не понял набор звуков.

Listening to this made me irrationally angry

Maybe it was funny at the time, but humour has moved on since the late '60s. To be any good, comedy albums need to be both really funny and musically excellent. This is neither. Rating: 1.5/5 Playlist track: What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? Date listened: 10/11/22

I don’t get its

This album proves, rather conclusively, that a recording of a bunch of guys talking amongst themselves as they fool around does not make for great music.

Not really my vibe

It’s a big NO from me Just not the genre of music that appeals to me, having listened to it I wouldn’t do so again

Surely there was another album that could've squeezed into the 1001 list over this bullshit. Horrid late 60s nonsense. Gotta be one of the worst albums on this list. 1/10.

Really stupid and somewhat annoying. The more album sits with me the more I wanted to buy a vinyl of it just destroy it

style of music is unique.

what? what did i listen to? i’m not entirely sure this is art or even music. the reoccurring whispering was awful and grating to my ears. it was plain weird and not in the charming way. there was a nice piano solo, but uh. that’s all. i respect frank zappa a lot both personally and professionally, but this was one of the worst albums on this list. i just have so many questions for zappa. i’ll never get them answered. but thank goodness he moved away from the kazoo in this album. i can say the personnel notes were the most amusing i have ever seen.

This is more tolerable than the other Mothers of Invention album on this project. But just barely. I can at least see what the intended purpose was: to parody The Beatles and the hippie movement. This album's scope was much more specific and carried a message encouraging people to rebel against binary social and political thinking. This made it a little further from drivel and closer to making an important statement. But still. I didn't like it.

My god it's random, but not in a good way.

My thoughts on finishing this album were something along the lines of: What just happened? I feel like my brain is leaking out of my ears. Did people get paid actual money to do this? I only listened to the first 15-20 seconds of most tracks because that's all I could take. Not even "so bad it's good."

I kept thinking over and over again: “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

I do like myself an ADHD trip from time to time. I mean, I listen to Fantomas and They Might Be Giants -- by choice. But the individual fleeting components have to be good. This is maybe 10% good and none of the good bits get to stick around for long before they move on to the next whatever.

This is another one of those albums where it helps to be stoned to truly love it. I'm gonna need to take a whole lotta more of whatever they took.