This collection of essays, documented by an international and interdisciplinary array of scholars, represents the first academically focused volume exploring the creative idiolect of Frank Zappa. The publication presents an understanding of the ontological depth of Zappa's legacy by relating the artist and his texts to a range of cultural, social.
This collection of essays, documented by an international and interdisciplinary array of scholars, represents the first academically focused volume exploring the creative idiolect of Frank Zappa. The publication presents an understanding of the ontological depth of Zappa's legacy by relating the artist and his texts to a range of cultural, social, technological and musicological factors. Zappa's interface with religion, horror, death, movies, modernism, satire, freaks, technology, resistance, censorship and the avant-garde are brought together analytically for the first time.
'Editor Paul Carr has assembled an impressive collection of writers for this anthology, and each contributes a fascinating essay on an artist whose vision had seemingly no boundaries... a volume in which it's hard to find a weak spot, each essay offering a unique perspective on a man who apparently eschewed academic discussion of his works and the academy itself... He [Zappa] might have appreciated this work, which doesn't attempt the usual tricks of trying to create or dispel a myth but instead focuses on the character of its subject, the richness of his work, and the beauty of his mind.' PopMatters '... a rigorously academic dissection - with copious footnotes, scrupulous cross-referencing, etc - of Zappa's creative idiolect... a book that punches its intellectual weight with assiduous thoroughness... Frank Zappa And The And provides the most vital and thought-provoking interpretation of the man's output we've yet come across. Illuminating touchstones invoked along the way include Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Dead Of Night, Salvador DalÃ, Aldous Huxley and MR James.' Record Collector Magazine '... the writing is focused, rewarding and [...] entertaining.' The beat ' ... an enjoyable and erudite collection ... an appropriately politically and philosophically layered, integrated but eclectic mosaic on Zappa which should prove a further boon ... to the already thriving subdiscipline of Zappology'. Popular Music
