Cover Of The Week #4

COVER OF THE WEEK

#4 is an early Zappa/Mothers of Invention album, Cruising With Ruben & The Jets, originally released in 1968.

This is Zappa's classic doo wop/1950's type song tribute.Well it's a tribute AND a parody at the same time. To be honest we have to say that the music on this album hasn't aged as well as most of the other Mothers albums of the 60's. The feeling of "cheepnis" may have been Zappa's intention BUT one may also consider that Zappa felt that the guys in the band were not too enthusiastic over the project and that Zappa ended up recording several songs on his own. But this music still has a lot of charm, though.

The cover collage is one of illustrator Cal Schenkel's best, not to mention the back cover which shows the story of Ruben & The Jets along with a high school photo of Frank Zappa:

If interested in this album we recommend you to avoid the 80's remixed version with 80's type bass and drums replacing the original rhythm section. Please notice that the original 1968 mix is not made available on CD. We advice you to go for the ol' vinyl!

Sigurd H.