Absolutely Free

After the groundbreaking double-album, Freak Out, the follow-up Absolutely Free was bound to settle in its shadow. However, it remains one of Frank Zappa's finest, most realized works. The album sides were written to play out as coherent musical statements, despite their adventurous stylistic shifts. While "Call Any Vegetable" is a multi-part exploration and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" forms a seven-and-a-half minute mini rock-opera that expresses Zappa's classical interests in Edgard Varese and Igor Stravinsky, tunes such as "Plastic People" (with its nod to "Louie, Louie" snuck into the whirlwind mix), "The Duke of Prunes" and "Status Back Baby" represent the best of Zappa's freaky pop sensibilities. He can never quite wipe the smirk off his face or effectively hide his contempt for the masses, but it's what made him a cult hero and it's what makes him one of the most honest musicians of any era. Tape edits and studio manipulation further push the sonic envelope, at a time when doing such things was a committed chore and not the simple press of a button exercise it is in the 21st century.