Frank Zappa: Sheik Yerbouti (2LP) [ZAPPA]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set is remastered and pressed on 180g vinyl. Sheik Yerbouti sold more than two million copies, more than any other Zappa album, and "Dancin' Fool" picked up a Grammy nomination.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Remastered

About the album

The title is a pun on KC and the Sunshine Band's Shake Your Booty, which tells you roughly where Frank Zappa's head was in 1979. It was the first album on his own Zappa Records, built mostly from 1977 and 1978 concert recordings with plenty of studio overdubs, and engineered in part by a young Joe Chiccarelli.

The band is stacked: Adrian Belew on rhythm guitar, Terry Bozzio on drums, Patrick O'Hearn on bass, Tommy Mars and Peter Wolf on keys and Ed Mann on percussion. "Dancin' Fool" sends up disco so well it became a disco hit, "City of Tiny Lights" turned up on The Old Grey Whistle Test with Bruce Bickford's clay animation, and "Rubber Shirt" lays a Bozzio drum part and an O'Hearn bass part from different performances, in different tempos, on top of each other. Zappa called the trick xenochrony.

Side two links its songs with scraps of studio chatter, and "Yo' Mama" signs off with one of his great guitar solos. Peter Wolf is credited with keyboards, butter and Flora margarine, and we remain none the wiser about the margarine.

Also at Kops: more Frank Zappa on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Zappa Records (cat# ZR 3859-1), a reissue of the 1979 album.