Frank Zappa’s favourite pop stars: “Very melodic and nice”
It’s always interesting to find parallels between Frank Zappa and other musicians. Given that Zappa was such an individual genius, it’s hard to find anybody remotely like him both in the studio and in his live shows. Even when you see some artists who are somewhat similar to Zappa either in the music they made or in their mindset towards music, a lot more differences reveal themselves.
Zappa was a self-confessed pop star. Although his favourite music was varied and focused predominantly on classical stylings, he was also a fan of other pop music climbing the charts at the time. He wasn’t particularly a fan of specific bands and artists but focused more on musical moments.
One band responsible for a number of moments he was a fan of was Steely Dan. “There’s isolate musical events that I’ve enjoyed,” said Zappa, “One thing that’s happening right now that I gave up on was Steely Dan. There’s some songs that they do that I think are really good. I don’t even know the names of them, but they’re very melodic and nice.”
When you look, there are certainly similarities between Frank Zappa and Steely Dan. While many of their songs might be far removed from one another, both bands were always keen on pushing the boundaries the current musical landscape had set for itself. This meant playing around with lyricism, melody, and instrumentation.
However, there were also differences between the two. Zappa recalls meeting the band a few times: “We played with them in Kansas City and on a couple of other jobs, and I think they’re a very nice group,” he said. However, their shared experimental approach to music would have a different impact on their live shows.
While Frank Zappa embraced the quirkiness of some of his music and capitalised on it to deliver an out-there live show that was entirely unique, Steely Dan stopped performing live so that they could put all their experimental creativity into their music. They didn’t have to think about transferring a song from the studio to the stage anymore. They could instead focus predominantly on creating songs that they thought couldn’t be replicated by other bands, allowing them to embrace their creativity.
They weren’t the only pop band that Zappa enjoyed listening to, either. As he said, “Also, I like Neil Young, not the Harvest album so much as ‘After The Gold Rush’. I thought that was great, and there were some things on his new album that I thought were really good.”
While many people wouldn’t necessarily define these artists as pop artists, they were undoubtedly a part of the contemporary scene at the time, which is likely what Zappa was referring to when he assigned genre to Steely Dan and Neil Young. Despite the experimentation within his live shows and studio albums, fundamentals such as melody and accessibility remain important to him, and that manifests in what he likes.
