music.wikisort.org - Composition

You Are What You Is is a 1981 double album by American musician Frank Zappa. His 34th album, it consists of three musical suites which encompass pop, doo-wop, jazz, hard rock, reggae, soul, blues, new wave and country. The album's lyrics satirize a number of topics, including hippies, socialites, fashion, narcotics use, cultural appropriation, religion, televangelists and the military draft.

You Are What You Is
Studio album by Frank Zappa
Released	September 23, 1981
Recorded	July 18–September 11, 1980
Studio	UMRK (Los Angeles)
Length	69:23
Label	Barking Pumpkin
Producer	Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa chronology
Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (1981) You Are What You Is (1981) Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (1982)
Singles from You Are What You Is
"Harder Than Your Husband" Released: 1981 "You Are What You Is" Released: 1981 "Goblin Girl" Released: 1981

Production

After the release of Joe's Garage, Frank Zappa set up his home studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, and planned to release a triple LP live album called Warts and All. As Warts and All reached completion, Zappa found the project to be "unwieldy" due to its length, and scrapped it, later conceiving Crush All Boxes.[1][2] Crush All Boxes would have been a single LP containing the studio recordings "Doreen", "Fine Girl", "Easy Meat" (a live recording with studio overdubs) and "Goblin Girl" on the first side, with the second side being occupied by a suite consisting of the songs "Society Pages", "I'm A Beautiful Guy", "Beauty Knows No Pain", "Charlie's Enormous Mouth", "Any Downers?" and "Conehead".[2]

During the production of Crush All Boxes, Zappa decided to scrap the album and conceive a set of releases drawing from both Warts and All and Crush All Boxes, which would emphasize different aspects of his multiple talents, formatting the two albums into You Are What You Is, Tinsel Town Rebellion and two series of live albums, Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar and You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore.[2]

Music and lyrics

You Are What You Is was described by uDiscoverMusic writer Jamie Atkins as "a thrilling ride through 20th-century pop music. Doo-wop, jazz, hard rock, reggae, soul, blues, new wave, and country are all negotiated with aplomb over a series of three sharply edited suites, rammed with witty musical phrases, call-backs, and reference points."[3] The album is made up of three suites. The first two suites are single sides of the vinyl edition's first record, while the third suite is spread across both sides of the second record.[3] "Harder than Your Husband" is a country rock song, while Atkins classifies "Doreen" as "power doo-wop".[3] The reggae song "Goblin Girl" includes musical quotations from "Doreen".[3] "Theme From The 3rd Movement Of Sinister Footwear" is a jazz fusion instrumental which took guitarist Steve Vai 1–2 weeks to learn due to its complexity. It closes the album's first suite.[3] "Mudd Club" combines barbershop quartet-style vocals and "malevolent monologues" with a "slow reggae skank".[3]

The album's lyrics satirize a number of topics, including hippies (“Teen-age Wind”), socialites, fashion and narcotics use (the entirety of the suite that takes up side two of the album's vinyl release's first record), cultural appropriation (“You Are What You Is”), religion (“Dumb All Over”), televangelists (“Heavenly Bank Account”) and the military draft (“Drafted Again”).[3]

Release and reception

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2022)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[4]

The title song was the only song of Zappa's career to have a music video.[3] The video contained a sequence in which a man resembling then-President Ronald Reagan was electrocuted in an electric chair. MTV banned the video from airing on its network.[3] In 1981, the album charted at #93 on the Billboard 200.[5] In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Steve Huey wrote that while "'Jumbo Go Away' is perhaps the most offensive song in Zappa's huge canon of potentially offensive songs, [You Are What You Is] is quite ambitious in scope and in general one of Zappa's most accessible later-period efforts; it's a showcase for his songwriting skills and his often acute satirical perspective, with less of the smutty humor that some listeners find off-putting." He gave the album a score of 4 out of 5.[4]

Track listing

Personnel

Musicians

• Frank Zappa – lead guitar, vocals
• Ike Willis – rhythm guitar, vocals
• Ray White – rhythm guitar, vocals
• Bob Harris – boy soprano, trumpet
• Steve Vai – Fender Stratocaster
• Tommy Mars – keyboards
• Arthur Barrow – bass guitar
• Ed Mann – percussion
• David Ocker – clarinet, bass clarinet
• Motorhead Sherwood – tenor saxophone, vocals
• Denny Walley – slide guitar, vocals
• David Logeman – drums
• Craig "Twister" Stewart – harmonica
• Jimmy Carl Black – vocals
• Ahmet Zappa – vocals
• Moon Unit Zappa – vocals
• Mark Pinske – vocals

Production staff

• Frank Zappa – producer
• Mark Pinske – engineer
• Alan Sides – engineer
• Bob Stone – remix engineer
• George Douglas – engineering assistant
• Dvid Gray - engineering assistant
• Amy Bernstein – artwork
• Jo Hansch – mastering
• John Livzey – photography, cover photo
• Thomas Nordegg – Frank's personnel assistant
• Santi Rubio – Studio Secretary
• Dennis Sager – digital engineer
• John Vince – artwork, graphic design

Charts

Album - Billboard (United States)

Year	Chart	Position
1981	Billboard 200	93[5]

References

На других языках

---

[de] You Are What You Is

You Are What You Is (deutsch „Du bist was Du ist“) ist ein Rockalbum von Frank Zappa, das 1981 auf Schallplatte erschien. Das Album wurde zu großen Teilen in Zappas eigenem Studio Utility Muffin Research Kitchen eingespielt und dort auch produziert. Dabei setzte Zappa umfangreich Overdub-Techniken ein. You Are What You Is erschien ursprünglich als Doppelalbum, wobei jede Seite nach Art eines Konzeptalbums einem eigenen Themenbereich gewidmet ist. Die einzelnen Stücke gehen ineinander über und sind teils durch gesprochene Übergänge miteinander verknüpft. Zappa übt deutliche Kritik an der amerikanischen Gesellschaft im Zeitalter der Reagan-Regierung; er parodiert die Anspruchshaltung von Teenagern, die Selbstverliebtheit und Eitelkeit der Yuppies ebenso wie jene älterer Damen der Gesellschaft in kleinen Städten. Auch die Religion als Triebkraft von Krieg und Zerstörung und das Gewinnstreben der Fernsehprediger prangert er an.

---

- [en] You Are What You Is

---

[es] You Are What You Is

You Are What You Is es un álbum del músico y compositor estadounidense Frank Zappa. Se editó como un doble LP en 1981 y posteriormente en formato CD por Rykodisc.

---

---