Frank Zappa’s name has been written in history as one of the greatest musicians of all time. His music career span was over 30 years and in those years he always tried or experimented with various music. He was also a self-taught composer and he was the inspiration to many artists including Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, The Beatles, and more.
This self-taught music composer is considered so great that many people even say that he mastered the craft of music. People even said that he could create really unique music because he had the knowledge of all the music rules and he could break the rule to create new and unique sounds.
He was really the musical master however, he also looked out for his fans in live concerts, unlike today’s artists. Once his band The Mothers of Invention was performing at Montreux Casino and a fire broke out. And instead of looking out for himself, he first evacuated his fans.
There is no doubt that Zappa inspired many people back in the day and his music still inspires a lot of people. However, there must be someone Zappa admired or was inspired by right? of course there were various musicians he was inspired by. There were various bands Zappa loved including the Beatles, The Monkees, and more. However, we are here to talk about one of Zappa’s favorite bands The Rolling Stones. Zappa once even mentioned his favorite tracks and albums by the Rolling Stones.
What was Frank Zappa’s favorite Rolling Stones album?
As mentioned the Rolling Stones were one of Zappa’s favorite bands and when Frank was in an interview with the UK publication Let it Rock. He mentioned his favorite albums and there he mentioned one of Rolling Stones’ albums “Between the Buttons.”
Between the Buttons was released in 1967 and it is the fifth studio album of the Rolling Stones. This album’s American version includes iconic tracks like Let’s Spend the Night Together and Ruby Tuesday. Zappa really loved this album because it was unique and there was a psychedelic element to it.
Furthermore, talking about the album Zappa said in the interview, “The American release – I don’t like the English version so much because it contains a totally different set of tunes, I understand that they don’t like the album very much, but I thought that it was an important piece of social comment at the time. I remember seeing Brian Jones very drunk in the Speakeasy one night and telling him I like it and thought it superior to Sergeant Pepper, whereupon he belched discreetly and turned around.”
This album was really popular and it reached rank two on the US Billboard Top LPs chart likewise, it ranked third on the British album charts. Moreover, Rolling Stone magazine also listed this album as one of the five hundred greatest albums of all time.
Similarly, Zappa also mentioned his favorite song by the Rolling Stones. Let’s take a look at what song by the Rolling Stones he mentioned as his favorite.
What was Frank Zappa’s favorite Rolling Stones song?
The Rolling Stone is one of the greatest rock n roll bands of all time. So there is no doubt that they inspired many musicians and it seems that the master of the music craft, Frank Zappa was impressed and loved their work. Above we have already mentioned Zappa’s favorite album by the Rolling Stones. But what is his favorite track or song from the band?
Back in 1980, Zappa went to record a special episode of Star Special, a popular music program on BBC Radio 1. It was a special edition where various music artists were invited to sing their favorite tracks. Zappa then talked about the Rolling Stone’s track “Paint It Black.”
Frank considered the track a masterpiece. He said about the song, “You know what’s really good about that record? Is the way the bass part is there ‘n’ then where he’s going ‘wooom, wooom’ like that, that’s really exhilarating; it’s probably one of the finest things that’s ever happened in British Rock? Don’t you think?”
Paint It Black is a track from Rolling Stone’s studio album Aftermath which was released back in April 1966. It’s a song about a person who is depressed and wants everything to turn black so that he can feel better. It was written by the lead vocalist of Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger. Fans even say that Paint It Black is one of Jagger’s darkest written tracks.
This track also gives a psychedelic touch to it and people believe that Zappa loved the song because of the very reason and even said it a masterpiece. And it certainly is a masterpiece, back in 2018 this track was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Furthermore, three weeks after it was released, it was listed as the number track on the US Billboard Hot 100 and it stayed at the top for two weeks straight. Similarly, this song was listed as number one on the Record Retailer chart. It also sold 300,000 advance copies in just a week after it was released in the UK. Even over forty years later in 2007, this song was listed at number seventy in the UK Singles chart. It does not end there as this track is also listed as one of the greatest songs or tracks of all time.
Paint It Black is also pretty unique and outstanding because of its music. The song has music that seems to have influences from middle eastern and eastern Europe. Well, we can say that the master of the music craft, Frank Zappa praised and considered this track a masterpiece for a reason.
Even now listening to this track we can feel the vibe and go into a different dimension. This track is really good and we can feel it was really ahead of its time. And the one thing we can all agree on is that this song really deserved the praise of the late musical genius Frank Zappa, truly this track is a masterpiece and one of a kind.
