(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Fri 13 March 2026 0:00, UK
There are a number of artists throughout history who have been given the ‘genius’ tag for having contributed to music in ways that few others are capable of, but one whose status as a genius is more hotly debated than others is Frank Zappa.
There are plenty of reasons why one might fall in love with the work of Zappa, with his virtuosic musicianship being high up on that list. This has frequently helped him gain attention for how he has merged together elements of jazz, classical music, progressive rock and blues in his compositions, and the fact that he was always able to make music this complex and layer it with his own idiosyncratic sense of humour has won him many fans over the decades.
Some of his biggest fans are those who one might also describe as being just as eccentric as he was, and his frequent collaborations with people like Captain Beefheart only go to solidify the idea that he’s well-respected within circles of other madcap musicians.
However, a lot of people simply can’t stand Zappa, whether that’s on a personal level, because of his music, or both. There have been plenty of detractors who believe that his arrogance and holier-than-thou attitude got in the way of his musical genius, and that they were loath to accept him as being an icon because of just how quick he was to dismiss the musical endeavours of his contemporaries.
On top of this, his unwavering commitment to being a goofball in his high-concept works alienated a lot of listeners, who felt as though his constant efforts to inject satire and puerile humour into his work were nothing but a distraction from his musical ability. There’s obviously no rules as to how much one can do this, but for many people, Zappa was constantly overstepping the mark by being as zany as he could be, when it may not have been necessary.
There are quite a lot of people who have criticised him, including those who have collaborated with him in the past, such as John Lennon, but perhaps none more concisely than The Velvet Underground’s Sterling Morrison, whose dislike of Zappa prompted one of the most scathing attacks on his artistry.
Morrison hit out at the moustached madman during an interview with Fusion in 1970, where he explicitly claimed that Zappa’s perception of himself as a genius was far from the truth, and that he was frankly not anywhere near being the genius he thought of himself as. “Zappa is incapable of writing lyrics,” Morrison furiously suggested. “He is shielding his musical deficiencies by proselytising all these sundry groups that he appeals to. He just threw enough dribble into those songs, I don’t know, I don’t like their music.”
He continued, claiming that there were decent elements to his work, but that Zappa’s constant over-complication of his work was nothing but folly. “I like some of the people in the group,” he surmised. “Zappa figures, ‘How many opposites can I weld together? I’ll take this phrase from god knows who, ie Stockhausen – the magic name!’ What is Zappa? I say, ‘Frank, can I hear a song leaving out the garbage cans?’ I think that album Freak Out was such a shock.”
You might think that Morrison comes across as salty and misses the point of Zappa’s brilliance, but you can certainly feel the absolute ire that is bubbling beneath as he vehemently did everything to destroy Zappa’s credibility as an artist. It’s probably safe to assume that, given Zappa’s dislike for Morrison’s bandmate, Lou Reed, the feeling was mutual.