![\"Frank](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Frank-Zappa-Musician-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Fri 13 March 2026 0:00, UK <\/p>\n
There are a number of artists throughout history who have been given the \u2018genius\u2019 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> only go to solidify the idea that he\u2019s well-respected within circles of other madcap musicians.<\/p>\n However, a lot of people simply can\u2019t stand Zappa, whether that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, but perhaps none more concisely than The Velvet Underground\u2019s Sterling Morrison, whose dislike of Zappa prompted one of the most scathing attacks on his artistry.<\/p>\n Morrison hit out at the moustached madman during an interview with Fusion in 1970, where he explicitly claimed that Zappa\u2019s 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. \u201cZappa is incapable of writing lyrics,\u201d Morrison furiously suggested. \u201cHe 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\u2019t know, I don\u2019t like their music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He continued, claiming that there were decent elements to his work, but that Zappa\u2019s constant over-complication of his work was nothing but folly. \u201cI like some of the people in the group,\u201d he surmised. \u201cZappa figures, \u2018How many opposites can I weld together? I\u2019ll take this phrase from god knows who, ie Stockhausen \u2013 the magic name!\u2019 What is Zappa? I say, \u2018Frank, can I hear a song leaving out the garbage cans?\u2019 I think that album Freak Out was such a shock.\u201d<\/p>\n You might think that Morrison comes across as salty and misses the point of Zappa\u2019s brilliance, but you can certainly feel the absolute ire that is bubbling beneath as he vehemently did everything to destroy Zappa\u2019s credibility as an artist. It\u2019s probably safe to assume that, given Zappa\u2019s dislike for Morrison\u2019s bandmate,\u00a0Lou Reed<\/a>, the feeling was mutual.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Fri 13 March 2026 0:00, UK There are a number of artists throughout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,64401,216,234945,188906],"class_list":["post-520473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-frank-zappa","tag-music","tag-sterling-morrison","tag-the-velvet-underground"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}