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AHC: More combined political movements and artistic movements

Frank Zappa is interesting, in that while he was technnically brilliant in the composition of music, he basically had no scholastic foundation for his high functioning abilities, certainly no formal musicology, reading in humanities, etc.

Am I missing something, or is it purely the fact that I'm coming from the classical music tradition (in this case 'trained' rather than simply liking) rather than anything else that means that I just went 'eh it's fine. Not particularly impressive but not bad' to the stuff I was looking at.
 
Zappa as Rand For Hippies... Perhaps some devotees could take Zappaist Thought with them, which leads to this TL's Apple or Google giving its staff psychedelics?

Yes, a version of the Objectivist not-a-cult-ok-it's-a-cult is what I was thinking.

But in my mind, if he was alive and in control, it would have been straight edge, though. He wasn't anti-drugs, but there's a strain there of him always being quietly, personally opposed to the excesses of the counter-culture.

If he's doing the full Ayn Rand peer pressure act, he's making his followers clear their bodies and their minds; I don't see his rhetoric gripping people who want to go down the path of Timothy Leary or any other standard commune lifestyle from the era.

If they are sober ancaps, the potential for them to influence/infiltrate the emerging IT sector is there... Jobs. Maybe Gates. Jobs certainly is a potential very willing mark. Or adversary.

(Not so fun fact: His sometime colleague Captain Beefheart turned his own band into a violent, reclusive mini-cult during the time they were putting together material for their classic art-rock album Trout Mask Replica; when Beefheart brought his beaten, effectively brainwashed crew into the studio to lay down the tracks in '69, Zappa was producer of the record.)

Zappa considered running for president in 1992, though his stomach cancer stopped him from jumping in. His running mate would be Ross Perot, his attorney general would be Alan Dershowitz, and his campaign would prioritize eliminating the federal income tax. Several political strategists expressed interest in joining Zappa and one poll said 86% would be open to supporting his bid for the White House.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...dered-running-for-president-with-h-ross-perot

OMG, the two things that jumped out at me here,

(a.) Frank was one of the first people on the record about how Perot should get into national politics? That deserves to be at least mentioned in major accounts of US political history. This also helps provide context for Cher being a noisy Perot supporter in '92 (very similar base personality type to Zappa I think, ifn a _very_ different career arc post-'66.)

(b.) This article has an MSM outlet (owned by Disney!!) boasting about how accurate its polling was vis-a-vis getting a huge chunk of a survey sample to express interest in backing minor celebrity Zappa, after one single TV interview. Nate Silver would have a stroke at that.

The rest of it basically just indicates to me that, if you take spirituality out of the equation, he maybe would have functioned as an early, tax-obsessed version of Marianne Williamson?
 
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Am I missing something, or is it purely the fact that I'm coming from the classical music tradition (in this case 'trained' rather than simply liking) rather than anything else that means that I just went 'eh it's fine. Not particularly impressive but not bad' to the stuff I was looking at.
He was a college dropout who taught himself to arrange, play and record music across different genres.

You don't like his stuff? If so, I'd be careful who you mention that opinion to online.;)
 
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He was a college dropout who taught himself to arrange, play and record music across different genres.

You don't like his stuff? If so, I'd be careful who you mention that opinion to online.;)

I think this description could be used to cover about half of the entire Jazz community.

It also covers, among others, Hans Zimmer, Schoenberg, Telemann, Elgar, Martinu, Takemitsu, and Danny Elfman, and that's just some of the more notable ones.

I utterly detest Schoenberg's later music, but you can't argue that he basically created an entire new genre from scratch. Zappa just doesn't compare in terms of technical acomplishment.
 
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Zappa just doesn't compare in terms of technical acomplishment.

I have listened to a bit of Zappa over the last year or so, and to be honest as much as I've liked his stuff, particularly the earlier Mothers era, and have agreed with positive, non-culty reviewers he has, there is definitely maybe the case to be made that he's a non-musically-talented (me) person's idea of a very musically talented person. But that's not important to this thread.

What is on-topic is a line of thought of I've had all along, but didn't want to express; he's a stupid person's idea of a smart person. And even today a lot of stupid people are really, really keen to introduce any and all to just how smart Frank Zappa is.

PoD: While Zappa is recovering from being seriously injured during his 1971 European tour, his mind takes an esoteric turn, and he decides to write lyrics for a rock opera that jive a lot like John Galt's speech, man.
 
I have listened to a bit of Zappa over the last year or so, and to be honest as much as I've liked his stuff, particularly the earlier Mothers era, and have agreed with positive, non-culty reviewers he has, there is definitely maybe the case to be made that he's a non-musically-talented (me) person's idea of a very musically talented person. But that's not important to this thread.

What is on-topic is a line of thought of I've had all along, but didn't want to express; he's a stupid person's idea of a smart person. And even today a lot of stupid people are really, really keen to introduce any and all to just how smart Frank Zappa is.

PoD: While Zappa is recovering from being seriously injured during his 1971 European tour, his mind takes an esoteric turn, and he decides to write lyrics for a rock opera that jive a lot like John Galt's speech, man.

Oh yeah, I'd got distracted but it does make him perfect for this.
 
I think D'Annunzio leading a fascist regime could really lean into Futurism. Have something happen to Mussolini and spare D'Annunzio his suspicious accident prior to the March on Rome. You could have a strangely avant-garde regime, though I doubt D'Annunzio would have Mussolini's longevity.
Yeah, it would also probably be more National Syndicalist due to many of the Futurists believing in that. Actually this may sound stupid but if we had a Futurist Italy I could see them paying some lip service for early Stalinist Russia (1926ish to 1930) due to that period being the strong point for the Soviet Futurists/Constructvists.
 
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this thread is just reminding me that in gcse art i was in my dumb shit nationalist phase - and we were studying futurism, the Spanish Civil War etc and I just wanted to draw pictures of flags.

I actually think about that missed opportunity a lot and wish I could go back and properly engage with what was being put in front of me
 
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