Why was he so threatened by The Beatles?

what's with all the Zappa threads lately

WHATS THE UGLIEST

PAAAART OF YOUR BOOOODY?

It was more commercialism in general he was attacking there, perhaps he saw Sgt. Peppers as a symbol of mainstream hippy culture.

Just like today if you are a musician who takes risks and see a much more watered down version of you getting all the credit, you'd be pissed

he probably hates the fact that while he was arguably more skilled as a musician, he is much less successful

Bitter loser who thinks he should be above the Beatles when he doesn't deserve that at all.

Look at We're Only In It For The Money. It's doo-wop/psych rock with various vocal/mouth sounds clipped/edited to make musique concrete sounds and a small orchestra to back some tracks. Interesting, but far from being that ground breaking.

Sgt Peppers on the other hand STILL holds up in its recording process. They filled up their at the time new 16 track recorders, took a bunch of 16 track recordings and put those together into a new 16 track recording. Signal processing style production was done in a way that's still used by the overwhelming majority of artists today. The orchestra they worked with was far larger. There are far more other unconventional techniques on it in general.

Even back then it was immediately obvious that outside the initial shock value, Zappa didn't offer as much depth as the Beatles did.

>>69868728
>They filled up their at the time new 16 track recorders, took a bunch of 16 track recordings and put those together into a new 16 track recording. Signal processing style production was done in a way that's still used by the overwhelming majority of artists today.

What the fuck are you talking about? The entirety of this album was made with 4 tracks. 8 tracks were the hot new thing at this time in America but not the UK, so the Beatles didn't touch that until, iirc, the White Album.

>>69869796
nah u trippin

>>69868728
Also I will concede that Zappa was overlooking some of the great aspects of Sgt. Pepper's in terms of its recording quality, stylistic variation, and chord progressions, but he was clearly taking aim at the hippie culture and Sgt. Pepper's was the album that basically all hippies centered themselves around. Kind of a misfire, I'd say, since the Beatles were truly NOT in it for the money, but it's not like he takes aim at the Beatles specifically. He mostly just shits on hippies and hippie culture. I also think you're kind of underselling WOIIFTM but to each his/her own.

>>69869796
My bad. It was made by using the 4 track, but the same technique was used with that though of composite tracking to give a more complex sense of layering.

>>69869842
What I really don't get is why target Sgt Peppers when not only were they not in it for the money, but also not the big hippie anthem either. It's far from the hippie very psychedelic record. Not like The Doors or Are You Experienced.

>>69870067
He was mostly parodying a popular album cover, and to be honest Sgt. Pepper is a very inconic cover and I am very surprised more parodies exists of it.

He was actually in good terms with the beatles at the time and asked for permission to parody their artwork. They said go ahead, but capital records said no and it couldn't happen.

>>69870067
>but the same technique was used with that though of composite tracking to give a more complex sense of layering.

I mean, that wasn't a brand new idea or anything. They just had a great sounding result cuz EMI's 4 track recorders were super high quality and minimized noise produced from the process so their recordings sounded more clean than others. It was a great execution of an existing idea, but less out of them being talented musicians or smart studio guys and more just out of having the newest and highest quality tech available (plus George Martin).

>What I really don't get is why target Sgt Peppers when not only were they not in it for the money, but also not the big hippie anthem either. It's far from the hippie very psychedelic record. Not like The Doors or Are You Experienced.

It's just what the hippies liked, and embodied the "image" of hippies and the summer of love.

the Beatles were naturally talented (specifically Paul McCartney)

Zappa was definition of tryhard, learning to write notes on paper but he had no idea what it would sound like

he just tried really really fucking hard to make music, P-Mac and co could just shit it out

and the Beatles music is actually great, effortlessly great

talent

>>69870451
Zappa composed a film score in high school, duder.

He knew what he was doing a hell of a lot more than the Beatles did. They were just good on accident; knew little to no theory, couldn't read or write sheet music, didn't really study composers like Zappa did. They were just naturally talented, smart guys. Nothing wrong with either, but calling Zappa talentless is a meme and a half.

THE FACT THAT

>>69870226
>I mean, that wasn't a brand new idea or anything.
Martin split the orchestra rather than have them all go at once through composite tracking to get a better sound. They didn't have the highest quality tech, that goes to Motown guys who had already moved onto 8 tracks by then.

>(plus George Martin)
That's a HUGE plus right there though. Yeah sure many things that people normally attribute to Beatles innovating they actually didn't, but what they did innovate usually was executed by this guy. He's probably the one producer/engineer who really started increasing the role of producers/engineers big time into how the final product really sounds by essentially being a guy who makes collages out of the work of various other people (whether its the songwriting of Lennon-McCartney or a large orchestra).

>embodied the "image" of hippies and the summer of love
True it did come out practically around the beginning of summer of love. Guess it just feels weird considering Beatles weren't exactly doing live shows so you don't see their names attached to hippies as much as the Dead or Hendrix or Doors.

>>69867736
That's better than Sgt. Peppers tho

>>69867736
If you think this was Zappa feeling threatened you know nothing about him. This would be the equivalent of a modern talented musician / rapper making a satirical cover of something like To Pimp A Butterfly not because they're threatened by Kendrick Lamar, but because it's a major album of the time and so it is representative of something that they want to make fun of.

Zappa made fun of literally everything. White people, black people, straights and gays, good musicians, shitty musicians, himself, every form of subculture. Of course he was going to rip on what was the biggest band / most hyped album of the time.

Also, imagine if /mu/ existed in 67. Sgt Pepper's would get shitposted into oblivion and become too big a meme to contain.

I've read a lot of Zappa interviews, tl;dr...

>he hated beatlemania, thought they were "commercial" and "plastic" (he preferred the 'stones)
>he was butthurt about the legal trouble with the album cover and the problems with john/yoko collaboration in the '70s
>he actually liked a couple of their songs and didn't hate the band itself