Customer Reviews

One Size Fits All (Ltd Lp Ed)

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This one is my personal nominee for Best Frank Zappa Album Ever.

That's a very subjective evaluation of a career that spanned three decades and included forty-plus releases as of Zappa's untimely death in 1993. But I suspect most FZ fans will know why I make it, even if they disagree.

For one thing, this album's got the guitar solo on 'Inca Roads'. I stand second to none in my admiration for FZ's all-around chops and I love _Shut Up 'n' Play Yer Guitar_. But this is my single favorite (recorded) FZ guitar solo. Lifted from a live performance in Helsinki (and available in a slightly shorter edit on _You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 2_), it's one of his most fluid and melodic ever, and after thirty years it still never fails to grab me. (And notice his subdued, thoughtful use of the so-called 'wah-wah' pedal. He doesn't use it to go 'wah-wah-wah'; he uses it as a tone control.)

For another, it's got a _lot_ of great studio recordings. To my taste, at least, this is where FZ really fulfills the promise of _Hot Rats_.

For another, it's got the Mothers' dream lineup of the mid-1970s: Ruth Underwood, George Duke, Napoleon Murphy Brock, the Fowler brothers, Chester Thompson, and the rest (the same folks who accompanied him on his very best live album, _Roxy & Elsewhere_). Probably every FZ fan has his or her favorite backing band; this is mine.

Finally, there's Cal Schenkel's brilliant and hilarious cover art -- which, in the CD release, is included in a full-sized unfoldable version for you to appreciate in detail.

FZ was a musical genius and an incredibly prolific one; if you're just now being introduced to him, there are lots of places to start. I recommend starting here. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

This is a watershed for Frank Zappa in his unique musical catalog. It's so together on so many levels it became a standard by which I measured all subsequent releases by other artists. Unfortunately, in this day and age of singles (mp3) the art of putting together a work that moves you from beginning to end is becoming less frequent. None the less this album is a one of the best examples of where pure art and commerciality live side by side.

Where to start? Let's look at the packaging first. A big maroon sofa floating in space. A Zappa mythology brought to life for the eyes by the brilliant artist Cal Shenkel. God's sofa. One Size certainly fits all. Hilarious subtle pseudo scientific sketches abound along with continuity clues in the form of astrological hokum. Tremendous detail. Giant ants rip apart Hollywood under a blanket of absurd sounding constellations many of which are subtle references found on a myriad of FZ cds. Inside we have the credits and lyrics written on Fresco in a calligraphic font (refers to the actual vinyl record), almost to indicate a sort of religious reverence of the music contained herein. And it certainly is. This album sealed my fate as a recording artist.

The active mixing of Kerry Mcnabb, the colorful instrumentation, the climaxes, the solos, the absurd clever lyrics, the continued air pressure /segues from one song to the next. It was all here. FZ put all the cards on the table and presented his ideas not as just a composer but in capturing a group effort of amazing musicians. All these pieces are so strong melodically and rhythmically it's a real testament to FZ's genius as a composer. The forms are so clear and memorable it's no wonder it hit the top 40 in 1975. Quite an achievement for such a left field player as FZ. But it's all great music. No sell out. It's excellent hard rock, fusion, comedy and a bit of classical, dancing in the pop world. Like the best of FZ efforts there is something here for everyone. And it's only 42:58 ! Not one minute is wasted.

Highlights: Inca Roads. Not only one of FZ's most beautiful melodies but contains one of his greatest guitar solos interspliced from a live concert in Helsinki. Brilliant. For me, there aren't many rock guitarist who can sustain such an inventive electric solo over 7 minutes. It's so melodic you can practically whistle it verbatim. It's supported by Chester Thompson's tasty funk driven drumming, Ruth Underwood's amazingly precise mallet playing and of course George Duke adding his genius to the keyboards and vocals. The whole whirling flying saucer of a tune crashes into one of FZ's most harmonically complex rock songs where there is a modulation almost every measure. Yet the melody is so concise and memorable it's completely listenable, wrapped around some of FZ's most socially conscious observations about the state of the union. Can't Afford No Shoes indeed. The piece ends with a dashing maniac guitar meltdown that cuts off for a second and strikingly pushes us into classical rock at it's best. It's Sofa No. 1. A stoic little waltz played with panache and intricate precision. It's such a strong piece it reprises itself as the last tune with lyrics that add to the already brilliant bizzareness. Only Zappa. The piece doesn't seque. You have a second to stop conducting and then it's minor blues time. Po-jama People is FZ at his most sarcastic yet he doesn't take himself seriously and you can hear this in the outro chorus where the group is riffing off the basic hook. Catchy number with a superb frenzied FZ solo joined by Duke's piano, Thompson's drums and Tom Fowlers bass. Classic rock Zappa. Next, (which used to be the start of side 2 on vinyl) The awesome "Florentine Pogen". Another Zappa classic. A rhapsodic mini rock symphony with some of the strangest FZ lyrics. The music is incredible here (recorded live no less at TV station KCET) with overdubbed vocals by Nappy Brock, Duke and FZ. Chester Thompson plays a tasty drum solo. After all the bells and whistles we hear: Chester's gorilla - she goes quack...oink...moo...she go Haratche- platche etc...fade... More conceptual continuity for ya ass. What could follow such an odd piece? Where do you go when you spill out so much music? Where? Another multi layered piece? Of course not. FZ surprises us with "Evelyn A Modified Dog". The esoteric tale of one of his pets over a beautiful harpsichord accompaniment. The perfect humorous release after the the intense Florentine. FZ's voice doubled here sounds so commanding you have to listen to it. He ends with "Arf She Said!" Quick edit into "San Berdino", a manly redneck romp with FZ playing twisted slide guitar. Something about it reminds me of the Eagles guitar laden "Life In The Fast Lane" which did not come out until 2 years later! Was this an influence? Captain Beefheart injects his quirky harmonica playing through out and Johnny Guitar Watson does the best outro scouting on a rock record since McCartney's frenzy on "Hey, Jude"! It ends with "Bobby, I'm sorry you have a head like a potato - I really am"... Heh- heh... And then it's an awesome segue that really picks up the pace. FZ takes it up a bunch of notches with this other worldly intro in "Andy". A rhythmic masterpiece with Duke and Brock trading vocal sections. Tense snare drum rhythms against a beautiful melody played on an organ broken into a million pieces by FZ's nebula sounding guitar break. The piece just cooks. It's angry but beautiful. Towards the end we're pumped with a slick drum break down with Johnny Guitar Watson spewing vocal craziness on top and the whole band chimes in and rocks. FZ flies up and down the fret board bringing us to an exhilarating conclusion which sort of just disintegrates with pure joy and laughter. Just as we take a breath of relief so does George Duke who begins: "I Am The Heaven"... "It's Sofa No. 2". This time with words in English and in German. It's a majestic hoot. Such a fitting cap to what went before. The waltz takes us for a three minute ride and then ends with a totally over the top black sounding absurdist line - "Yeah my sofa - Ya -ha -high!"

It's too good. For a young boy of 14 back in 1975 there was no rock album like this. Nothing that could sustain my interest every step of the way for 42 minutes straight. To me it was a mystery how it was done, how it was captured. But it was expected. FZ had, and continually produced some of the most entertaining records of the 20th century. This is one of them. Timeless music. Definitely a keeper in any serious progressive music lover's collection.

One Size Fits All is one of Frank's more "commercial" mid-70s albums along with Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation, and quite possibly my fave Zappa disc. With one of his finest lineups (George Duke on vocals and keys, Chester Thompson on drums, Ruth Underwood on percussion) and Zappa himself in fine form on guitar, this is a great, concise rock/fusion outing.

Like most of Zappa's albums, One Size Fits All embraces several styles--jazzy tracks like the nine-minute Inca Roads (a concert standard) and Andy with crazy time signature changes and difficult vocal melodies (most bands couldn't pull this stuff off with weeks of rehearsal; Zappa and his team make it sound easy); rollicking, funky/bluesy rock in the form of San Berdino (my fave), Can't Afford No Shoes, and Pojama People; a weird little piano ditty (Evelyn A Modified Dog); and the beautiful melodic centerpiece of Sofa (two versions, one with German [?!] vocals courtesy of Frank). Just the right combo of quirk, excellent musicianship, and rocking out. And unlike most of Zappa's other albums, there's not a track that feels extraneous or tossed in to fill up space.

The guitar solo on Inca Roads is perhaps one of Zappa's best on record, and showcases just how refined his technique was. Instead of flashy 300-note-a-minute outbursts that so many would-be "guitar heros" favor, he lays into the track with an effortlessly melodic and flowing showcase that makes excellent use of tone control and guitar effects. It was actually taken from a live performance in Finland, but thanks to Frank's careful knob-twiddling in the studio you'd be hard-pressed to tell.

This covers just about all of Zappa's bases well, and along with Hot Rats makes the ideal listen for a Zappa virgin. Highly reccommended.

hands down, no questions asked, this is the best zappa album. as much as i love waka/jawaka this is just better. it's got almost every aspect of zappa. the only thing he doesn't cover here in doo-wop. the flow of one size fits all is truly spectacular. i cannot even explain in words how perfect this is. buy it if you don't have it. you'd be an idiot not to.

This work from Zappa is surely among his best. If you are searching for 5 records to buy from the man, be sure to put this one in the basket. Maybe with Wazoo, Waka, Hot rats, In NY and, uh, let me think whatever else ... the Helsinky Concert maybe. The line up here is truly stellar, one of the best, most cohesive band the man had in his career (and we all know that Zappa have had always tremendous bands). Each musician is really great, Chester Thompson, Ruth Underwood, Napoleon Murphy Brook, George Duke. Some of the most talented and unusual musicians that ever worked with Zappa. This is the album where you can find Sofà, Florentine Pogen, Inca Roads, Po-jama people (and other great songs but these are the greatest achievements here). Historical, legendary tunes for Zappa. Here Frank reached one of the many perfect zeniths in the fusion of styles he obtained in his career (he had many zeniths in different forms of music in my opinion). This is fusion, art rock, complex electric orchestrated music, in any case very clever and well written music. Some people call this stuff "Jazz-rock". I am always afraid of using the word "Jazz" when the music doesn't exactly swing (this doesn't, apart from a couple of short moments). Jazz doesn't have nothing to do with this music in my opinion, even in its spirit, in its scopes. The fact that this music is complex music doesn't make this Jazz in any way. Jazz is swing, addressing the chords in the improvisation, standards chord progressions, and many other things that absolutly are not in this music. I think that Jazz-rock was a definition created by some non-musicians journalists. People that cannot understand what really Jazz is about. But this consideration doesn't make OSFA a less important record, neither Zappa a less noble musician than pure Jazz players. On the contrary. It is another album from the man that is well over genres categorization. It's Zappa. And I think this is the best compliment in the world for a musician. The fact that he reached the almost impossible goal to create another musical universe (after classical, Jazz and rock!!), one completly of his own ... and he absolutly did it. He even went even well over this goal. He was Zappa my friends. No Punky Meadows! =)))) This record is really one of the most balanced, creative, well written and extravagant record in the Zappa's catalogue. Put it in your Z-basket believe me.

Frank Zappa, one of the greatest guitar players/composers ever, has recorded numerous outstanding records (Joe's Garage, You Are What You Is, Overnite Sensation) and some that are not so good (The Man From Utopia, Thing-Fish). "One Size Fits All" is one of the outstanding ones and is a must have for anyone that appreciates music that isn't mainstream.

"Inca Roads" begins the journey with an infectious jazzy grove and awesome vibe work. The very tight band handles all segues and time changes effortlessly. The guitar solo here is incredible.

"Can't Afford No Shoes" is a straight-ahead bluesy rocker.

"Sofa No. 1" is a stellar mid-tempo instrumental. Love the brief tinkling vibe part!

"Po-Jama People" always puts a smile on my face. I'm not sure if it's the satirical lyric or the phrasing of the melody, but it's another great tune with an awesome guitar solo.

"Florentine Pogen" again shows off the incredible talents of the band.

"Evelyn, A Modified Dog" a one-minute keyboard vocal thingy is quite strange but completely normal for a Zappa record.

"San Ber'dino" is another rocking tune with wonderful backing vocals.

"Andy", my favorite on the album, is a progressive feast. It flows from straight ahead rock to jazzy interludes into very amusing vocal melodies. The drum and bass guitar syncopations are amazing.

"Sofa No. 2" is "Sofa No. 1" with vocals.

For the novice to Zappa this would be a decent start but there are many others that are just as good so explore and enjoy.

This was the first Zappa album I bought as a teenager in 1975 after being turned on to some of the Flo & Eddie (1971) era Mothers. It was my first Zappa purchase and still among my favorite.
I soon after began purchasing every album.
Inca Roads begins the album strong and long, although as a composition doesn't drag the way most lengthy rock songs from the same era did. I cite such "get your butt kicked at a party if you turn the song off" tunes as Green Grass And High Tides Forever and Freebird.
The reason I call this the LAST great Zappa album is because there really aren't any throw-away tracks on it. Many later releases featured an opening track that Zappa perhaps tried to put in to be possibly radio-friendly. This album didn't go for any of that. Just pure musicianship performed by Frank and what many consider his best band, the "Roxy-era Mothers".
Although this sounds like a studio album, Inca Roads and Florentine Pogen were live performances for the KCTV television special in 1974.
The engineering skill that Zappa possessed made the album sound so clean that you wouldn't even know that it was live recording. To attest to the editing skills of Zappa one needs to listen to the ORIGINAL version of Inca Roads (video of the KCTV program) for two reasons:
1. The track, starting with George Duke singing, sounds much better on the album release than in its raw form. Zappa tweeked the knobs to improve George's voice to great result and,
2. The guitar solo from Inca Roads actually was spliced in from the performance of the song from a different concert. That being the Helsinki concert which is released on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 2. The same solo is on both One Size Fits All and the aforementioned Stage, Vol. 2 but, again, a little editing from the master engineer brought the solo a little tighter and a little brighter!
As for Evelyn, A Modified Dog: The song harkens back to the pedal-depressed resonance of the people inside the piano of the Lumpy Gravy album of 1967. A little bit of nostalgia for the old folks.
The original version of Florentine Pogen (live as mentioned earlier) is, unfortunately, edited before the band really takes it away and features a great guitar solo by Frank. You wouldn't miss it only knowing from the CD anyway, but knowing how the band played on makes you wish it were left intact for the album release.
Pojama People features more blistering Zappa guitar work and Andy features some of my favorite drumming on a Zappa album. The shifting time signatures which only his band members could handle with such precision makes it a Zappa classic!
There are many GREAT Zappa albums. This was perhaps the LAST of the greatest.

Every lineup FZ hired was par excellence, and this is no exception. What makes this a standout, is it is probably the smoothest-sounding record he ever made, especially under the name of "The Mothers." The Mothers' music was often crude, tasteless, even harsh-sounding. And even though the personnel changed constantly, the name "Mothers" meant usually a raspberry in the direction of every current convention. The divisive humor is still present on "One Size..." but there is an elegance in this particular record that is rare, even for the Zappa catalogue. "Inca Roads," the opener, is a song about unidentified flying objects, and this sets the mood, because most of this music is not of this world. It is a typical project for the bands Zappa has led, a pretty simple vamp with some odd punctuation, a stunning guitar solo, and some incredibly difficult instrumentation for good measure. "Can't Afford No Shoes" is a straight-foreward rocker, leading into possibly the most elegant melody in Zappa's body of work, the instrumental "Sofa." This number dates back to the "Flo & Eddie" period, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan sing in phonetic German, just like on One Size's closer, "Sofa #2." "Po-Jama People" exploits the voice change Zappa experienced after damaging his larynx in his fall from the stage when that psycho attacked him at the Rainbow Theater in 1971. Banged him up pretty good, but his voice went considerably deeper afterwards, and probably sounds better than he would've otherwise. And of course, the lengthy, fuzz-tone guitar solo, obligatory at this point, is the centerpiece of the song. "Florentine Pogen" is probably the most structurally complex number on this disc. It seems every verse has a different melody and time signature. Most songs have a bridge, but this has several. A difficult number to perform. "Evelyn, A Modified Dog" is a silly number, Frank singing to George Duke's piano, very similar to "Leather's" version of "A Little Green Rosetta." Conceptual Continuity. All his recordings dovetail, it seems.

"San Ber'dino," even though it sounds upbeat, is about Zappa's ten days in jail in 1965. He was facing up to twenty years, on a trumped-up obcenity charge, where a vice detective named Willis set him up in a sting operation. They didn't like the fact that he was living in Studio Z with Jim Sherwood, the buxom Lorraine Belcher, and another white woman who had a black baby, who used to play in the dirt outside. The "seedy" atmosphere of the place, with its psychedelic decorations and freaky people who frequented the place, just didn't jibe with the white-bread "Leave It To Beaver" community. They hired Studio Z to make a racy tape for a supposed bachelor party, and arrested Zappa and Belcher when the tape was handed over. The judge thought the tape was funny, which angered the prosecution, but he was given two years probation and a suspended sentence. This would explain the overt sexual content in much of his work, rubbing the authority's nose in his right to artistic expression. Imagine how he must have felt at the time: "...land of the free? HAH!"

"Andy" is up there with "Sofa," in its elegance and beauty. The bluesy beginning belies the atmosphere of the rest of it. It has an incredible beauty to it. Of course, this is subjective, someone else may disagree about it's merit, but judge for yourself. I'll leave it at that.

And, of course, this all closes with "Sofa#2." Originally part of a bigger, more elaborate piece, fragments of which appear in "Playground Psychotics" and Volume One of the "You Can't Do That..." series from the Flo & Eddie days, as stated earlier. This is the polished version. Even if you can't understand a word of it, it will speak to you.

This is a very elegant, sophisticated piece of music, and the only people I imagine not liking it, would be the ones who catagorically dismiss it, all over the Zappa name. There would be no pleasing them anyway.

This is an incredible piece of music.

creo que entre las genialidades del maestro frank, esta placa debe ser una de las mas increibles, donde alcanza el punto justo donde el rock mas cuadrado y el jazz mas sublime se unen...no hay momento que suene a desperdicio, no hay una nota de mas, la locura esta increiblemente sensata y mas afinada que nunca...para colmo, los musicos que acompañan a zappa no solo siguen al maestro sino que lo superan por momentos! un disco imprescindible para enterder a zappa (habra querido que alguien lo entienda..?)brindo por eso!

then you'll like this. my own case was that i first listened to Ap and OS and then grabbed other albums like we're only in it for the money, hot rats, sheik yerbouti etc, but was disappointed. yeah sure these albums might have funny lyrics, guitar solos, weird music etc but still is not as musically enjoyable as the above two.

but 'one size fits all' is much more accessible and in the vein of Ap and OS.
Likewise with Roxy and Elsewhere.