Customer Reviews

Overnite Sensation (Ltd Lp Ed)

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Over-nite Sensation" was a blatant tongue-in-cheek title for this recording because Frank Zappa knew that was exactly what this recording would become in his catalogue: an overnight sensation. And that's what it did, became Zappa's best selling and most popular album at the time of its release, gathering him an entire new group of fans to both ridicule and entertain. It was also a logical step in Zappa's evolution as both a musician and composer.

Often panned by many Zappaphiles as being too commercial, the album nonetheless contains some of Zappa's most brilliant satire as well as some of his tightest compositions. If you are new to Zappa, or are just moderately familiar with some of his tunes, this is the album to begin with. But don't be fooled by the seemingly simple riffs and hooks employed in these songs. As singer Ricky Lancelotti chants on Fifty-fifty: "I figure the odds be fifty-fifty that I just might have something to say!" Because in this album Zappa takes his most succinct stab at popular culture. His satire on America's pop culture was so cunning that he even managed to gain a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live on NBC and played "The Slime", a scathing commentary on the innane content of today's (and yesterday's) television programming. Talk about irony!

But perhaps what makes this recording so exceptional is the tight musicianship of the players, and the exceptional skill displayed by the players. Zappa's guitar solos on Zomby Woof and Montana still give me shivers up and down my spine, and despite being 42, I still have to crank the volume when these tunes come on.

Out of Zappa's entire catalogue, this was his most brilliant and most complete package. He had many other fine recordings, but none quite repeat the brilliance this release had. If I could give it six stars I would, just to set it apart from the others that I rate with five stars.

...but that still doesn't say too much, as this still contains traces of Frank Zappa's absurd humor laced with complex, virtuosic and tasteful musicianship, but more succint and balanced. You can find a nice serving of jazz, country, classical and rock on some of these tracks.

"Camarillo Brillo" starts the disc off in a tasteful country-rock fashion. Frank's guitar playing in particular is tasty. Also, in my humble opinion, he does a good job on his vocals. To take it a step further, I think Frank had a decent enough voice to hold a good note, without needing to resort to hiding his vocal insecurities behind the façade of a comedic vocalist. That's just my hunch, but I could be wrong. Many may think I'm crazy for thinking all of that, but, that's fine. "I'm The Slime" many people may know, as it opens with a fabulous guitar solo. Funny, but somewhat accurate lyrics on what effect television can have on the mind. "Dirty Love" is a short, playful number. "50/50" (or Fifty-Fifty) is a hilarious number featuring the screechy and grating vocals of Ricky Lancelotti. Should provide many listeners with an appreciation for absurd humor plenty of laughs. There's also an extended instrumental jam section near the end. Frank in general is playing some accomplished guitar solos. "Zomby Woof" features some bizarre, mind-twisting musicianship. To say it's impressive would be an understatement. "Dinah-Moe Humm" is the controversial track on the album. While funny, it can be considered downright nasty and offensive, as the sexual lyrics are fairly graphic. "Montana" is the number discussing a guy moving to Montana and raising a crop of dental floss. Not sure what the significance of this was, but I do find it funny, as well as enjoying the unpredictable twists and turns, musically speaking.

The thought of something from Zappa being considered accessible may turn some Zappa purists off. However, it's still weird, and Zappa has not lost his knack for virtuosic composition and instrumentation, as they both can be found scattered throughout the album. Absolutely worth having for fans of Zappa's humor and musicianship, as this serves as a perfect balance of both.

I don't believe, as other reviewers have stated, Zappa set out to make a blatenly commercial album with Overnite Sensation. This was the inevitable direction the band had been heading since 1970 (in Zappa terms that can & does mean a 6-8 album span). The songs were still indescribable as anything but Zappa compositions, still retained the fresh originality that he brought to almost everything he touched and contained more wit (and wisdom) than most of Zappa's recordings since the early Mothers of Invention records. At this stage, Zappa could afford to hire better musicians and of course better production facilities were available which tended to give this album a glossy veneer that previous albums didn't have (although Zappa always strived for the best in both production and musicianship). Overnite Sensation is definitely a great jump off point for the uninitiated, as is Sheikyerbouti or Apostrophe, but I don't necessisarily think fans of those albums are going to like Grand Wazoo or Uncle Meat. I have friends who like the unexpurgated Zappa but could care less for his instrumental and compositional recordings and I have friends that are vice versa, and I also know people (myself included)who love and appreciate his work as a whole. What I am trying to say in a wordy way is, commericiality, when applied to Zappa's music is in the eye of the beholder. Most fans of top 40 music are not going think this commercial at all, but Zappa fans may think it so because it has more conventional song structures and such. I tend to think of later recordings such as Joe's Garage and Tinseltown Rebellion as having more commercial potential than this.
To cut this short (forgive my ramblings, I am very passionate about Zappa's music), this is a great album as a starting point for those unfamiliar with Frank Zappa. If it is appealing then by all means explore further, if you like his dirty little ditties head towards Sheikyerbouti, Joe's Garage or Tinseltown Rebellion (and especially the compilation Have I Offended Someone?). If you are impressed by his musical chops, head towards Uncle Meat, Grand Wazoo or The Yellow Shark and if you like his social satire head towards Freak Out, We're Only In It For the Money and Them or Us. It's all great to me!!!!

"Your mind is totally controlled. It has been stuffed into my mold, and you will do as you are told. Until the rights to you are sold." Has there every been a better criticism of televison than "I am the Slime?" Over-Night Sensation is the one album to have if you're not a total Zappa head. It has some of his best known (and great) songs including the silly sexual send-ups "Dina Moe Hum" and "Dirty Love": "Give me some dirty love, like some tacky little pamphlet in your Daddy's bottom drawer." I purchased ONS sometime in the last century when I was fifteen and I got in serious (...) with my Mom for cranking Dinah Moe Hum up in the house with my friends. I don't think she thought it was very funny.

I hadn't heard this album in years and just gave a listen, damn if there isn't some fantastic fusion inflected rock to be found there-in. I'd forgotten how creative the music and arrangements are. Great drumming by Ralph Humphries, the excellent keyboards of George Duke, Ruth Underwoods lightning marimba and violin courtesy of John Luc Ponty. Not to mention the marvelous bass and horn players and some of Zappa's most smoking leads ever. What a great tone he has on this album - excellent wah playing (waka jawaka). I love his distorted leads on "Zomby Woof," and of course "Moving to Montana," a song about a gentleman dental floss farmer. Its silly sure, buts its funny and has great instrumental bits and melody. Humor and real instrumental muscle equals essential Zappa.

People have criticised this album for the silly sexual songs, so what, they're funny and freaking grooving. Check out the funky backing track worthy of Sly or '70s period Miles behind the "busy" part of Dina Moe Hum. I recently saw George Clinton and the P-funk alstars and they quoted a lengthy bit of Zomby Woof! So "do as you are told" and buy this album.

"The poodle bites, the poodle chews it. Not a speck of cereal for my dog."

Come on is a FZ! they are all good, why did i chose to review this? it was closer on the screen...
Ok, a great record, if you're looking for any CD to start with the great universe of FZ i would recommend this or "Freak Out" to see how it all started... , but this has all FZ items, sex noises, sex abuse, comedy (laughs yeah, it's good for your health ya know),irony, and punishment to that "UGLY RADIO"
-Camerillo Brillo, Some weird girl is stocking you? play her this song, i garantee you won't score
-I'm the Slime, heard it on the radio? don't so, this a punch in the face to that crapy "pop" songs you usually hear at the radio, yeah your mind is "TOTALLY CONTROLED", unless you buy this
-Dirty Love, Sex noises, FZ could put you in a comma with his DIRTY LOVE
-55, what's to say
-Dinamo-Hum, another weird girl, a groupie? just check the DVD of "Does Humor Belong in Music", she like "Twisted Siters"
Can i tell ya more? laugh, laugh, and hear FZ
Buy it!

Many previous albums by Zappa 's band the Mothers of Invention ( particularly Uncle Meat ) do very little to engage the listener on their own terms .They challenge the listener , offend the listener , impress the listener , but frequently don't not meet the listener on his own turf .Frank Zappa had an almost complete aversion to anything even remotely commercial for years until ( I believe) he made this album .In some ways this is his most commercial album .It paved the way for the "Yellow Snow " and the " Valley Girl " of years to come as well as " Dinah Moe Hum " and " I am the Slime " being true classics of the Zappa catalog .An underlooked aspect on some on some of the reviews of this of this album that I have read are the truly "burning "guitar work by Frank.Zappa had only fairly recently come into his own as a guitar player on albums such as" Hot Rats " and on this album he is fully formed.He solos on just about every track , and hold his own next to the likes of John Luc Ponty on several ( particularly " Fifty Fifty " ) major jams throughout .In a nutshell , the songs will crack you up and the playing will blow your mind .If you are just getting into the Zappa catalog you cannot go wrong with this one .

A lot of people find Zappa's music hard to wrap their brain around at first. This album has some of the more approachable music. The humor is weird, as always, but not too obscure. The themes are largely about sex.

I think this album contains some of Zappa's best overall compositions as well. Zombie Woof, Montana, Dirty Love, Dinah Mo Hum all went on to become great platforms for improvisation and live performance.

This is a nice "first Zappa album" and, of course, a great pick for a Zappa fan as well.

This album goes nicely with apostrophe'. 34 minutes long and it's perfect. One of Zappa'a best bands plays on this, his funkiest sounding album. The funkiness is largely down to George Duke's amazing organ playing. There are seven songs, with Frank doing most of the lead vocals. It's a great rhythm section, ralph humphrey on drums tom fowler on bass, adding to the funkiness. Camarillo Brillo is a top tune indeed. It's got a great melody and funny lyrics: 'she stripped away her rancid poncho...we did it till we were unconcho'. And Frank has little bits of guitar and George Duke plays lovely piano. Moving on to I'm the slime, a fantastic song about tv. Frank refers to it as 'a tool of the government ', he loved attacking governments . The band sound fabulous on this tune, we have Sal Marquez on trumpet, Bruce Fowler on trombone, ruth Underwood on percussion. There is super female backing singing which leads into one of Frank's greatest studio solos. You can hear every pluck of his plec, it is immaculately recorded. Tom Fowler's bass sounds great here too. Then we have the song 'Dirty Love' about poodlesand porno. More great lyrics from zappa, even if they're impossible to fathom:'i'll ignore your cheap aroma and your little bo-peep diploma i'll just put you in a coma with some dirty love'. The guitar solo is quite short but very good; it reminds me of jimi hendrix type playing. Then 50-50, which is very funky. It has a great vocal performance by the late ricky lancelotti. Pity he only did a few songs. Then 3 great solos. George on organ plays beautifully. He is followed by that maestro of electric violon John Luke Ponty. Ponty gives us a gorgeous solo, and the violin sound is lush. Finally a really brilliant Frank Zappa solo with some of his fastest ever playing. Watch your jaw drop! And the last bit of the song is great, when they wrap it with some frenetic playing. Zomby Woof is another belter. It has a very 'cartoony' sound and terrific female backing vocals. It is just so zany as a composition, especially the bit when you have 'reety alrighty the zomby woof'. Zappa has another great solo here, the guitar sound being very heavy. Dinah moe Humm is the funniest song , about whipping off girls bloomers and giving manual stimulation. More funkiness, great backing vocals again. A concert favourite in the seventies. Finally we have the awesome song, Montana. It's a hell of a thing. The lyrics are quite possibly the silliest lyrics Frank has ever come up with: 'i might be moving to Montana soon, just to raise me up some dental floss. ' They are great lyrics. The tune is a top tune, i love that B fowler trombone. Frank plays yet another beautiful guitar solo, probably the album's best solo. There's an awesome bit in this solo where he brings it up to a higher pitch/key. This is one of his very finest guitar moments. Nobody has played such moving guitar as this. E nough, enough. Anyway, there's still lots of greatness after the solo finishes. There is more beautiful female chorus singing, from Tina Turner and co. :'i don't care if you think it's silly folks..' Frank winds up the song with his pygmy pony and zircon encrusted tweezer references, and kin vassey does some fantastic yippee aye ay singing to draw the album to a close. If you don't like this album, you're probably deaf. Thank you.

I'm not the normal Frank Zappa fan. The Apostrophe/Overnite Sensation CD (two albums on one CD!) was the first FZ albumn that I listened to. It simply blew me off my feet. Memorable tunes, blazing guitar work (the livewire lead in dirty love and the highly tasty fretwork in montana), hilarious lyrics (the bawdy dinah mo hum), backing vocals done to perfection by tina turner, elements of jazz - in my opinion, as a rock album(s), it has few peers.

But as I said I'm not the normal Zappa fan. After hearing these two albums, I've thirsted to listen their like from Zappa - but always been disappointed - a few of his other albums that I bought - We're only in it for the money, Hot Rats, Shiek Yerbouti - I've not listened to them again after the initial playing. Some have told me that these actually are the quintessential Zappa albums and not Apostrophe/Overnite Sensation which are just Zappa's experimentations with Pop - maybe - but for me these two will always remain among the best albums I've heard.

ps : i'm revisiting this review after five years! found another couple of zappa gems : roxy and elsewhere and one size fits all. if you liked overnite sensation, you're likely to love the above two as well as apostrophe.

For nearly as long as I can remember, I have known of Frank Zappa and his trademark facial hair. I had seen his face and heard of him, although nobody ever really reccomended a specific album to start on. One day during college, a friend of mine bought me the "Baby Snakes" DVD, which is focused on "people that do things that aren't normal". I attempted to watch the DVD and after about an hour, turned it off very confused. The DVD would then follow me for two years, with only one more attempted viewing just to show a friend how far out it was.

Two years later and I was a junior in college. I was talking about music with my roomate and mentioned how I had heard great things about Frank Zappa, although was never able to find that album to make me a fan. He mentioned he had one Zappa CD, Overnite Sensation, and that it had "Zombie Woof" on it. (A song we had both heard covered by a band called Pork Tornado, with Phish guitarist Jon Fishman) He put in the CD and I was a fan of two songs. Dinah-Moe Hum and Zombie Woof. I purchased the CD at a used record store, listened to it a few times, and put it into my CD case.

A few more months go by & I continue to occasionally play this CD. Slowly I begin to absorb more of the tracks and realize the complex compositions of each song. Gradually over the course of three years, this became one of my top listened to albums. Soon I fell in love with every track (Especially Montana) & became increasingly interested in Zappa. I have since re-watched Baby Snakes and found it very amusing now that I understand more about Zappa and his humor. (Poodles?)

I am in the process of building up my collection of Zappa albums, and mkany of them take the same approach as Over-Nite Sensation. I will get the album, be confused, like a song or two, and re-listen to it until I can wrap my head around the complex composition of the notes and the trademark Zappa humor.

Zappa has a lot of albums that are all very different. Many of his albums also have songs that are completely different from one another. He can be a difficult artist to "get into". It took me nearly five years to realize "Hey, I'm a huge Zappa fan and need to hear as much of his music as possible!". If you start at the wrong place (like Baby Snakes) you may be turned off by his strangeness. If you start at the right place, you may (eventually) be amazed by his genius.

Buy this album, listen to Zombie Woof & Camarillo, then slowly explore the other tracks on the albums. I'm really glad I took Zappa 101 during my Junior year in college.