Moorings 2020

“The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing”: Frank Zappa and Postmodernism Joseph Staub “Mr. America, walk on by your schools that do not teach. Mr. America, walk on by the minds that won't be reached.” This is the line that opens the Mothers of Invention’s debut album Freak Out!, released in 1966. It is the first of countless examples of postmodern criticism evident in the compositions of Frank Zappa, the leader of the Mothers of Invention who would go on to release a repertoire of 62 albums before his death in 1993. Zappa, who believed that music is always a commentary on society, spent his entire career satirizing and commenting on the problems he saw in American society. In the lyrics mentioned above, taken from a song entitled “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”, Zappa is making a criticism of both hippie culture and the society that it was rebelling against. Through criticisms like these and the way that they are integrated into the overall compositions on the 1969 Mothers of Invention album Uncle Meat, it is apparent that lyrics and music of Frank Zappa exemplify the idea of postmodern music.

The idea of postmodern music is complex, featuring many individual aspects that are not all present in every composition that could be called postmodern. There are, however, two major themes that are common among postmodern music that are important in order to categorize a piece as postmodern. The first is a constant shift or fluctuation in styles accompanied by an overlap of these styles, which combined is known as polystylism or stylistic pluralism. The other is a critique of some aspect of society that the composer finds issue with, usually in an attempt to influence or incite change. According to music theorist and cultural historian Leonard B. Meyer, music in the postmodern era, which he defines as beginning in 1945, consists of many different styles existing at once but in constant fluctuation in terms of commercial popularity and use by artists (Meyer 227). The idea of postmodern music as criticism began in earnest with the rise of Moorings 87