![\"Frank](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Frank-Zappa-Solo-Copenhagen-1967-Bent-Rej-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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Credit: Bent Rej<\/p>\n
OK, so what exactly does Frank Zappa<\/a> have against the original Star Wars trilogy?<\/p>\n Too mainstream? It\u2019s a reasonable take. On the face of it, popular culture couldn\u2019t present two greater forces from the disparate ends of entertainment, George Lucas\u2019 space opera series, a veritable global phenomenon, and already Hollywood\u2019s most famous property before its 1977 debut year was even out. The Mothers of Invention\u2019s frontman, however, enjoys a reputation as a denizen of the counterculture, doggedly eschewing commercial appeal in favour of his arch-subversive and multi-genred Zappaverse.<\/p>\n But Zappa was more than happy to hang out with The Monkees, sign Alice Cooper to his Straight Records label, and court a top 40 hit with 1982\u2019s \u2018Valley Girl\u2019 \u2013 unwittingly popularising the \u2018Valspeak\u2019 trend in the process. He was no mainstream scoffer for the sake of it. Perhaps it\u2019s the cultural context? Zappa was a well-known cynic who harboured a deep and unabiding distrust of politics and the establishment, whichever party was in charge.<\/p>\n After a decade or so of national ennui and post-Watergate pessimism, Star Wars\u2019 triumphant blast of good guys vs bad guys and escapist fun was just the moral certainty an insecure America needed after years of political doubt.<\/p>\n No more healthy contempt for authority. In came Ronald Reagan, the neoliberal extravaganza, and a Stars and Striped optimistim for America\u2019s renewed muscle both at home and on the international stage<\/a>. Zappa may well have appreciated Reagan\u2019s deregulation and dialling down public spending, being a lifelong freak libertarian who espoused DIY bootstraps over relying on the state in any capacity, but such cartoon patriotism indirectly unleashed by Star Wars\u2019 confidence boost was anathema to his disavowal of leaning on the elites.<\/p>\n All said could be baked into Zappa\u2019s psyche in some diluted fashion, but his spiky thoughts on Star Wars\u2019 impact were in fact spurred by a discussion on orchestral music. Speaking about the demanding compositions on 1983\u2019s London Symphony Orchestra album, in particular the flute sections on the three \u2018Mo \u2018n Herb\u2019s Vacation\u2019 movements, Zappa highlighted John Williams\u2019 acclaimed score as a marker of \u201clowest common denominator of musical skill\u201d he spent his entire career trying to avoid.<\/p>\n \u201cStar Wars is nice music, you know \u2013 for Star Wars-type consumption, OK?\u201d Zappa told Mix with a reluctant olive branch at the time. \u201cBut if you\u2019re going for something else, you have to presume that out there, someplace, lurking is a maniac who can do the hard stuff. I\u2019m offering the challenge for the guy who wants to play something rougher than Star Wars.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/strong><\/p>\n He\u2019s right, Star Wars is \u201cnice music\u201d. Williams was reflecting Lucas\u2019 universal storytelling, a narrative archetype wrought from Jungian mythos, concerned with the age-old tales of a naive young boy\u2019s maturation to hero as he overcomes evil. It\u2019s basic stuff which honours embedded creative principles that are as old as stories themselves, so naturally, Williams weaves a rich, traditional score that honours such a broad channel of the human condition.<\/p>\n No avant-garde dissidence to be found among the Star Wars soundtrack. Zappa was smart enough and capable enough as a composer to understand exactly what Williams was gunning for with his Buck Rogers duties, but form and tradition were features he lived to subvert as much as he could. With Williams\u2019 contemporary classical formula breathing life into a pop cinema behemoth plastered across every corner of the American landscape, all Zappa could see was the conveyor belt of mass consumption he loathed so deeply, a manufactured product his unwieldy Zappaverse acted as a bulwark against with maximum, elitist snark<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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