{"id":486990,"date":"2025-10-10T00:26:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/486990\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T00:26:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:26:17","slug":"the-greatest-bassline-in-british-rock-according-to-frank-zappa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/486990\/","title":{"rendered":"The greatest bassline in British rock, according to Frank Zappa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Frank-Zappa-Solo-Copenhagen-1967-Bent-Rej-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Frank Zappa performing in Copenhagen - 1967\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 50%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Credits: Bent Rej)<\/p>\n<p> Thu 9 October 2025 21:30, UK <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/frank-zappa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Frank Zappa<\/a> wasn\u2019t too fond of the British, but that\u2019s alright. He wasn\u2019t fond of much\u2026 Americans included.<\/p>\n<p>Besides, he had good reason to be jealous of some of his peers from across the pond. As his PA, Pauline Butcher, would later explain, \u201cHe worked out he wasn\u2019t a pretty boy like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/frank-zappa-three-favourite-guitarists-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">He didn\u2019t play their kind of music<\/a>, he didn\u2019t even like it, and if he was going to get himself heard, he was going to have to do something radically different.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Thus, he had to take matters into his hands and highlight himself in other ways, as Butcher noted, \u201cHe went out of his way to have outrageous photographs taken: the one on the toilet, the one with his pigtails sticking out like a spaniel, dressing up in women\u2019s clothes. All these things were calculated because he had to get himself attention.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But he found that these British bastards were even capable of outrage, too. While The Rolling Stones\u2019 hubbub might not have been of the absurdist, sardonic variety for which Zappa was famed, they were certainly capable of making conservative folks squirm. <\/p>\n<p>He also began to foster a degree of begrudging respect for them, and while resigned to a peak position of the nth on the Billboard charts, he reconciled that he would be a quirky cult hit capable of poking fun at the mainstream from afar. Meanwhile, the Stones were more than welcome to sales of 250 million so long as he could also laugh at the sordid shoddiness of the shitty little effort, Dirty Work.<\/p>\n<p>Alas, when they were at their best, they had something that hardly anyone could compete with. With a rawness and rumbling spirit, they could very casually happen upon rare sounds that electrified the masses. Hell, Keith Richards came up with \u2018Satisfaction\u2019 quite literally in his sleep, and while it might be a Motown rip-off, it might also be one of the most recognisable riffs ever written.<\/p>\n<p>However, it was a subtle bassline that pricked Zappa\u2019s ears instead. While spinning his 30 favourite songs on BBC Radio 1, the moustachioed maestro commented that \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/rolling-stones-paint-it-black-story-brian-jones\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Paint it Black<\/a>\u2019 was a masterpiece of a rare order. \u201cYou know what\u2019s really good about that record? Is the way the bass part is there and then where he\u2019s going \u2018wooom, wooom\u2019 like that, that\u2019s really exhilarating, it\u2019s probably the\u2026one of the finest things that\u2019s ever happened in British rock. Don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such a specific analysis is perfectly indicative of the way that Zappa saw music. While most folks would focus on the washboard rhythm or the general foreboding oeuvre of the track, he was busy poking beyond the surface and sampling the bass. That\u2019s what made him brilliant, but I suppose it\u2019s also what made him a cult hit rather than the king of the charts. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Bent Rej) Thu 9 October 2025 21:30, UK Frank Zappa wasn\u2019t too fond of the British, but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,74417,269,9942,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-486990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-frank-zappa","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-rolling-stones","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115347035653396058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}