![\"Frank](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Frank-Zappa-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Mon 22 December 2025 21:05, UK <\/p>\n
Frank Zappa<\/a> once proclaimed that \u201cwithout deviation from the norm, progress is not possible\u201d.<\/p>\n The Beatles were widely regarded as harbingers of this same mantra. The Fab Four might\u2019ve started with hand-holding mimicry of the likes of Buddy Holly, but soon after, they were lauded for their progressive ways, bringing a new baroque outlook to pop. They quickly shepherded the mainstream towards postmodernist collisions of art and technological stereo sound with records like Revolver and the revolutionary Sgt Pepper\u2019s.<\/p>\n If anything, although they mightn\u2019t have been to Zappa\u2019s taste, they effectively trained the mainstream to expect that culture naturally veers towards the avant-garde the more popular it becomes. The Fab Four arose from nowhere as working-class lads, amassed unprecedented levels of popularity, and then got really rather weird. Other bands naturally followed suit, establishing a new norm of fame>to>experimentalism.<\/p>\n They helped psychedelia become widespread and accepted, heralding an all too brief revolution. This new style of music arose rapidly and quickly usurped more complex prevalences of jazz and classical. \u201c[It] is much more primitive in its harmonic language,\u201d Leonard Bernstein said of the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll revolution. <\/p>\n He added, \u201cIt relies more on the simple triad, the basic harmony of folk music. Never forget that this music employs a highly limited musical vocabulary; limited harmonically, rhythmically, and melodically. But within that restricted language, all these new adventures are simply extraordinary. Only think of the sheer originality of a Beatles tune.\u201d<\/p>\n Zappa, ever the outsider, viewed the mainstream evolution of music as just another incremental adjustment to the usual standards, while he was racing wildly from the norm in his own unconventional way. His divergence wasn\u2019t just in form but in challenging the entire meaning of what music had become. He saw The Beatles\u2019 mid-1960s transformation as a false sense of liberation, so much so that he satirised both the band and their \u201cmovement\u201d with his parody album cover for We\u2019re Only In It For The Money.<\/p>\n And later down the line, he ditched subtle digs entirely and stated, \u201cEverybody else thought they were God! I think that was not correct. They were just a good commercial group\u201d. And seeing as though he once said, \u201cArt is moving closer to commercialism and never the twain shall meet\u201d, his disdain is no surprise. <\/p>\n However, it also has to be noted that Zappa came from an advertising background and during his brief time working that desk job, he concluded \u2013 long before many others \u2013 that modern music now had 50% to do with the image. Was this denigration of the Fab Four an engineered attempt to cultivate a fanbase of like-minded contrarians?<\/p>\n This thought gains credence when you consider what his PA, Pauline Butcher, would later say. \u201cHe worked out he wasn\u2019t a pretty boy like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones,\u201d she explained. \u201cHe 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\u00a0<\/p>\n Butcher continued, \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![\"Frank](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Frank-Zappa-Red-Copenhagen-1967-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Frank Zappa performing in Copenhagen \u2013 1967. (Credits: Bent Rej)<\/p>\n
![\"Mick](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Mick-Jagger-Keith-Richards-The-Rolling-Stones-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Mick Jagger and Keith Richards performing with The Rolling Stones. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n