Zappa.com

For any itunes users, what do you guys put under the artist name for your Zappa albums? Personally, I'm very anal about the whole thing and like to make sure I have the right name. Early albums are pretty easy, since it's just called The Mothers of Invention; the hard part comes afterwards. What would you guys label albums like Just Another Band From L.A., where the band is just named 'The Mothers'? Or what about albums like One Size Fits where the name is Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention? Or how about Playground Psychotics, where one disc is with the Mothers and the other isn't? I know this all probably sounds petty, but hell, there had to some reason as to why they all had different names in the first place. Does anyone have the answer?

To Me It's All FZ Regardless Of Whatever Name His "Band" Had On The Album

I have them all as Frank Zappa (sorted as Zappa, Frank).

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

I just file them all under "Frank Zappa."

Or if you need the official artist name for each album, you can look in the "Frank Zappa" section of this site, and click on "Music Is The Best."

Try eating more vegetables: they'll help with your anal problem.

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I file all mine under "Frank Zappa", regardless of the official band name - it allows me to do a shuffle on his complete works when I want to.

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Let's hear it again for the London Philharmonic Orchestra!

Interesting question. As I ripped all my FZ CDs to flac, I placed everything under the folder "Frank Zappa", otherwise it would be pretty difficult to sort them.
The subfolders format I chose is (YYYY) Album_name - Disc n in order to locate them easily. And I made special subfolders for BTB, Bootlegs, Remixes, Compilations, Tribute Bands, etc.
This way, I can navigate directly in the filesystem and not from the tags which IMO are not really useful for FZ, classical music and Jazz.

I don't do ipod, got zune....it categorizes for you!!!!!

And how long are you going to let Zune control your life? It's a conspiracy people! What Zune does in their back offices is take (account deleted)

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

I don't know anything about the zune, but itunes works like this: you 'import' a cd to itunes, and itunes downloads track info and such from gracenote, and the cd gets categorized the way it is at gracenote.

most of the zappa cd's end up being 'alternative.'

but, of course, you can change that to whatever you want.

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

I label mine FZ

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Confusion will be my epitaph

Labeling is sooooo un-PC, and confining.
I leave mine free, to become what they make of themselves.

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Stay with me flagrantly and we'll have ecstasy for all eternity.

I write Frank Zappa on the cover of the cassete case (they come with a piece of paper with lines on it) and the song titles...

Ah, the good ol' days. Always hated it when I taped an album that had more songs than lines on the sheet.

I usually just put whatever the album says for artist (MOI, The Mothers, FZ, etc etc) and for genre I put "Zappa". Simple.

i'm like you man, i need my itunes all nice and in order. i just have two: frank zappa, and frank zappa & the mothers of invention.

if you think about it, the name "the mothers" and "the mothers of invention" is pretty much the same thing, thats why i group it together.

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

This is true. However when it comes to the roxy era I always think of them being just "the mothers". I'm not sure why. Probably because I find the look and sound to be so different they need a slight adjustment to the name.

The name of the band when they were first signed to MGM was "The Mothers" . MGM thought that sounded too "dirty" at the time and it was their idea to add "of Invention" to the name. Frank hated the idea but wanted to get his music heard so he gave in. When he switched to Warners he simply called them The Mothers, which is why they are listed that way on Just Another Band from LA onward until 1976 when he dropped the name entirely. I file everything under Frank Zappa.

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You want some more? Well here's some more!

Actually, I've ripped them all to my hard drive, and make a folder for each album. Then I label them in chronological order.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

I have everything on a portable hard drive, so it's allunder Zappa, Frank.

I set it all up by using Windows Media Player and ripping every one of the over 1200 CDs I have. Now I know that I didn't use FLAC, but out of my work computer speakers sounds fine, I have some bootlegs, some are ripped FLAC some not, I am finally getting into the twenty-first century.

Plook, I admire ya, I remember that when I used to listen to 200 Motels on 8-track, the clicks between each of the four sections were in some awkward places...

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If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

This won't be much help, but this is how I organize.

I don't have an ipod, nor have I downloaded stuff from the web. Music, that I have DL'd, is burned to a disc. Those I catagorize by date, if possible.

I'm a long time record collector. My Zappa is on Vinyl or C. D., and having worked in the Record Retailing business for many years, I find that keeping my collection of Zappa organized by Label and Number works for me. Finding stuff is easy because I'm thoroughly familiar with FZ's recording history. If asked for a particular recording, or period; I can pull it easily since I know who he released the work under, and when.

Vinyl still sounds best to my ears, but I am old and lazy, never fire up my turntable anymore.

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If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

If I'm at home, I'm spinning vinyl, but my iPod is always with me when I'm out of the house.

I have ripped everything to FLAC files. I put "Zappa, Frank" in the Artist and Album Artist fields. I still need to add "Zappa, Frank" to the composer field but I need to see which ones credit more than just Frank.

Wait a sec...I'm the only one here who just files it all under one word: Zappa?

Personally, the mp3 info has to make things easy to find when I'm using my iPod or iPhone. If your Zappa stuff is named in too complicated a way, then you have to remember all that detail when you're looking for a particular album. Something that works well for me is using genres to group albums. I have marked all official Zappa albums with the genre Zappa Official, all the boots as Zappa Boot, all covers as Zappa Cover and so on.

For example, if I want Le Bocal's Memorial Barbecue, I select the Genre option, select Zappa Cover then select All Albums. I get a list of all Zappa Cover albums and can easily find Le Bocal's album in the list and away I go. Or, if I want The Man From Utopia, I select the Genre option, select Zappa Official then select All Albums. I get a list of all Zappa official albums and can easily find TMFU in the list.

Meanwhile you can still keep all the other info intact, I mean, if you're going to mess with a field for your own convenience, who gives a shit about the genre field?

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.