Zappa's true MAGNUM OPUS was a completely surreal take on "soundtrack albums", for a bizarre film never released for over 20 years.  When I first heard a cut from this album, I think it was "Nine Types of Industrial Pollution" in an underground used record store in Denver.  I was amazed at the sound coming out of the speakers. It wasn't rock. Instead, it was a dense, heavily overdubbed, obviously orchestrated and thought out piece of percussion, with sound effects on top of the music. I thought, "This doesnt sound like PEACHES AND REGINA or YELLOW SNOW!" I picked up the album, and started to read how Zappa had overdubbed some tracks up to 40 times. I wasn't ready for the album at THAT time...I was 22 years old, and into post punk, new wave, and garage psychedelia. Of any of Zappa's original MOI albums, this is by far the strangest, and yet also the most classically motivated. The album came during that hyper period of creativity, right after the double hitter of ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY (his hippy parady), and CRUISIN WITH RUBEN AND THE JETS (his satire of doowop music), and right before his second solo album, HOT RATS.  SO, obviously Zappa was undergoing an immense change with his vision of MUSIC.  This was the last album that relied so completely on his "CUT UP" montage esthetic, before he moved into albums with more straight ahead song structure. The entire album SOUNDS the way the album cover LOOKS.  It's intriging, scary, funny, surreal, and somewhere between POP ART and true HIGH ART.  Honestly, if you REALLY want to see where "ART ROCK" came from, check out the original MOTHER OF INVENTION albums from 1967-1969, and the early CAN albums from Germany, and KING CRIMSON's first album. (And probibly SOFT MACHINE's early sound.) Even tho so much of this album has the sound of ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY, but with much more orchestral, avant guarde musical experiments, jazz rock, dominating Zappa's typical mid 60s satire of the teenage pop rock-top 10 radio mentality.  Seriously, each song on this album DOES fall into one of those catagories, sometimes a single song does ALL of these things at once. Of all Zappa's albums from this period, the instrumental songs (DOG'S BREATH, POUND FOR A BROWN, SLEEPING IN A JAR,) were themes that recurred constantly on his live albums thruout his career. KING KONG, which took up the entire fourth side of the original double album, is in many ways Zappa's THEME SONG. King Kong alone points to this as one of the ESSENCIAL ZAPPA ALBUMS for all fans. If you don't like the experimental parts of the album, or the "joke interviews", you're sure to enjoy the wierd songs that have lyrics on this album, but turned into instrumentals in performance after this album was released. The art work is completely represented inside, with a fold out insert that shows the album cover full size. (Ryko's archival work on rock classics, reached a sort a climax of quality here.) Apparently, on another printing of the album, other album cover art was used, and this alternative artwork is represented as well. My only real problem with this CD for UNCLE MEAT, is that strange 40 minute bit of dialouge from the film, and the song "Tengo na Minchia Tanta". (I don't believe it was written during this period, but much later.) Of course with CDs, you can just jump past this part, and get right to the "4th side" of the original album, with all the different jams on the KING KONG theme. So, there you have it. This is the last truly BIZARRE Mothers of Invention album ("Burnt Weeny Samwhich", which was much more structured, and musical overall, came after this.) Zappa never really allowed himself to be represented in a band that was so SURREAL, or psychedelic if you will, after this point. In fact, by the time of HOT RATS, Zappa had gotten rid of the wierdo freaks from the original MOTHERS, and started to create the string of albums from his peak musical period of JAZZ ROCK. If you love the original MOTHERS, this is the FREAKIEST for those teenage rockers. Yet, at the same time, UNCLE MEAT has all the seeds of the jazz rock, and orchrestral experiments, that Zappa would explore for years after this.