Review: Frank Zappa - Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968)

What a piece of shit collection of songs. Let's get this one over with. No burying the lede here!

Remember in my review for Lumpy Gravy that you undoubtedly read where I talked about Frank Zappa strokin' his limp little dick over contemporary classical music? Well that's not all he strokes his dick to! He's got enough gas left in that pud for some doo-wop music as well, the kind your Alzheimer's-addled grandmother used to listen to. Aha, so that's where Frank's fixation with dramatic, high school teenager concerns and preoccupations in his lyrical subject matter comes from! He loved this stuff as a kid and, naturally, maintained his deeply-rooted nostalgia over it. Imagine Frank Zappa, admitting nostalgic feelings! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!! OMG!

The idea to make Cruising with Ruben & the Jets came about from the Mothers of Invention sitting around during a recording session waxing nostalgic about their high school days and their shared love of doo-wop. Why one would have fond memories of high school at all is beyond me, but these nerds all agreed that doo-wop was the proverbial bomb. It was decided to record an album of such tunes as an homage to the bygone days of gender roles and dropping non-proverbial bombs. Of course, by 1968 doo-wop wasn't cool at anymore by any young person's standards, so it's lost on me who exactly this album is for. Anyone with similar nostalgia for doo-wop isn't going to listen to brand new doo-wop music.

The Mothers fabricated a backstory to accompany the album. Ruben Sano, depicted on the back cover as a photo of a high-school-aged Frank Zappa, was the leader of a band called the Jets. There was this whole thing that was going to tie into the Uncle Meat storyline with Ruben & the Jets slowly turning into anthropomorphic cartoon dog-like animals, and IT'S A SHAME IT NEVER REALLY PANNED OUT, but the by-product of this concept was that some of these songs got a lot of airtime due to the misunderstanding that this was actual, lost-to-the-ages authentic doo-wop music from the '50s by a real goddamned band called Ruben & the Jets and not the lumpy, smelly men of the Mothers of Invention. The front cover even has the disclaimer "Is this the Mothers of Invention recording under a different name in a last ditch attempt to get their cruddy music on the radio?" Zappa claims the effect was actually unintentional, but it's funny nonetheless.

So yes, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets is an immensely radio-friendly album, and without a doubt the most "accessible" in Zappa's catalogue, at least in terms of musical complexity. My extremely meager knowledge and experience with doo-wop music limits my ability to speak intelligently about it (HASN'T STOPPED ME IN THE PAST, THOUGH! OH SNAP!), but to my ears there's a noticeable diversity of styles and moods ranging from, uh, happy to sad, I guess.

Let's start with the upbeat rockers (doo-woppers?). To my uninitiated, doo-wop-hatin' ass, these songs are actually pretty fun. In this category you got "Cheap Thrills" (a lovely yarn about backseat car fuckin'), "Jelly Roll Gum Drop" (a wonderful tale about a young man fancying a comely lass), and "No. No. No." (a beautiful ditty about a young man fancying a comely lass). All three are guarantee to burrow in your head and leave you singing "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOO BOP DOO-AY-DOO BOP DOO-AY-DOO" to your cat for days. I would consider these the best three songs on the album, because if I'm going to get a bunch of simple dumbshit lyrics I'd rather not have it sound like I'm expected to take it seriously.

Then there are the optimistic, yet mellow, schmaltzy lovey-dovey songs. I'd lump "Love of My Life", "Deseri", "Anything", and "Fountain of Love" in this category. With lyrics like "Stars in the sky, they never lie/Tell me you need me, don't say goodbye" or "Do you remember I held you so near/Our love's glowing ember so precious and dear" it's hard to fucking believe Frank Zappa is playing this straight (OR IS HE?!). But yeah, honestly, any Zappa fan is going praise the hell out of these songs while at the same time steering clear of any non-Zappa music that even skims the doo-wop genre, satirically or not. And with such sincere subject matter and lack of musical/lyrical dissonance, this stuff certainly doesn't do it for me.

Next are the sullen, pessimistic, yet still mellow, jaded songs of love lost. In this category we have "How Could I Be Such a Fool?", "I'm Not Satisfied", "Later That Night", "You Didn't Try To Call Me", and "Anyway the Wind Blows". Surprise! If you're paying attention, you would have noticed right away that four out of five of these are reworked versions of songs that originally appeared on Freak Out! And successfully reworked, to boot! And why not, considering all you really had to do was take away the sneer that prevailed the older versions. The music compliments the lyrics nicely this time around, not that there's anything bad at all about the Freak Out! versions either. This is the first official example of Frank molding and manipulating his existing work to fit his needs, and he spent his whole career continuously reworking old songs. I like these songs on the record better than the above lovey-dovey ones, because I'm about as lovey-dovey as a PENIS in a BUTTHOLE.

I saved the real best song for last, as in, realer bestier than the other three that I said were the best earlier: the closer "Stuff Up the Cracks". It's unlike the other songs, in that it has an unfittingly cheesy yet morbid-for-this-album line that throws you for a bit of a loop ("Stuff up the cracks/Turn on the gas/I'm gonna take my life/Stuff it!") and it builds to a more straightforward blues number at the end where FRANK ACTUALLY PICKS UP HIS FUCKING GUITAR AND SHREDS FOR A COUPLE OF MINUTES. JESUS HOPPING CHRIST, MAN, WHAT A RELIEF.

Here comes the ultimate question to this day about this strange, strange happenstance of an album: was this all just an elaborate Ween-style joke that was played so straight that no one can tell for sure, or was this an honest-to-God faithful tribute to a bygone era of music?

• OK, let's entertain the idea that it's the former scenario. Frank Zappa is a sarcastic asshole, likely incapable of true sincerity, and most of his career was predicated on satire, parody, and cynicism. But what we do know is that he took his work very seriously, so what better joke than to spend the time and effort to meticulously and methodically craft an album of songs that are so by-the-book that his stupid audience and all the stupid radio DJs won't be able to tell that he's just tricking them. Good way to make money and get your name out there, right?
• Well, maybe it's the latter scenario then. "Hey, Tom, you don't have to make me feel like a loser, you know, the way you wrote the first bullet point and all." Shut it, I'm not saying that entirely. Hell, if this was truly a loyal, from the heart homage to doo-wop music, then why is this the only instance in funny-boy Frank Zappa's entire catalog of a presumably humorless, and a decidedly mindless, collection of songs? What's the point?

This is why I believe the two scenarios aren't mutually exclusive. Zappa truly, truly loves this music (or else he wouldn't waste his time), and he thought it would be inherently funny to play it straight for a whole record (and don't forget that he made up a strange, cartoonish backstory as a concept to compliment the album). Best of both worlds, right? I think he pulled it off well.

But, in the end, this isn't a groundbreaking piece of art, just fluff. And once you know the whole history and psychology behind Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, it's hard not to write it off as a complete novelty. I don't go back to this one that often at all, and I can't say that I'm compelled to seek more of this kind of music from genuine doo-wop groups. It is, however, an incredibly competent effort from a band who wanted to make their version of the music they grew up with. Just don't expect it to change your sad life.

JUST OK