FRANK ZAPPA - Hot Rats (Ryko)

i. on collecting
ii. on Sartre and wanting what you don't want
iii. some bad luck with record stores
iv. Hot Rats

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FLEETWOOD MAC - Fleetwood Mac (Warner)

Reading the liner notes while the album started I was taken aback by the praise heaped on "Rhiannon". Okay, so I gathered it was some song Stevie Nicks wrote before she joined Fleetwood Mac and people liked it. Couldn't have been as epochal as all that if I'd never heard it. Except when it came on I realized I had, of course; my best recollection is that every time I heard it I thought it was by the Eagles, despite knowing that the Eagles didn't have a female singer.

I think some of my grudging respect for the Eagles is related to actual Eagles songs, or at least their relatives (like Sarah Dougher's cover of "Take It To The Limit"). Could be wrong, though. Sneaky Eagles.

FUNKSTORUNG - Disconnected (!K7)

Hip-hop tracks great as expected. (I think I've heard Tes on his own stuff and not been as impressed, but then being a Funkstorung sound-generator is very different from being a real MC.) Sensitive crooner Enik, who gets three full tracks to himself, irritates profoundly, except when occasionally he doesn't. If there's anyone who likes Funkstorung consistently no matter what they're doing, I imagine they'll consider this a huge triumph, since the oscillation between hip-hop and ambient (always assumed that was deLuca and Fakesch, respectively) is still present, except with a new destabilization that implies the two might meet in the middle sometime.

Also, best album packaging I've seen in a very long time; pretty much all of the 11 (!) optional panels for use as cover art look good.