‘What is music? Anything can be music’: Frank Zappa's theory of art

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of Frank Zappa's aesthetic values, drawing on two examples: his writing and his music. This paper examines Zappa's musical techniques and contextualises them within art criticism; Zappa's discussion of his own music and theories of art in The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989) further help align his work with contemporary aesthetic theories, namely those of Levinson (Music, Art, and Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, 2011) and Berleant (‘Further ruminations on music’, New Sound International Journal of Music, 50/2, pp. 129-37, 2017). Together, Zappa's techniques and his own testimony suggest an aesthetic standpoint underpinning his discography that emphasises referentiality as well as subjectivity and the role of the public in the musical experience. Indicating a more sympathetic view of popular opinion, distinct from the Adornian condemnation of mass culture with which Zappa is often attributed, this analysis of Zappa's aesthetic beliefs subsequently indicates a position sympathetic to both popular and avant-garde musics.