It's just wholly unimpressive, rarely interesting, and simply drags the album out.

Instrumentally it is pretty good, and Moon Zappa's valley girl impression is quite humorous the first few times (though can grow to be tedious with more listens), but good god, it's just a song that has no need to exist. I mean, to be fair, it isn't particularly awful. And frankly, Valley Girl is the only track in here that I genuinely dislike. Needless to say, the studio side is the weak link thanks to Valley Girl. Both halves are only three tracks each, essentially being suites that were intended to be heard together. I think the first thing that needs to be said first is that Ship Arriving is split up into two distinct parts a studio side and a live side.

But even so, I ultimately came to the conclusion that there's a lot more that I enjoy here than dislike. This really isn't a record that everyone is going to love, and even I myself have found myself having a bit of an on-and-off relationship with it, with me loving songs one day, hating them the next, and finding myself loving them again the next day. After this he would go on to make albums that are notorious in his discography, and really, this could be seen as one of those albums to some and I wouldn't argue. After all, this is seen as the starting point of Zappa's drop in quality. Honestly, I was surprised myself when I first listened and ended up actually enjoying it. Definitely not one of his strongest, mind you, and definitely sounding a bit weird with the '80s production, but seriously not as bad as you would expect. Well, here's the thing Valley Girl aside, this album is actually a really fun listen. I mean, this mediocre album, known as one of his most forgettable and throwaway additions to his ridiculously lengthy discography, the album only notable for housing the hugely successful by Zappa standards but incredibly polarizing Valley Girl, and I'm rating it this highly? Yes. So, this is currently my weirdest Zappa take.

Frank zappa ship arriving too late rar