Favourite Zappa album....... There seems to be a 'later Zappa' view here. Go back into the early Mothers for Zappa's best work. In experimental terms Lumpy Gravy is a fantastic piece of true avant-garde musicianship. Weird and totally wonderful. But my favourite (and I believe it used to be dear Uncle Frank's too) is Uncle Meat. This was Zappa at the peak of his talent and working with the Finest Mothers ensemble ever. It covers everything from do-wop to electric chamber music to music 'concret'. It was also near the end of the early Mothers era when Zappa disbanded the group on the basis that "I seriously over estimated the intellegence of the audience I was dealing with". Then the slide into the commercial Zappa era commenced culminating in the likes of Sheik Yerbootie. Not to say that there isn't good music to be had within such records, but it's not a patch on the early experimental stuff. Later work, like Yellow Shark, got near to the original energy (in a very different context) but lacked the late 60's Freaked Out sensibilities that marked Zappa's true genius. I still miss him and his work terribly..............