Cruising With Ruben & the Jets

Cruising With Ruben & The Jets is an album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, released in 1968 (see 1968 in music), and controversially reissued in an alternate mix with newly recorded bass and percussion in 1984. The album is fashioned as a simultaneous parody of and tribute to the doo-wop music Frank and many of the Mothers grew up with and worked on. The album has been described as a collision of high and low art, with Stravinsky-sty... more

Cruising With Ruben & The Jets is an album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, released in 1968 (see 1968 in music), and controversially reissued in an alternate mix with newly recorded bass and percussion in 1984. The album is fashioned as a simultaneous parody of and tribute to the doo-wop music Frank and many of the Mothers grew up with and worked on. The album has been described as a collision of high and low art, with Stravinsky-style chord changes and unusual tempos applied to purposely trite and banal teenage pop love songs.. The backing vocals at the end of "Fountain of Love", for instance, sing the opening melody from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The album predated a mini-revival of 1950's rock music styles and touched off the Rock and roll revival movement. Soon after it came out the group Sha-Na-Na formed in New York City to play their own brand of 1950's style doo-wop. Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley relaunched their careers not long after the album was released. Bo... less