I got this just weeks after it came out in October 1984, and must have played it on your Dual 505 in Cosin Court at least once. In fact, my untrustworthy recollection is that I got it from the Andy's Records stall in the market square on Hallowe'en — because I remember noticing afterwards that the picture on the album cover is 'signed' by Donald Roller Wilson and dated Hallowe'en 1983, while the record is on Barking Pumpkin Records.
It's reminiscent in parts of the trio of difficult-listening jazz rock albums we had last month. Only this one has more 70s-style guitar solos and 80s-style synth sounds. With Zappa's composition style, it really is the unlikely marriage of Duane Allman and Pierre Boulez.
There was a radio documentary series about Zappa presented by Mark Radcliffe a few years back. It made the best defence I've heard of his lyrical obsession with sexual peccadillos: that Frank was doing a kind of pioneering ethnography by reporting back from the frontline of rock'n'roll culture during a specific period of the 'sexual revolution'. I'd like to believe that, but I don't think the wanking & spanking episodes in lyrics are very good ethnography. Similarly, I'm in favour of satire, but the lyrics to Be in my Video are the kind of satire that's too obvious on first hearing and quickly becomes tiresome after that:
Pretend to be Chinese,
(One-hung-low)
I'll make you wear red shoes
There's a cheesy atom bomb explosion
All the big groups use
So the pleasures of the album are mostly to be found in the composition and musicianship, though (and I accept that this is more likely to be my failing than the music's) these aren't really to my taste.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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