Cheap Thrills
Released: 1998
Tracklist- I Could Be A Star Now
- Catholic Girls (live version)
- Bobby Brown Goes Down (live version)
- You Are What You Is
- We Are Not Alone
- Cheap Thrills
- The Mudshark Interview
- Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel
- Zomby Woof (live version)
- The Torture Never Stops (original version)
- Joe’s Garage (live version)
- My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama (live version)
- Going For The Money
Rate This Album
(16 votes, average: 5.13 out of 10) 
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June 3rd, 2004 at 3:12 am
Good cheap compilation and next installment in the Zappa Family Trust’s continuing effort to repackage and resell the catalog over and over and over again to the “completist” population.
July 24th, 2005 at 11:46 am
Hello again humble idiot bastard freaks! What do you mean ZFT’s attempt to repackage the Zappa catalogue? They don’t don’t own it at all and never have. Blame RYKO for your “completist” obsession. Sure, “CHEAP THRILLS” is a turgid collection of minor tracks at best that serves the apparent purpose of losing any potential new audience the official FZ masters could attract. Potentially a very sizeable one if bands such as THE OFFSPRING’s hits compile can go top ten worldwide (no disrespect to that particular outfit) and artists such as ALICIA KEYS and GWEN STEFANI can chart. Remember, dead guys don’t collect you little green jewelcases, so get your act together. If you insist on repackaging old material for profit then how ’bout - RETURN OF THE SON OF CHEAP THRILLS:
01. PENGUIN IN BONDAGE (ROXY & ELSEWHERE)
02. SHOVE IT RIGHT IN (YCDTOSA6)
03. DEBRA KADABRA (BONGO FURY)
04. BOW TIE DADDY (…MONEY)
05. G-SPOT TORNADO (THE YELLOW SHARK)
06. REVISED MUSIC FOR GUITAR ETC. (LATHER)
07. BILLY THE MOUNTAIN (PLAYGROUND PSYCHOTICS)
08. JESUS THINKS… (BTHW)
09. THE TORTURE NEVER STOPS (YCDTOSA1)
10. ANY KIND OF PAIN (BTHW)
11. WONDERFUL WINO (LOST EPISODES)
12. PACKARD GOOSE (JOE’S GARAGE)
That’s a curio to blow your head up! Get this out immediately RYKO if you wish to avoid appearing like naive capitalist assholes. That “introduction” is sure to get new listeners to what should be, for you at least, a highly lucrative venture.
PS. Everything you’ve released by JOHN CALE since the VU get-together circa ‘93 sucks!
August 8th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
This is the first Zappa album I ever bought. While it’s not perfect by any means, it’s still cool and full of Frank’s humor.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:00 am
As mentioned before…
Ech, it’s soundtrack for the cover art. And it is beautiful cover art, if you’re a newbie, you’ll enjoy it more because the weird visuals and weird music will hit you much harder in this comp.
8/10 as an artpiece.
I bought this one while I was still young and getting into music (this was my 4th Zappa album, this was before I ever had a clue about him and the breadth of his music). Think junior high, you find this grotesque gem in your local Wal Mart for $5. You never were satisfied with Limp Bizkit and you know Black Sabbath through and through.
Lot of strange Nights pouring over Ryko’s write up, I never knew Humour Belonged in Music… the feeling of how this opened up my perception of music, of art… even now, this whole package, grotesque, goofy but belying such an intense complexity, it just screams “ZAPPA” (before it was legal issue to do so), I cant think of any better introduction to his music but this audio/visual/interactive artifact.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Buy the albums instead. You really lose the context of each song when taken out of their original collections (i.e. the way each album goes from track to track). As an introduction into the music of FZ, perhaps, but only as a pointer of where to go next. These compilations were the last on my purchase list, right behind Strictly Commercial, The Best of…, and the other horde of promo compilations that Ryko flogged in the 1990s. Of only real interest to completists and neophytes.