For those who don't get it - Frank Zappa's music featured a plethora of commentary on social and political issues in the form of satire. His lyrics are over the top and ridiculous, which feature absurd little stories or make fun of people in positions of power at the time who try to lord over ordinary folks. It was meant to be humorous, to be offensive, to be absurd. He even had songs about "flakes in California", and railed against democrats and republicans of his time. He despised social conservatism but described himself as a conservative regardless (a fiscal, and libertarian constitutionalist).

He was as American as they come. He gave a shit about the direction of society and our constitutional rights, and the entirety of his music catalog talking about the breakdown of society has been validated a dozen times over since his passing.

Frank would laugh at the idea of people being disgusted by his music or walking out of shows because he hated how uptight and restrictive everything in his time was, but he also hated the counter culture's negative influences in the form of drugs, populism, and the commies.

He was not a hippie, not like other people of his time. Listen to the guy speak, or better yet, look up his testimony for congress in the '80s where he and a few other people fought against a movie like rating system to be applied for music albums, because it would necessarily result in censorship. He argued that people ought to choose for themselves what they want to listen to, and that a reasonable solution would be printing lyrics of songs on the inside pamphlets of albums. We still ended up with 'parental advisory' stickers, but managed to avoid a full on rating system which would result in radio censorship- like television, of R rated albums. Who would have determined that? Government.

As far as the music itself, love it or hate it, it's ridiculously complex and difficult. His songs are all almost entirely compositions, written to be played the exact same way every time. I'm a musician myself and Frank Zappa had a big influence in my playing of the guitar and music theory; the stuff is no joke, as a composer Zappa was a modern virtuoso and he surrounded himself by virtuoso players like Steve Vai. Try listening to a song like 'The Black Page', 'Watermelon in Easter Hay', 'Black Napkins', or any other instrumental (like 1/3 to 1/2 of all his music is just instrumentals, but he is most remembered for his absurd songs in the public eye). He ran his band like a business man, and if someone did drugs or had a bad attitude they were out. His music is very unconventional and if you've never heard it, you are unlike to hear almost anything else like it with exception of some other fantastic, albeit, unknown artists in this day and age.