1. Run Home Slow Theme (The Lost Episodes, Rykodisc, 1996)

“Four Frightened People! Ominous! Grotesque!” The original poster for this Zappa-scored 1965 B-movie reads like a Mothers spoof. But it’s as genuine as Frank’s passion was for this early project, with its bold, pacy, Stravinsky-style main theme, accompanied by an assortment of convoluted horseback rhythms and, yes, ominous horns.

2. Hungry Freaks, Daddy (Freak Out, Verve, 1966)

The mangled Satisfaction guitar riff and tuneless, complaining voices fired a first warning. These Mothers weren’t meddling with angsty teenbeat or protest pop, but something more warped and, hoped Zappa, enlightening. A flatulent kazoo, an attack-minded guitar break and digs a-plenty at consumer culture kept freaks happy.

3. Why Dont’cha Do Me Right (Verve, 1967)

Stomping into action like a classic Fall single, this ‘lost’ 45, written back in ’62, is vintage garage rock with added axle-grind – and so deliciously humdrum that ATV revived it during punk. Zappa, already speaking rather than singing, relishes the occasional slip into spotty character (“Why don’t you do me rye-eet!).

4. Trouble Every Day (Freak Out, Verve, 1966)

It wasn’t all satirical mocks. This six-minute response to the 1965 Watts Riots found Zappa the social commentator at his most eviscerating. Had Verve been brave enough, this should’ve been The Mothers’ Like A Rolling Stone: racism, police brutality, “phony” TV reports, all hung on a stinging R&B riff.

5. Absolutely Free (We’re Only In It For The Money, Verve, 1968)

A fervent First Amendment man, Zappa was serious about his freedoms – and hugely sceptical about hippy quick fixes involving mysticism and drugs. All of that’s here, in a masterful piece full in ever-mutating textures, rhythms and dynamics yet still sounding stunningly coherent. Memorable one-liners too (“Flower Power sucks!”).

6. Peaches En Regalia (Hot Rats, Reprise, 1969)

The high point of Zappa’s ‘electric chamber music’, Peaches was the great triumph of the Zappa/Underwood partnership, sailing jazz, classical and cartoon elements over a nailed-down rhythm section (featuring a young Shuggie Otis), defying every genre. A concert favourite, and forever Zappa’s calling card.

7. Montana (Over-Nite Sensation, DiscReet, 1973)

Now sounding like a rock’n’roll Vincent Price – his voice dropped as a result of the Rainbow incident – Zappa launched his new storyteller style in a circuitous song about dental floss that boasted riveting chops – and Tina Turner and her Ikettes. “What is this shit?” complained husband Ike.

8. Cosmic Debris (Apostrophe, DiscReet, 1974)

By now, the satire had become softer, the target here being new age gurus peddling “mumbo jumbo”. Musically, the vocal was more intimate, the groove, funkier, deeper. Room too for a stinging, wah-assisted Zappa solo, plus sound effects worthy of early hero bandleader Spike Jones.

9. Son Of Orange County (Roxy & Elsewhere, DiscReet, 1974)

This live reworking of an old Mothers instrumental now came with an added Napoleon Murphy Brock vocal baiting Watergate-scarred scion of Orange County, Dick Nixon. The real star, though, was Zappa’s masterful guitar showcase – long, with jazz notes, rabid Mahavishnu flurries, low notes, even George Benson notes.

10. Inca Roads (One Size Fits All, DiscReet, 1975)

Here’s where Zappa’s noodle factory hi-jinks reach epic proportions. While the lyric takes a pop at the post-hippy vogue for ‘aliens on earth’ stories, the music skips across the sound spectrum, from jazz-funk and fussy synth prog to the Saturn-bound voices of Sun Ra’s Arkestra. Sheer paradise for musos.

11. Black Napkins (Zoot Allures, Warners, 1976)

Alias Frank’s answer to Santana’s Samba Pa Ti. Against a slow, minimal backing, Zappa simply shut up and played his guitar, a landmark solo that finds him at his most pure and unmediated. Not bad for a piece inspired by “a black napkin sitting on a table in a Milwaukee hotel, Thanksgiving, 1975.”

12. Joe’s Garage (Joe’s Garage, Zappa, 1979)

Zappa hated poetry but loved storytelling. And this lump-in-the-throat paean to playing in a band, remains one of his best. Likely triggered by the new wave’s back-to-basics philosophy, this title track, sung by Ike Willis, is both warmly nostalgic and – it’s Zappa after all – a cautionary tale.

13. Valley Girl (Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch, Barking Pumpkin, 1982)

A new lingo popular among California’s young smart set reached Zappa’s anthropological ears via 14- year-old daughter Moon, who he had improvise brattish vocals over a gutsy jam he had lying around. Hey presto! One naggingly quirky hit single – and a job at MTV for Frank’s eldest.

14. I Don’t Even Care (Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers Of Prevention, Barking Pumpkin, 1985)

Taking on Washington, playing a drug dealer on Miami Vice – anything was possible for ’80s Zappa. But this takes some beating. Frank provided the mind-crunching, electro-funk backing; his late ’50s hero Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson summoned up one mighty vocal. A doddle for the Maestro but deliciously effective. 

1. Dog Breath Variations (The Yellow Shark, Rykodisc, 1993)

A reworking of a song from 1968’s Uncle Meat, this confirms that Zappa’s orchestral work was defiantly 20th century, percussive, dissonant, bold and brassy. More than that, it was of a piece with the rest of his work, all part of what Zappa called The Big Note.