| Sleep Dirt | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | January 19, 1979 | |||
| Recorded | December 5–26, 1974 and 1976 at the Record Plant, LA, and Caribou Studios, Nederland, Colorado | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 40:32 | |||
| Label | DiscReet | |||
| Producer | Frank Zappa | |||
| Frank Zappa chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [1] |
| Christgau's Record Guide | B−[2] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [3] |
Sleep Dirt is an album by Frank Zappa, released in January 1979 on his own DiscReet Records label, distributed by Warner Bros. Records. It reached No. 175 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States.
Zappa's original title for the album was Hot Rats III.[4] As the original title implies, Zappa saw this as a sort of follow up to his earlier jazz-influenced rock albums such as Hot Rats (1969) and Waka/Jawaka (1972).
Though it was on his own label, Zappa did not authorize the original 1979 release of this album.[5] Warner did no promotion and it was largely overlooked by fans upon release. At the same time Zappa gave interviews which described his legal problems with Warner and former manager Herb Cohen. The 1991 CD re-release was the first time the album was issued with Zappa's authorization.[6]
Some of the songs on this album were originally written in 1972 for a Zappa stage musical called Hunchentoot. A complete script exists, but the recordings for this project were never completed.
- ^ Couture, F. (2011). "Sleep Dirt - Frank Zappa | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
- ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: Z". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 23, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
- ^ The Rolling Stone Album Guide. Random House. 1992. p. 799.
- ^ "1979-04 Record Review Interview: Frank Zappa".
- ^ "1978-09 Zappa zaps religion and drugs".
- ^ "Biffy the Elephant Shrew looks at Läther".