Frank Zappa - Rental T-Shirt

Frank Zappa seen here wearing the Rental shirt in 1968.  Two years before, Zappa, with his Mothers of Invention, had released the sonically peerless debut, Freak Out!, the first concept album in rock and roll and it's first double lp. 

He'd followed that up in 1967 with Absolutely Free and Lumpy Gravy, both fine examples of Frank Zappa’s spectacular production techniques.  The proceeding year saw We’re Only In It For The Money, his biting satire on the hippie and counterculture mores of the late 60s, the cover of which was a razor-sharp parody of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album collage photograph. 

Frank Zappa's work of the time defied cozy pigeon-holing – encompassing jazz, pop and rock – and he was also fearlessly experimental in the methods he used to put the works together, cutting and pasting compositions together like a latter-day hip-hop artist (hmmmm) and throwing in to the mix snatches of conversation and satiric references from other songs and TV show themes and ad jingles.