(born 1940); d.1993 Social satirist, culture critic, cynic, parodic transgressor, musical innovator, prepostmodern American composer, monster guitarist and rock ’n’ roller. With the debut of “Freak Out” (1966), Frank Zappa and his Mothers of Invention took on American popular culture with a repugnance and a taste for the bizarre. His work captured the absurdities of flower power, plastic people, rock ’n’roll (“Does this Kind of Life Look Interesting to You?”), sexual desire, body envies (“Penis Dimensions”) and youth culture, but also cynically critiqued the commodification of life in general. Early in his career he asked his audience to drop out of high school in favor of a library education. He proposed that ugly was beautiful, and that his music had no commercial potential. Some of his finest moments came in September 1985 when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Contents of Music and the Lyrics of Records. He wrote, recorded and performed doowop songs, rock anthems, jazz interludes and orchestral scores, and made films and videos, bucking the music business all along the way.