Burt Bacharach's musical inventiveness was matched by Frank Zappa.
Bacharach, who died recently at age 94, like Zappa wrote songs with unusual time signatures and rhythms, often within the same composition.
The iconoclastic Zappa and popular music dynamo Bacharach took opposite views of American culture.
Bacharach achieved mass success, turning out anthems to middle-American romance and material success. Zappa's outrageous satire skewered the same culture celebrated by Bacharach. From different realms, they both pushed beyond the boundaries of American pop music.
Unlike Bacharach, Zappa spurned Top 40 hits. Zappa, who died in 1993, gained a devoted cult following as the leader of the Mothers of Invention, a band known for its musical sophistication in carrying out Zappa's innovative arrangements on a number of concept albums.
After the band's early satirical work "Freak Out," "Absolutely Free," "We're Only in It for the Money" and "Lumpy Gravy," Zappa reached new levels of artistic brilliance with a series of symphonic jazz compositions. His later avant garde work brought him renown as a major composer.
Bacharach in contrast concentrated on popular hits, while branching out to write the Broadway show "Promises, Promises" and movie soundtracks.
While Zappa often collaborated with symphony orchestras late in his career, Bacharach declined offers to write symphonies. Yet Bacharach's arrangements with their range of instruments and memorable horn lines mirrored Zappa's musical virtuosity.
Bacharach and Zappa were opposites in many ways, but they both possessed ground-breaking talent, extending the boundaries of modern American music.
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