David Bowie was renowned for constantly reinventing his own sound, and he tended to champion fellow artists he saw as genuinely pushing music forward, from Kraftwerk to producer Nile Rodgers. However, he made an exception for Frank Zappa, whose famously eccentric and genre-hopping work Bowie admitted left him cold, revealing a clear line between the kind of experimentation he valued and what he considered indulgent for its own sake.

In his own words, Bowie said he admired Zappa but preferred Charlie Mingus, suggesting Zappa had never got over not being accepted at Mingus's level and had instead built an audience of his own. Bowie added that while he saw "huge potential" in Zappa, he simply didn't understand him and wasn't intrigued enough to try. The article contrasts this with Zappa's genuinely wide-ranging catalogue, from the jazz-inflected Hot Rats to the sprawling rock opera Joe's Garage, noting that Zappa never sought mainstream approval and remained committed to following his own artistic instincts regardless.