With the acquisition, which additionally includes Frank Zappa's name and likeness, Universal Music Enterprises (UMe),UMG's global catalog company, and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG),the company's leading music publisher, will build on the company's already successful track record of working with the Zappa Trust to amplify Frank Zappa's career as a trailblazer, iconoclast, brilliant musician and fearless artist who challenged music and culture with his unconventional and uncompromising vision and advocacy.

 

Under the new agreement, UMPG acquires Zappa's complete publishing catalog.

 

Over the last decade working closely together, the Zappa Trust and UMe have revitalized Frank Zappa's catalog through a steady stream of thrilling archival releases, vinyl reissues of his classic albums, streaming initiatives, and by making his music more widely available around the globe than ever before. UMG has grown streams of Zappa's music by double-digit percentages each year and recently much of Zappa's catalog was made available in Hi-Res Audio for download and streaming for the first time. On the heels of UMe and the Zappa Trust's multipronged efforts, and Alex Winter's acclaimed 2020 feature documentary "Zappa", of which UMe provided the soundtrack, Zappa and his music have experienced a newfound popularity that only continues to grow nearly two decades after his death.

To date, there have been 122 official Zappa releases, however, that only scratches the surface of what the future holds as it represents a small fraction of the recordings in Zappa's expansive and exhaustive Vault that have been made publicly available. An obsessive documenter, Zappa recorded nearly every session, rehearsal, live performance, and even casual jam in a variety of audio and video formats across nearly his entire life. UMG plans to dive into The Vault for new archival projects for decades to come. Additionally, with Zappa's name and likeness, UMG will engage existing fans and new audiences around the world with merchandise, feature films, interactive experiences, as well as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other next-generation Web3 projects.

 

In his unprecedented and incredibly prolific career, Zappa released more than 60 groundbreaking albums during his lifetime, as a solo artist and with his bands, THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION and THE MOTHERS. 

 

Following Zappa's passing in 1993, there have been more than 60 posthumous releases.

 

Zappa, who died of prostate cancer when he was 52, was a composer, virtuoso guitarist, songwriter, artist's rights champion, provocateur, anti-censorship advocate, a musical pioneer, and one-time cultural ambassador to Czechoslovakia. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1995 and awarded the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 1997.