Studio Tan
| Studio Tan | ||||
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| Studio album by Frank Zappa | ||||
| Released | September 15, 1978 | |||
| Recorded | 1969, 1974 – 1976 at The Record Plant, LA; Royce Hall, UCLA and Caribou Studios, Nederland, Colorado | |||
| Genre | Experimental rock, jazz fusion, progressive rock | |||
| Length | 39:18 | |||
| Label | DiscReet Records | |||
| Producer | Frank Zappa | |||
| Frank Zappa chronology | ||||
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Studio Tan is an album by Frank Zappa, first released in September 1978 on his own DiscReet Records label. It reached #147 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in the United States.
In early 1976, Zappa's relationship with manager and business partner Herb Cohen ended in litigation. Zappa and Cohen's company DiscReet Records was distributed by Warner Bros. Records. When Zappa asked for a reassignment of his contract from DiscReet to Warner in order to advance the possibility of doing special projects without Cohen's involvement, Warner agreed. This led to the 1976 release of Zoot Allures on Warner. Early in 1977, Zappa delivered the master tapes for a quadruple-LP set, titled Läther. However, Warner changed its position following legal action from Cohen, and refused to release the album, claiming that Zappa was contractually bound to deliver four more albums to Warner for the DiscReet label.
After Warner released the live double album Zappa in New York (1978), they told him that he still owed them four more albums. He then attempted to get a distribution deal with Phonogram Inc. to release Läther on the new Zappa Records label. This led Warner to threaten legal action, preventing the release of Läther and forcing Zappa to shelve the project. As Zappa had delivered the tapes only, these three individual albums were released with no musical credits. Warner also commissioned sleeve art by Gary Panter, which was not approved by Zappa. When this material was first released on CD in 1991 Zappa chose to release the individual albums, along with Panter's artwork. (The 1991 reissue swapped "Revised Music for Guitar & Low-Budget Orchestra" and "Lemme Take You to the Beach" in the album's running order.) The material on Studio Tan was made available in a different form when Läther was released in 1996 as a triple album.
All four tracks were originally intended for the shelved Läther album. Side two of the album was to be side three of Läther, although on Läther there are brief segments of sound effects between the songs that are absent on Studio Tan. "Greggery Peccary" has an early fadeout on the Studio Tan LP compared to both Läther and reissues of Studio Tan from 1991 onwards.
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