Editing Frank Zappa (section)

=== Digital medium and last tour ===
{{see also|Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention|Jazz from Hell|
Guitar (Frank Zappa album)|Broadway the Hard Way|The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life|Make a Jazz Noise Here|You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore (disambiguation){{!}}You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore}}
Starting in the mid-1980s, Zappa undertook a comprehensive re-release program of his earlier vinyl recordings.<ref name="miles" />{{rp|340}} He personally oversaw the remastering of all his 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s albums for the new digital compact disc (CD) medium.{{refn|group="nb"|For a comprehensive comparison of vinyl and CD releases, see {{cite web|url=http://lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/vinylvscds/|title=The Frank Zappa Album Versions Guide&nbsp;– Index|series=The Zappa Patio|publisher=lukpac.org/~handmade/patio|access-date=January 7, 2008}}}} Certain aspects of these re-issues have been criticized by some fans as being unfaithful to the original recordings, with changes made to ''We're Only in It for the Money'', ''Cruising with Ruben & the Jets'', ''Uncle Meat'', and ''Sleep Dirt'' being the most strongly criticized.<ref>Miles, 2004, ''Frank Zappa'', p.&nbsp;327.</ref> Nearly twenty years before the advent of online music stores, Zappa had proposed to replace "phonographic record merchandising" of music by "direct digital-to-digital transfer" through phone or cable TV (with royalty payments and consumer billing automatically built into the accompanying software).<ref name="Occhiogrosso" />{{rp|337–339}} In 1989, Zappa considered his idea a "miserable flop".<ref name="Occhiogrosso" />{{rp|337–339}}

The album ''[[Jazz from Hell]],'' released in 1986, earned Zappa his first [[Grammy Award]] in 1988 for [[Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance|Best Rock Instrumental Performance]]. Except for one live guitar solo ("St. Etienne"), the album exclusively featured compositions brought to life by the Synclavier.

Zappa's last tour in a rock and jazz band format took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which had a repertoire of over 100 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split under acrimonious circumstances before the tour was completed.<ref name="miles"/>{{rp|346–350}} The tour was documented on the albums ''[[Broadway the Hard Way]]'' (new material featuring songs with strong political emphasis); ''[[The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life]]'' (Zappa "standards" and an eclectic collection of cover tunes, ranging from [[Maurice Ravel]]'s ''[[Boléro]]'' to [[Led Zeppelin]]'s "[[Stairway to Heaven]]"); and ''[[Make a Jazz Noise Here]]'' (Zappa's more instrumentally complex and jazz orientated material). An album of guitar solos from this tour also appeared as the posthumous 2006 album ''[[Trance-Fusion]]'', a follow-up to the ''Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar'' and ''Guitar'' albums.

More recordings from the 1988 tour would appear as part of ''[[You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore (disambiguation)|You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore]]'', a series of six double CDs compiled by Zappa from unreleased live recordings, dating back to the earliest Mothers recordings from 1965. The six volumes were released between 1988 and 1992.

''[[The Real Frank Zappa Book]]'', co-written with Peter Occhiogrosso, was published by [[Poseidon Press]] in 1989. Zappa appeared on the TV interview show ''[[Larry King Live]]'' to promote it. He explained the title by saying he wrote it in response to previous unauthorized books, which he considered to be stupid and exploitative.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIO57D3ruQU | title=Frank Zappa plugs his autobiography on Larry King Live | website=[[YouTube]] | date=May 22, 2012 }}</ref>