Frank Zappa (1940–1993) was a famed rock ‘n’ roll musician who lived and died in suburban Southern California. Critics and culture writers, especially in the United States, have overlooked suburbia as an incubator of innovative new modes of expression. Zappa marks an exception to this false assumption. A close reading of his musical catalog from the 1960s to the 1980s for suburban themes reveals an artist skillfully and rigorously mining the suburbs for content. The life and works of Zappa and his family illustrate a need for suburban studies to keep fragmenting suburbia into a complex array of distinctive pieces. These include the Bohemian Suburb, which was an important new form of low-density residential community that grew into prominence during the 1960s and has continued to endure in the years since.