Joe's Garage is a three-part rock opera released by American musician Frank Zappa in September and November 1979.

The story is told by a character identified as the "Central Scrutinizer" narrating the story of Joe, an average adolescent male, from Canoga Park, Los Angeles, who forms a garage rock band, has unsatisfying relationships with women, gives all of his money to a government-assisted and insincere religion, explores sexual activities with appliances, and is imprisoned.

The album encompasses a large spectrum of musical styles, while its lyrics often feature satirical or humorous commentary on American society and politics.

It addresses themes of individualism, free will, censorship, the music industry and human sexuality, while criticizing government and religion, and satirizing Catholicism and Scientology.

[...] Total Criminalization was the greatest idea of its time and was vastly popular except with those people, who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws, so, of course, they had to be Tricked Into It... which is one of the reasons, why music was eventually made Illegal.

[1]: 150  The Central Scrutinizer explains that music leads to a "slippery slope" of drug use, disease, unusual sexual practices, prison, and eventually, insanity.

[2]: 370 The title track is noted as having an autobiographical aspect, as the character of Larry (as performed by Zappa himself) sings that the band plays the same song repeatedly because "it sounded good to me".

[1]: 150  The song also takes lyrical inspiration from bands playing in bars like The Mothers of Invention once had, and shady record deals Zappa had experienced in the past.

[1]: 159  The penultimate song, "Packard Goose", criticizes rock journalism, and features a philosophical monolog delivered by the character Mary, who had been absent since the first act.

[1]: 158–159  In the epilogue song "A Little Green Rosetta," Joe gives up music, returns to sanity, hocks his imaginary guitar and gets "a good job" at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Facility (a self-reference to Zappa's own personal studio).

The Central Scrutinizer sings the last song on the album in his "regular voice", and joins in a long musical number with most of the other people that worked with Zappa around 1979.

Joe, heartbroken, "falls in with a fast crowd" and gets seduced by Lucille, a girl who works at the Jack in the Box, and has sex with her, only to catch gonorrhea ("Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?").

Joe meets Sy Borg, a "Model XQJ-37 Nuclear Powered Pansexual Roto-Plooker", who looks like a "Cross between an Industrial Vacuum Cleaner and a Chrome-Plated Piggy Bank with marital aids stuck all over it", and falls in love with him ("Stick It Out").

Joe is released from prison into a dystopian society where music has been made illegal and "[walks] through the parking lot in a semi-catatonic state", dreaming guitar notes.

The music of Joe's Garage encompassed a variety of styles, including blues, jazz, doo wop, lounge, orchestral, rock, pop and reggae.

[1]: 152–153  The extended three and a half minute, two-part guitar solo in "Toad-O-Line" is taken from Zappa's earlier song, "Inca Roads.

"[14] "A Token Of My Extreme" originated as an instrumental song played during improvised conversations by saxophonist Napoleon Murphy Brock and George Duke on keyboards.

[1]: 155 "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up" first appeared on Jeff Simmons' album of the same name, on which its writing is credited to "La Marr Bruister", one of Zappa's pseudonyms.

[8]: 376  The song's title is thought to have come from a saying used by Zappa while recording the album: "Playing a guitar solo with this band is like trying to grow watermelon in Easter hay".

For the album artwork, Zappa was photographed in black makeup,[20] holding a mop for the car grease garage theme.

[8]: 381  The gatefold sleeve of Act I was designed by John Williams, and featured a collage, which included a naked Maya, vague technical drawings, pyramids and fingers on the fret of a guitar.

[24] In an interview, Zappa explained that the "fembot" was the name given to a female robot in an episode of the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.

[27][28] William Ruhlmann wrote of Act I, "although his concern with government censorship would see a later flowering in his battles with the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), here he wasn't able to use it to fulfill a satisfying dramatic function.

[28] Don Shewey of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "If the surface of this opera is cluttered with cheap gags and musical mishmash, its soul is located in profound existential sorrow.

"[32] The collected Acts I, II & III release received 4.5 out of 5 stars from Allmusic's Steve Huey, who wrote "in spite of its flaws, Joe's Garage has enough substance to make it one of Zappa's most important '70s works and overall political statements, even if it's not focused enough to rank with his earliest Mothers of Invention masterpieces.

[33]: 58  On September 26, 2008, Joe's Garage was staged by the Open Fist Theatre Company in Los Angeles, in a production authorized by the Zappa Family Trust.