Ranking Funkadelic's albums

Funny, I just heard Maggot Brain yesterday for the first time. I thought the same thing about that opening track, god what a bore. Actually though, the rest of the album is pretty great.

uh: you and your folks = not funky? get to that = not funky? i admit the fart sounds aren't too psychedelic.

Exactly, "you and your folks" is about the dirtiest, nastiest funkiest shit I've ever heard. I love the recording on this; what's up with the drums?

But, "dirtiest, nastiest, funkiest shit you've ever heard?" I would describe it as weakest, lamest excuse for funk I ever heard.

like edd said, there's gold on every one save the last (which I listened to once back in 1979, just included it to be a dick)

When discussing Maggot Brain, how can one possibly discount "Can You Get To That?" It's certainly my favorite on the album and honky-tonk funky like nobody's business.

1. best of the early years
2. maggot brain
3. standing on the verge of getting it on
4. one nation under a groove
5. electric spanking of war babies
6. funkadelic
7. osmium
8. cosmic slop
9. hardcore jollies
10. let's take it to the stage
11. uncle jam wants you
12. free your mind...and your ass will follow
13. tales of kidd funkadelic
14. america eats its young
15. connections and disconnections

1. Maggot Brain
2. Standing on the Verge of Getting It On
3. One Nation Under a Groove
4. Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow
5. Funkadelic
6. Cosmic Slop
7. Electric Spanking of War Babies
8. Hardcore Jollies
9. Tales of Kidd Funkadelic
10. America Eats Its Young
11. Uncle Jam Wants You

Never heard "Let's Take It to the Stage"

Original Parliament-Funkadelic Singer Dies In N.J.

TRENTON, N.J. -- Ray Davis, a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, a flamboyant 1970s funk band whose music is considered a precursor to modern rap and hip-hop, died Tuesday from respiratory complications at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick. He was 65.

Davis provided bass vocals on songs such as "Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucka)," "One Nation Under A Groove" and "Flashlight." The latter two songs reached No. 1 on the R&B charts.

Under leader George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic fused R&B, jazz, gospel and rock styles combined with garish costumes and elaborate stage displays to form one of the most original bands of the 1970s.

"It started out as a doo-wop group," Clinton said in a 2003 interview at a Rhythm & Blues Foundation ceremony honoring the band. "Once we decided to change from that, we went as far as we could ... from diapers to any kind of costume that anyone might have on."

Born March 29, 1940, in Sumter, S.C., Davis was a member of the original Parliaments, a vocal group formed in the 1950s by Clinton while a junior high school student in Plainfield, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Web site. Other members of the group included Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins and Grady Thomas.

The group scored a top-20 pop hit in 1967 with the single "(I Wanna) Testify." In the early 1970s, Clinton changed the vocal group's name from plural to singular and also created Funkadelic, a funk band with a sound more influenced by the electric guitar. The two overlapping groups and other affiliated acts became known as "P-Funk."

Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 in a class that included the Jackson 5, Bee Gees, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Young Rascals and Buffalo Springfield.

Davis, who lived in Franklin Park, remained active musically in recent years, according to his son, Derrick, filling in on bass vocals with the Temptations after the death of Melvin Franklin in the mid-1990s and touring since 1998 with original P-Funk members Haskins and Thomas.

!!!
And to think you consider yourself a stoner guy?!

"Maggot Brain", the song, is a curious choice for an LP opener ("Super Stupid" woulda been my choice) but still the most heavenly AND hellish wah-wah epic in history. To pretend otherwise is as fooish as describing "Can You Get To That" as "lame". Or (mis)-counting 7 songs as 8!

Hell, even then, it will be tough.. I'll have to add ratings to the rankings just to state that an album five notches below is practically as good as the one above it just because almost every album is excellent but each in a different way.

Reading the liner notes to the reissues have been very eluminating. They make the Funk sound like the R&B Hawkwind, except whereas David Brock was the ringleader of a constant revolving door of occasionally talented musicians, George Clinton was the ringleader of a more rapidly rotating revolving door of consistently excellent musicians... and, of course, the drugs.

Wow. To each his/her own I guess.

Just a general ranking due to ineveitable fluctuations in taste. The top five have all been my "single" favourite at various times.

And I still think Stoner Guy's wrong, but I do value his term "Schoolhouse Rock-ish"! Very evocative.

I'm also very fond of the live album.

love them but their albums are kinda overrated... and the rockism thats meant theyre the no 1 funk(/rock) band of choice for the mainstream now is predictable but a bit irritating as it means ewf, isleys, etc arent talked about as much. but the early albums are just meandering 'were gonna go on forever just cos we CAN!' affairs, the middle period is when they tightened up but still subjected people to quite a bit of aimlessness (ie tracks like nappy dug out which just goes on and on) amidst the great tracks like better by the pound and comin round the mountain... i dont think they really hit their stride totally til one nation. their albums are checking out but most of them are pretty erratic. id say standing on the verge, lets take it to the stage and one nation are the best. dont know electric spanking well enough (although i love the title track) to comment. ive always found some of the mixing on a lot of their albums a bit weird too.

The Isley's and Earth Wind & Fire are like Journey and Foreigner and Funkadelic are like Spirit.

"their albums are checking out but most of them are pretty erratic"

Oh I think their albums are better than "worth checking out", but I don't think anyone will argue that Funkadelic (and Parliament) albums aren't pretty erratic. Those guys were clearly way way too stoned to produce a consistent record.

http://i36.tinypic.com/qskqs9.png

nobody got this in the recognize discographies thread

That's because it looks like an x in little box.

I've been playing Let's Take It To The Stage lately, and I've wondered whether I prefer the chonky sprawl of some of their other albums. Of course they could write three-minute songs ("Super Stupid," etc), but these are missing...something. I don't hear the surpassing weirdness of "Jimmy's Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him" or "I'll Stay."

I admit that I prefer the chonky sprawl. Consistency is overrated frankly.

That said I still find America to be just a tounch too sprawling and chonky most of the time.

the album too.

Only thing that bugs me about this thread is the consistent devaluation of Cosmic Slop. Nobody says it's the worst or anything, but nobody seems to really take it to heart, either. Love that record, one of my all-time favorites. Admit that it's uneven, but the good stuff is so damn great! Nappy Dugout starts things off at a nice low boil, and You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure is cool, but it's really all about Side 2. Cosmic Slop = BEST EVER, No Compute is super cute, and Can't Stand the Strain is just massive. Last couple minutes = face of god, maybe the most ecstatic moment in their catalog.

Most underrated: Electric Spanking.

Erraticism is teh inevitable result of a band of 30+ members trying so many different things all the time (not to mention the assload of drugs they went through.) I'm forever re-ranking them myself all the time, and today I'd put their first two much higher up than I did originally.

xpost - I TOTALLY would've recognized that discography-doppelganger if I'd seen it, abanana! Superb job of colour-matching there.

another xpost - Cosmic Slop would benefit from a bit of re-sequencing, in my opinion. (And I remain convinced that "This Broken Heart" is actually a leftover Parliament track from 1970 or so.)

True, but at least a couple people put it near the top. The best Cosmic Slop seems to do is to sit sadly there in the lower middle.

That last re: Alfred and Electric Spanking. Agree with Myonga on the resequencing of CS, and that This Broken Heart woulda fit in better on Osmium.

I think it's their fifth best album, which considering they have like a dozen good albums puts it in the upper middle for me.

Hey, give me a year or two and it'll work its way into my top three! Temporarily.

xxxxxpost - maggot brain is their most overrated album, yeah. not sure why its so popular in so many best albums ever charts. i think it was even in mojos best guitar albums ever but its when they were still trying stuff out. not worthy of quite *so* much adulation. hazel is good but he kinda overdid it (without sort of knowing what he was doing) on tracks like super stupid.

i still cant sell my funkadelic cd reissues. i keep meaning to put them on ebay cos i could do with the money but then i look at them and put them back on the shelf.

"hazel is good but he kinda overdid it (without sort of knowing what he was doing) on tracks like super stupid."

I find it hard to criticize Super Stupid. That song kills.

Yeah, the retributive Maggot Brain slams make no sense to me. It's a great album, every bit as good as the world seems to insist, opened by one of the most stellar pieces of guitar wank in rock/funk history, followed up by Can You Get to That, which might be Clinton's most indelible pop tune. To say nothing of Hit It and Quit It, You and Your Folks..., Super Stupid and Back in Our Minds. Though I could do without Wars of Armageddon, it's probably the most musically consistent and consistently mind-blowing album in the band's catalog (this side of One Nation, anyway).

^^^^yes

honestly I prefer the Wars of Armageddon version on Toys without all the sound effects+vocals slathered on top of it. Totally made me re-evaluate that song.

I knew you would. I told you the Toys version was amazing.

its always been my least favorite on Maggot Brain - too fussy or overdone or something. But stripped of its adornments the backing track is REALLY fucking heavy.

Maggot Brain sucks cock. My god is this piece of shit overrated. There is just no excuse for a long guitar solo as the first song on an album of 8 lame songs.

― Stoner Guy, Tuesday, July 5, 2005 1:12 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

btw i know this guy isnt around anymore but i suggest band him on principle

What band?

fake fictons & i

I guess I need to hear that Toys thing...

i don't think maggot brain deserves any kind of backlash, jeez. listening to that unbelievable opening track is like experiencing zeppelin or hendrix for the first time.

Electric Spanking would be fourth or fifth for me.

Not a ranking, but just a celebration of Let's Take It to the Stage, by me:

http://thequietus.com/articles/18221-funkadelic-lets-take-it-to-the-stage-review-anniversary-2

nice

So let's get off my ass and jam!

I've got a CDR with Maggot Brain and the US (United Soul) record that was done as a early spinoff of Funkadelic that I have been listening to for the last couple of weeks.

That US Music with Funkadelic is not a bunch of outtakes, it's real good if you haven't heard it and love the early LPs. "Rat Kiss the Cat on the Navel" is up there with the best acid guitar tracks they ever did.

I refuse to accept that “funner” is a word

Funner is not a fucking word and we who know better have to fight back on this whenever and however we can

That's a typo, not sure how that made my cut.

I fought my own war against an adult who breathes oxygen using "picky" to describe her (non-allergic) eating habits ("Just admit, 'I'm an unadventurous eater'").

Great stuff

Standing On the Verge of Getting It On used to be underrated but not so much anymore, I don't think. It helps that it's energy really never flags and all the different things Funkadelic did best are well-represented - the anthem, the spacey guitar epic, the goofy joke, the sex jam etc.

I would've given more love to the mid-period albums (Cosmic Slop>Standing on the Verge>Let's Take it to the Stage>Hardcore Jollies>Tales of Kidd Funkadelic), but that's just what I return to most these days.

I nominate One Nation Under A Groove for a proper backlash. That's the overrated album.

― Fastnbulbous, Wednesday, April 1, 2009 1:03 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Been revisiting all of these albums chronologically and I totally agree with this

it's still great, it's just not a top 5 funkadelic album. grooveallegiance and the title track are two of the best they've ever done.

Yeah agree ‘One Nation’ is over rated...’Let’s take it to the stage’ is the unloved child

One of many. Cosmic Slop also doesn't get nearly enough love, which has always baffled me

cosmic slop is my favorite p-funk record, i think

Speaking of ignored, on the underrated tip is "Electric Spanking of War Babies", and "Tales of Kidd Funkadelic" is pretty great for a contractual obligation filler.

"One Nation" is not overrated and "Grooveallegiance" is the worst track on it!

One Nation is maybe *slightly* overrated, but still great. Also Groovallegiance is the BEST track on it wtf. So uplifting. Let's Take It to the Stage is def my favorite Funkadelic album these days tho. Tales of Kidd and Cosmic Slop being the most underrated.

There's a tidal wave of mysticism surging through our jet-age generation...

one nation has cholly and who says a funk band - both super bangers.

Yeah agree ‘One Nation’ is over rated...’Let’s take it to the stage’ is the unloved child

― X-Prince Protégé (sonnyboy), Thursday, March 7, 2019

Christgau, Eddy, and several other critics rate the latter fairly high.

unloved child or unloved kidd?

neglected starchild