Can we have a soul/funk thread ?
Jamming some Curtis right now myself
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Can we have a soul/funk thread ?
Colton Jenkins
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Thomas Thompson
el bumpo
Lucas Brown
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you want the new edits of old songs
Dominic Wilson
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nother bumpo for op
Aaron Rodriguez
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last bump for op
Isaiah Scott
...christgau is an old timer.
Aaron Davis
Kool & The Gang: Subjects For Further Research [1970s]: Amelodic hitmakers, jazzbos who couldn't improvise, these primal funksters were too funking primal for me in the early '70s, their artistic heyday. Looking back at their various best-of collections, I can see now that it was arcane rhythms and silly novelty hooks that got them onto (black) radio. But although I like individual cuts, in particular "Hollywood Swinging" and "Jungle Boogie", the dance floor is obviously the best place to figure such music out, and I doubt I'll make sense of it unless a DJ sweeps me off my feet.
Celebration [De-Lite, 1981]
It says something about these primal funksters that unlike James Brown or George Clinton, they've adapted painlessly, nay, profitably to disco. Which proves that their funk was as bland as you suspected. Even the title cut isn't disco as transformed by funksters, it's disco transformed by record company marketers, which is to say disco without a cult, and thus disco without an audience. C+
Emergency [De-Lite, 1985]
If in 1973, someone had told me that a ghettoized funk group would become the top-selling R&B act of the '80s, my head would have swelled until someone interjected that the '70s group with the most #1 hits was the Osmonds. If they had also told me that the secret to their success would be a bland black singer named James Taylor, I would have also observed that he couldn't possibly be any worse than our white one. In both of these, I would be wrong. C+
Elijah Allen
James Brown - Mother Popcorn is essential
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Samuel Rivera
>any worse than our white one
holy shit he's an asshole but he's a funny asshole
Ethan Edwards
That's the Way of the World [Columbia, 1975]
Trailing Parliament-Funkadelic in my personal post-Sly sweepstakes, but ahead of War (bombastic), Kool & the Gang (culturally deprived), and hosts of others, this unit can do so many things it qualifies as the one-man band of black music even though it has nine members. Here ethnomusicology and colloquial homiletics are tacked onto the funk and soul and doowop and jazz, which makes for an instructive contrast--the taped-in-Africa Matepe Ensemble, whose spontaneous laughter closes out the coda, versus Maurice White, whose humorless platitutdes prove there's more to roots than turning a mbira into an ersatz vibraphone. B+
Spirit [Columbia, 1976]
EW&F are the real black MOR, equivalent in their catchy way to the oh-so-expert Carpenters, though of course they're much better because they're black--that is, because the post-Sly and harmony-group usages they've had to master are so rich and resilient. Most of these songs are fun to listen to. But they're still MOR--the only risk they take is running headlong into somebody coming down the middle of the road in the opposite direction. Like the Carpenters. B
All 'N' All [Columbia, 1977]
Tight harmonies and intricate rhythms combine with textures from many lands to make for a first side that cooks throughout. There's only one problem. Still, as unsympathetic as I am to lyrics about conquering the universe on wings of thought, they shake my fundament, anyway. B+
I Am [Columbia, 1979]
Catchy, sexy, danceable pop of undeniable craft. But as we all know, they could be doing a lot better. B
Hudson Rivera
EW&F were alright on their earlier albums, starting with All 'N' All, they got a little took slick and mechanical.
Benjamin Nelson
hell yeah motherfucker.... here's some i've been listening to lately
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Nathaniel Mitchell
THIS is amasing: youtube.com
Ayden Myers
Just recently heard what Frankie covered/sampled for Close to You
Aiden Gray
I really love you, baby baby baby, yes I do.
I truly do, mah nigga.
Andrew Rogers
Bustin' Out Of L-Seven [Gordy, 1979]
Fairly funky, sure, although not on the slow numbers. But if this is 'delic, then so was the Strawberry Alarm Clock. C+
Garden of Love [Gordy, 1980]
The latest propaganda from the P-Funk ministry has been calling him Slick Rick. Slick Lame is more like it. Here he makes do like crazy with the free-love smarm, for example on "Mary Go Round", a song that takes a utilitarian view of a woman living the free-loving life. C-
Street Songs [Gordy, 1981]
There was never any doubt that Rick James was commercial, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. When he's not rocking, which is mostly, he finds time to come up with some dynamite love-man bullshit, while the street simulations are convincing enough. But if the kinky girl with pigtails down to her feet is the same girl from "Mary Go Round", then one has to wonder where the kink is. The hair? A-
Throwin' Down [Gordy, 1982]
I was so certain that Rick James didn't even want to top Street Songs--might give his fans the wrong idea and he'd have to actually work for a living. Thus there's nothing on here as epochal as "Super Freak". But the fast numbers are such bad fun, and he's the nearest thing to a pop musician in the rock-and-roll sense that today's black charts (as well as today's white charts) has to offer. A
Jeremiah Cook
Cold Blooded [Gordy, 1983]
As his head continues to expand, tricks that once seemed expedient now feel like a necessity. Teena Marie and the latter-day Tempts he could keep up with, but Smokey Robinson shows him up hard, not to mention the absurdity of "P.I.M.P. The S.I.M.P." This is not a man who should criticize his peers for dressing funny. B-
Glow [Gordy, 1985]
Rick James was never Mr. IQ to being with, but this record is an embarrassment. All of which makes his continuing failure to conquer MTV a mystery, since between his fop coiffure, one-dimensional beat, and relentless sexual self-aggrandizement, that's exactly where he belongs along with Billy Idol, but hey, what's a little grease among professionals? C-
The Flag [Gordy, 1986]
I generally ignore charges that political content is commercially motivated, but with James I buy 'em. The real Rick was the moist romantic fop of Glow, and when his self-expression didn't get off, he churned out a few lines at the rock, honing his craft by the by. C+
Wonderful [Reprise, 1988]
Freed at last from Mr. Gordy's plantation, James gives up that begged, borrowed, or stolen funk, the highlight being "Loosey's Rap". But he still can't resist ballads, a big mistake for a guy who spells L.U.V. as C.U.M. Docked a notch for peeping as the girls go down, and then suggesting a devil lesbian go straight by reaching into his pants and fishing out his dick. C+
Nathaniel Garcia
bumpin this
Charles Smith
one of my favorite soulful records from last year.
Parker Collins
also from last year
Landon Scott
I never liked Rick James anyway. His vocals irritate me.