Search - Funkadelic :: Funkadelic

The best was yet to come...

finulanu | Here, there, and everywhere | 07/22/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Trippy. Very, very trippy. The group was clearly quite stoned when they recorded this. It's slow, it's murky, and it's really, really weird. Kind of like mid-'60s Pink Floyd, only with more sense of groove and humor. Or maybe like an even more stoned version of Electric Ladyland. I don't know. Point is, it's very strange, very druggy, and it moves very slowly. The melodies are generally absent - "Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?" (Great song title there, by the way. Why it didn't become the album title is beyond my comprehension) doesn't even have a vocal melody, it's just a leaden nine-minute vamp with a bizarre recitation over it. The first two or three minutes of are fun. But it doesn't have any Eddie Hazel, at this early point the most interesting part of the group, so it spirals off long before it actually ends. I prefer "I Bet You" myself, a song that does showcase the group's instrumental prowess. Check out the interlocking lead guitars, which are playing not one but two great riffs! And it's got the group's signature mass chanted vocal hook thing going! Or, if you want to hear the group do the slow, stoned groove thing, check out "Music for My Mother." It's a lot more interesting, because it's a good four minutes shorter, has a really cool "vocal-harmonica" solo, and a catchy chant. Or, if you want to hear the group wake up and rock, you might be interested in the distorted cacophony "I've Got a Thing You've Got a Thing Everybody's Got a Thing," with fantastic wah-wah/organ interplay. See what I mean about the musicianship here? You also get to hear a lot of Eddie's stinging guitar on "Good Ole Music," but unfortunately the group can't control themselves on that track, so it slips into unnecessary crap at around minute five and never really finds its way back to where it was when it started. Still, it's a whole ton better than "Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?", even though I grow pretty tired of the skating-rink organ solos pretty fast. The leaden blues "Qualify and Satisfy" is also only saved by Eddie's blues licks - the rest of the band was barely competent at this point, since these were in the days before Bernie Worrell (though he does add the organ on "I've Got a Thing"), Jerome Brailey, Bootsy Collins and all the others. Tiki Fullwood hammers away, and Micky Atkins adds more annoying skating-rink organ. And despite its hilarious lyrics, I'm not too impressed with "What Is Soul?" - it's "Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?" all over again, with Eddie struggling to find a good lick and coming up short in the process and the electric organ taking up way too much space and making way too many annoying noises. Still, the lyrics are really funny. I can definitely give this embryonic version of the group credit for being original, but that doesn't mean I'll want to actually listen to this album ever again. Things would get much better for the acid-rock version of the band."

Classic

Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber | Mahwah, NJ USA | 09/05/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A classic album can be a classic albums for many reasons. It may just be so popular it is known to everyone. Or maybe the music is so good that alone gives it its status. Or maybe the importance of the album musically and historically takes it there.



Funkadelic, the band's first self-titled album from 1970, is a classic on several levels. The Temptations may have had the notion to integrate some psychedelic/Hendrix influences on Cloud Nine. But it was George Clinton and his Funkadelic vehicle that soul and funk could be as psychedelic, as windowpane dipped, as counter-cultural as any white rock. Funkidelic the band was one of the first soul bands that didn't even make a pretense as playing it straight. They just didn't care.



"If you suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotions." was not a line that would get a soul band on to Ed Sullivan in 1970. But it is how Funkadelic started their career, and this album. "Mommy, What's A Funkadelic," is the track this line opens, with a booming eccho, and it only gets more strange from there.



At nine minutes, this song made no stab at AM radio. The track is filled with eccho, wha wha guitars, dark bass, and ghostly backing vocals. The black people here speak like black people. There is a pant, a sexuality to the heavy breathing.



They're throwing your own stereotypes in your face--and not being cute about it. America was still desegregating in 1970. In all its absurdity and humor, this stuff was dangerous.



The album itself alternates between this not so absurd absurdity and more conventional soul numbers, which Clinton cut his teeth on. Even these have a rock edge. Layers and layers of guitars and voices. Musically and socially textured at every level



Albums like this just did not get made in 1970. In 2010, I am still hard pressed to find much like it."

Funkadelic

Morton | Colorado | 02/02/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Funkadelic



Where Sly's Theres A Riot Goin On felt more like one long extended jam and it was a good thing, that doesn't work as well here. This feels like that because half the tracks on the album aren't even songs. Just compiled noises and instrumentation with George Clinton often speaking over the music.



This must be said though, for a debut album, and for 1970, this is still the Funkiest thing around, and the problem with the album really lies within Clinton. His musical vision was not yet fully realized unto a few albums later. That isn't to say that the album is terrible, it isn't in fact much of it is decent and as for the players it is amazing.



Eddie Hazel who in my book is the most underrated, and forgotten guitarist in the world. He dominates Funkadelics self-titled debut album just as much as he did Maggot Brain and Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On. His playing was always tasteful has heard on 'Good Old Music' and nasty when need be like on 'Music For My Mother.' The man was a God with a six string and he is really the only thing that saves Funkadelics debut.



If your interested it is worth checking out but be warned it feels like the demos and outtakes for Jimi Hendrixs Electric Ladyland."