Where the hell do I start with Parliament/Funkadelic?

I try. ;-)

Then one day a few years ago my buddy Dave and I were at a record store and almost shit ourselves - the music being played over the speakers was FANTASTIC - we never heard anything like it. One song was the best use of the Canon in D Major melody I'd ever heard. We asked what it was and it was

PARLIAMENT - Osmium

Though very atypical of the rest of their shit (at least the shit I've heard before and since), Osmium is one of my favorite records ever - it is beautiful - huge, unique and beautiful.

the early stuff (Parliament's "Osmium", Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain", S/T, and "Free Your mind and Your ass will follow" are all fuzzed out hendrix styled acid blues funk.

the later stuff (usually after about '74) is more disco-y, funky, rubbery bass. the kinda stuff you see sample on the G-Funk hip hop albums (snoop, XClan, etc)

personally, i prefer the earlier stuff

For a novice, I'd recommend starting with Funkadelic's Hardcore Jollies and Parliament's Mothership Connection, then working from there. P-Funk albums generally have great album tracks that you'd completely miss out on by sticking with singles comps.

"Up for the Down Stroke" for Paliament.

I like the early Westbound stuff OK, but it isn't really what they were good at, in my opinion. Nice guitar and all but kind of boring.

It's also interesting to check out Clinton's '60s group, the Parliaments, good compilation avail. of their stuff, w/ classics like "I Wanna Testify" (covered by Parliament in '74 and also by Johnnie Taylor at Stax) and "All Your Goodies are Gone" (also re-interpreted by Parliament on "Up for the Down Stroke." The Parliaments' "Look at What I Almost Missed" is an incredible pop song, later covered by Marshall Crenshaw.

If you're looking for the straight-up, most accessible of the Parliament records that sound like what most people consider the "Parliament sound"--i.e. the "disco-y, funky, rubbery bass kinda stuff you see sample on the G-Funk hip hop albums" that Jason D pointed out--then Funkentelechy is tough to beat. Two killer singles, hilarious dead-on concept w/ great characters and great extended jams.

And ironically, in light of the early P-Funk records, it's one of the all-time greatest acid records.

They were great at both. It really is all good.

If check out "Cosmic Slop", you will find yourself at the mid point between the two sounds.

heh, it does have it's country moments, and it's folky moments - "The Silent Boatman" with it's beautiful bagpipes(?!) - but seriously, "Red Hot Mama (From Louisiana)" (which someone a while ago suggested Britney should cover -GENIUS!) is so fuzzed out. it's one of their heaviest tracks.

http://www.duke.edu/~tmc/motherpage/covers_parliament/cov-rhenium.gif

b-b-but what about Maggot brain: the track (track 1)

i actually have another release called Parliament "The Early Years". it has the butt-ugliest artwork i've ever seen. orange/green rainbow gradients. pictures that are stretched so that their height/ width ratios are off. but in the end, man, it's all about the music.

b-b-but what about Maggot brain: the track (track 1)

yeah seriously, this has to be my favorite track of theirs ever. but the sequence in question is pretty hot.

YIKEEES!

I'd go with the obvious "One Nation Under" and then, actually, I say "Electric Spanking of War Babies," which is a really damn good record, perhaps underrated in the P-Funk canon. "Cosmic Slop" is the one after that; "Motor-Booty Affair" is another one.

The folks at Duke have an excellent website dissecting the records, at http://www.duke.edu/~tmc/pfunk.html

George Clinton - What the Hell is he on about?

That and the TV footage of Funkadelic performing "Wars of Armegeddon" were the best parts.

Archives here:

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/GD

That's 6 hours of music to explore...

the ending live version of night of the thumpasorus peoples is the hookiest song ever, i think :)

http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=etd_hon_theses

I threw this list together of P-Funk and Clinton tracks.

no interest in any of the spinoff act stuff?

Nice list Alfred! Please indulge me to add a few of my own favorites...

Free Alterations - From the Computer Games George Clinton solo record. Quite possibly my favorite thing he ever did.

I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody's Got a Thing - From the Funkadelic album.

Bop Gun - From Funkentelechy

Cosmic Slop (live version from Hardcore Jollies) - Completely different song than the other one, and IMHO it's far better

Red Hot Momma - From Standing On the Verge, whooo this is hot stuff

In Da Kar - Standout song from the recent Funkadelic comeback album

'You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure'

The P-Funk live album ("Live: P-Funk Earth Tour) is great.

Cosmic Slop (live version from Hardcore Jollies) - Completely different song than the other one, and IMHO it's far better

ha I remember my brother coming to visit once and asking me if I had this song and I was like "uh which one" because there are at least four officially released versions of it

It's one of my favourite P-funk riffs!

"Liquid Sunshine" is so good.

the standout track on that album imo

Ha, I've actually had 'Liquid Sunshine' in my head today, but my favourite track on Motor Booty Affair is the title track.

Going to re-read the P-Funk poll thread(s), I may be some time.

Pedro Bell has left us. Truly the man.

We lost the Master Mind behind the Graphic's & Artwork of Funkadelic. Mr. Pedro Bell is an American artist and illustrator best known for his elaborate cover designs and other artwork for numerous Funkadelic and George Clinton solo albums. Thxs for yr service our brother.😲🙏 pic.twitter.com/PsD8TRxlRU

— Bootsy Collins (@Bootsy_Collins) August 28, 2019

Aw fuck. RIP

I think my favorite cover is Hardcore Jollies... I just love all the purple and the composition is really dynamic. Absolutely idiosyncratic, one of a kind visuals that were just right for the music.

Funny that I just listened to a podcast on him 2 or 3 days ago
https://www.designfreakspodcast.com/episodes/2019/2/22/pedro-bell
comes from February this year. One of a series on art5ists mainly to do with music.

Pedro did something that is really rare imo, he made sitting down to listen to an album a real absorbing event. I can remember getting those mid-period Funkadelic albums, sitting down to listen to the album, and just poring over the liner notes and comic panels and hyper-detailed portraits and sleeve designs while listening, it was like entering another world for 35-40 minutes, not doing anything else. A proto-"multimedia" magic marker experience. From record to record there were references, running jokes, characters, recurring themes - a narrative. And not a narrative like today's where the focus is on the performer and their persona, but on this whole other weird alternate universe that mashed together horror movies, comic books, science fiction, blaxploitation, mysticism, conspiracy theories, African American lit, pornography, made-up slang, it's just so rich. There are not a lot of times I can recall where I would listen to an album and *not do anything else*, because it wasn't just an album, it had this whole other hyper-detailed (and funny!) aspect to it. Clinton got other guys later on that did their own version of this, but Bell was the originator and the best imo.

Totally agree, A+ post.

Seconded

H/T to Ned for sending this to my Twitter feed:

Funkadelic LP artist Pedro Bell once told me a woman, Cathy Abel, designed the official Funkadelic logo. When I shared this years ago with folks, misogynists & non-believers thought I was making ish up. Last wknd, while looking in “El-Lay”’s P-archives, look what I found (‘72)... pic.twitter.com/DMXESax2Re

— DJ Soul Sister (@djsoulsister) October 7, 2019

Cool.

Saw 82 years old George Clinton and current version of Parliament Funkadelic at the Lincoln Theatre in DC . George was having fun, and the band was too. Sure I could nitpick them doing House of Pain “Jump Around “ rather than a PFunk deep cut , but George seemed into that cover . When I first saw em way back when I was bored a bit by instrumental solos , and decades later the same. One horn player did riffs from Fiddler on the Roof and Hava Nagila . But when they got funky, and the woman vocalist was singing well, and the horns, keyboard, guitars were grooving , it was one nation under a groove .