Sunday, November 13, 2011

my general impression, unscientific but based on hard won experience, is that through the album discography of Parliament/Funkadelic/George Clinton/etc there prevails an average of two good tracks per LP

there is the Single/the one everybody knows, and the One Other Good One

i bought One Nation Under A Groove in the very early Eighties from a store near Wardour Street that was full of discounted lps from Germany or the U.S. (i'm guessing, because my copy of ONUaG was a cut-out, the corner snipped off, which I'd never seen before, and is US-only-practice, right?)

i had heard "One Nation Under A Groove" the single and imagined the whole album would be like that i.e. glorious

imagine my disappointment!

imagine the consternation, further, on playing the giveaway free 7 inch single which had a live version of "Maggot Brain" on it. (you gotta realise, this is before the internet, the knowledge was not out there, not at all-- i had no idea that Funkadelic had been a black rock group. also, this is when i was a doctrinaire post-punker who thought gtr solos were verboten)

anyway, this is the One Other Good One on One Nation Under A Groove

1 comment:

Greyhoos said...

Equally unscientific in my response: I wouldn't agree, though I can def see how one would have that impression, because it does apply to most of their records. (Except for maybe Uncle Jam Wants You, which only had *one* solid track on it.)

First three Funkadelic LPs (of their early heavy/acid phase) are totally solid for my purposes. With a steep drop-off on America Eats Its Young. As for Parliament: Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome and The Motor Booty Affair were favorites of mine years ago. Yeah, they each had that One Track, but the accompanying album as a whole held up much better than many of their other ones. (And yes, ONUaG is a prime example of the latter.)

But then again, it's been a good many years since I've heard many of the aforementioned. And: I used to own most of these things on 8-track -- whose formatting didn't go well with those longer cuts (pause...and KER-CHUNK!) So, like maybe wtf do I know?