On the peak of its powers, Parliament-Funkadelic appeared able to something: scoring radio hits, crafting visionary best-selling albums, spinning-off profitable solo acts and satellite tv for pc teams, even producing an unparalleled stay present that climaxed each evening with an onstage spaceship touchdown. But chief George Clinton believed that P-Funk nonetheless had unfinished inventive enterprise. Since Parliament’s 1975 album Chocolate Metropolis, as he recalled in his 2014 memoir, he’d been working towards, “a whole, complete funk opera.” Having witnessed rock’s conceptual and narrative breadth evolve with The Beatles, The Who’s Tommy, and the musical Hair, he questioned: “Why couldn’t soul or funk music be simply as subtle, simply as wide-ranging, simply as artistically profitable?”
On the coronary heart of his reply can be the philosophical idea of entelechy – i.e. the belief of 1’s potential – as launched to Clinton by his then-business companion, Nene Montes. Within the spirit of his mad scientist alter ego, Dr. Funkenstein, Clinton merged the phrase “funk” with “entelechy” and got here up with “Funkentelechy” – i.e. the belief of 1’s funkiness. If “Funkentelechy” represented a drive of excellent by means of a dedication to the purest music of all, funk, its reverse drive would naturally (or unnaturally) be any type of short-term synthetic simulation of such, “The Placebo Syndrome.” Clinton had discovered the idea for his opera: a battle between funk’s interplanetary emissary/hero, Starchild, and a non-dancing villain, Sir Nostril D’Voidoffunk. And with Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome, Parliament self-actualized one in every of its best achievements.
Take heed to Parliament’s Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome on Apple Music or Spotify.
After all, the album’s conceptual framework wouldn’t be almost as spectacular with out consummate funk in execution. Luckily, P-Funk was nonetheless the tightest band on this or every other planet. Lyrically, “Bop Gun” and “Flash Mild” have a good time the space-age weaponry Starchild employs to make Sir Nostril dance; musically, they proved equally potent. The latter basic single particularly – with Bernie Worrell’s ever-fluid Moog supplanting Bootsy Collins’s house bass – nonetheless sounds as futuristic because it doubtless did when it shot to #1 on the R&B charts again within the day. “Sir Nostril D’Voidoffunk,” a slinky dangerous man theme, flaunts loads of menacing cool through Fred Wesley and Worrell’s jazzy horn preparations. And in a little bit of playful irony, “Placebo Syndrome” couches its lament of recent life’s empty artificial pleasures in a blinding symphony of Worrell’s synthesizers.
“Funkentelechy” is the album’s sprawling centerpiece. A group of chants (“While you’re taking each type of capsule/Nothing appears to ever treatment your ailing”) peppered with Clinton’s comical promoting catchphrases, it gleefully takes intention at quick-fix consumerism and cultural emptiness. As with the remainder of this genius album, although, it’s the music that encodes the message. Clocking in at over 11 minutes, it’s one of many longer P-Funk studio tracks on report, but one way or the other wastes no notes. Midway by means of, the band goes to the bridge turning the groove meditative, everybody repeatedly harmonizes “Funkentelechy” as a non secular mantra, and also you notice the tune’s different essential chorus – “The place’d you get your funk from?” – is the one query that actually issues.
Take heed to Parliament’s Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome on Apple Music or Spotify.
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