Parliament, Up for the Down Stroke

At its nadir this album wastes almost twelve of its 40 minute running time on an interminable noodly nothing even the six-string genius of Eddie Hazel couldn't save ("The Goose") and a biliously regurgitated beat from the title track ("I Can Move You (If You Let Me)"). Of the remaining EP length, though, it's sheer genius. Yes, there's some delightful gospel flavours ("Testify," "Whatever Makes Baby Feel Good"), airy psychedelia ("I Just Got Back," with a truly beguiling whistled bridge) and pompously ponderous musings ("Presence of a Brain"). But the two best tracks by far are "All Your Goodies Are Gone," the bitterest, schadenfreudiest, meanest anti-love song anyone with a broken heart will wallow in for sheer venom, and the title track, with its stupendously trippy signature reversal sure to leave the dance floor littered with bodies. Just pay no attention to what Geo. Clinton is doing to that woman on the cover, skip tracks two and three and thank me later. The 2003 remaster adds slightly extended versions of "Testify" and "Up for the Down Stroke" plus the previously unreleased party funker "Singing Another Song," and is definitely worth the hunt. (Content: album cover notwithstanding, no concerns.)

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Parliament, Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome

Of Parliament's sometimes uneven output, an inevitable symptom of one band trying to maintain two identities, there are bright spots in the discography and this may well be one of their brightest. If Funkadelic's political aspirations made it the heavyhanded conscience of the P-Funk collective, Parliament's party atmosphere made it the funky soul, and right around 1977 or so was just about when the two personalities' artistic expressions were at their most individualized and distinct. Is it any coincidence, then, that this album was recorded right around that time? More developed and musically accomplished than The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein and far more intelligent (and much less puerile) than Motor Booty Affair, this is some of their best work as the end of the disco funk era came in view. We start getting funky with "Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" and point it right at "Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk" complete with bizarrely twisted nursery rhymes and even a Warner Bros. cartoon sting backed by a blissfully luxuriant full funk band. The standout track is "Funkentelechy," a clever subversion of psychobabble and corporate sloganism ("You might as well pay attention," intones George Clinton, "you can't afford free speech") backed by over ten minutes of beat and bass and bounce. Even the minor tracks are excellent, including the beguiling "Placebo Syndrome" and the amusing if slightly out of place "Wizard of Finance" in which the vocalist describes his love for his lady in terms of diversified financial instruments. Other than the ridiculous cover art, though, the only unforgiveable thing about this album — and boy is it a whopper ("have it your way!") — is closing with the cheap-out 5'46" album mix of "Flash Light" instead of the almost 11 minute 12" single. A classic P-Funk groove, its quality is best appreciated in its quantity, requiring modern completists to buy the Tear The Roof Off 2-disc retrospective to enjoy it in the expanded runtime it deserves. (Content: oblique drug references, "funk" as thinly-veiled alternative expletive.)

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Parliament, Motor Booty Affair

This was a hard one to snub, but even as a long time P-Funker I just can't bring myself to like it. There's some legitimately funky tracks on this, the third and final album of Parliament's late 1970s peak, but it just as notably portrays the decline of a band no longer able to flourish under George Clinton's contemporary thematic and (more relevantly) management excesses. The singles off this disc are uninspired and derivative, especially the perplexingly beloved "Aqua Boogie," a cynical retread of the core groove from last album's "Flash Light" backed with an extended acid jazz coda and a cameo from Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk. Worse, by this point Clinton's idea of high art had devolved into 12-year-old mentality pictures of ample female backends in various suggestive poses in the album title (literally putting the Booty in Motor Booty, doncherknow), a flimsy attempt at a concept album by literally submerging it such that several of the vocalists sound like they were gargling in the bathroom, and one of the stupidest metaphors for the male organ in the otherwise entertaining "Mr. Wiggles." And "Rumpofsteelskin"? Really? High points come from the album's lesser known tracks, particularly "One of Those Funky Things" and "Liquid Sunshine," both solid grooves with good beats performed competently, and to a lesser extent the album's title track, which mercifully doesn't dwell on its rapidly annoying "Howard Codsell" monologue. Unfortunately, he then sells it short by closing with the unoriginal "Deep" whose nine minutes of phoned-in riffs could have come from any number of bands around that time and boasts the lyrical complexity of a kindergarten textbook. Despite the first track's insistence, this most certainly is your "average 50-yard dash of funk" by a self-described "slithering idiot"; Clinton could have, and has, done better than this, and you'd do better to look for his brighter spots instead. (Content: relentless use of 'funk' as a euphemism; puerile references and imagery.)

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