info/contact
info/contact
Friday Funk #5 – ‘Funkentelechy’ by Parliament
Friday Funk #5 – ‘Funkentelechy’ by Parliament
Friday Funk #5 – ‘Funkentelechy’ by Parliament
Last week, we bounced to ‘Flash Light’, and looked at the character Sir Nose. This week features that album’s centrepiece and near-title track, the song that is central to its concepts.
In 1978, Parliament were coming off the back of three concept albums in Chocolate City, Mothership Connection and The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, as well as a live album documenting the P-Funk Earth tour, with the shows culminating with the landing of the Mothership. Parliament had had grand plans for their albums since ’75, with Clinton seeking a “complete, comprehensive funk opera.” They'd put black people in the White House and in space, and told the story of funk originating in space and being held in the pyramids.
But in the period before Funkentelechy, Clinton had stepped away from the brainstorming sessions he called Funkathons. With original Parliaments members (from back in their doo-wop days, before the ‘s’ was dropped) having departed, Clinton felt “like [his] heart was broken.” The new gatherings weren’t the same. According to Clinton’s memoir Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?, Nene Montes, a prospective director of a P-Funk documentary, had noticed his withdrawal.
Montes “started taking the lead in introducing new ideas and challenging [Clinton] to think through the various things that were circling in [his] brain.” Montes passed Clinton a note that said “entelechy,” then another with the word “placebo.”
As Clinton notes, “Entelechy, as it turned out, was about potential: it was a word coined by Aristotle to explain the process by which a species becomes most itself.” Clinton began theorising on funk’s ability to “improve the species”. He wrote, “Funkentelechy was a collection of funk anthems about the anthemic power of funk. It described the illuminating power of the music using, as metaphors, common tools of illumination (a flashlight) and power (a gun).” (‘Bop Gun’ was about the “weapon that thwarted any resistance to the funk.”)
On ‘Funkentelechy’, Clinton references a host of brands’ slogans in warning against the pitfalls of consumerism. In trading your funk in a search for happiness off the shelf, you’ll always be on the losing side (“Heads I win / Tails you lose”). Consumerism and Sir Nose’s posturing was the placebo, whereas funk is the real thing (“Once again, the pleasure principle has been rescued with the aid of the funk”).
Although Clinton’s memoir doesn’t state as such, the Placebo is also generally interpreted as a reference to disco, which in the mid- and late ’70s was sweeping across America. (Clinton does elsewhere note that Funkadelic’s album Uncle Jam Wants You was “a recruitment poster for music that was fighting for its life; we were trying to keep dance music alive without submitting entirely to disco.” The album’s artwork stated an intention to “rescue dance music from the blahs”.
The first ten seconds of ‘Funkentelechy’ signal that the track is going to be restless, constant movement. The drums are the only steady thing as polyrhythmic guitars are mixed in separate channels, and deep bass wobbles away, untied to either of them. After a spoken intro, the first hook begins: “When you’re taking every kind of pill / Nothing seems to ever cure your ill.” You need the real thing, the real funk.
By a minute in, there are also bouncy horns and wandering Bernie Worrell keys. The song’s not straightforward enough to sound like it’s going forward – it’s making funky zigzags, seeing if you can keep up. After five minutes you might have found some grounding, feeling like you know where things are going, but the track’s only half done and there are twists to come. George Clinton references James Brown: “Take it to the bridge!” and the guitar switches to a Jimmy Nolen-inspired part (only drenched in wah-wah), and the vocals flip from playful to gospel-inspired repetitions of “Funkentelechy.”
Soon it’s back to jittery funk with the bass taking more of a lead role. The bass is now similarly wah-wahed as its slapped and popped notes dance their way through a dense collage of rhythms, held together largely by everybody remembering the One. Between the ninth and tenth minutes, drum fills often lead us to the One, which is followed by a sparser few beats.
Parliament and Funkadelic were masters of variations on vocal ideas. Something as simple as delivering the word “Funkentelechy” with different emphasis is an effective way of making sure each minute of an 11-minute track feels fresh. After many repetitions of the drawn out, gospel-tinged, “Fuuuuunkentelechy,” one half of the dual-lead vocals ask, “How’s your FUNK...entele...chy?” Those slight pauses, and heavy emphasis on the “funk” syllable brings novelty over nine minutes in.
Clinton wrote, “If I had to pick one P-Funk record to take to the moon, I’d take Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome. It did certain high-concept things with such a nice light touch, and the music was tight as a motherfucking drum.”
Last week, we bounced to ‘Flash Light’, and looked at the character Sir Nose. This week features that album’s centrepiece and near-title track, the song that is central to its concepts.
In 1978, Parliament were coming off the back of three concept albums in Chocolate City, Mothership Connection and The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, as well as a live album documenting the P-Funk Earth tour, with the shows culminating with the landing of the Mothership. Parliament had had grand plans for their albums since ’75, with Clinton seeking a “complete, comprehensive funk opera.” They'd put black people in the White House and in space, and told the story of funk originating in space and being held in the pyramids.
But in the period before Funkentelechy, Clinton had stepped away from the brainstorming sessions he called Funkathons. With original Parliaments members (from back in their doo-wop days, before the ‘s’ was dropped) having departed, Clinton felt “like [his] heart was broken.” The new gatherings weren’t the same. According to Clinton’s memoir Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?, Nene Montes, a prospective director of a P-Funk documentary, had noticed his withdrawal.
Montes “started taking the lead in introducing new ideas and challenging [Clinton] to think through the various things that were circling in [his] brain.” Montes passed Clinton a note that said “entelechy,” then another with the word “placebo.”
As Clinton notes, “Entelechy, as it turned out, was about potential: it was a word coined by Aristotle to explain the process by which a species becomes most itself.” Clinton began theorising on funk’s ability to “improve the species”. He wrote, “Funkentelechy was a collection of funk anthems about the anthemic power of funk. It described the illuminating power of the music using, as metaphors, common tools of illumination (a flashlight) and power (a gun).” (‘Bop Gun’ was about the “weapon that thwarted any resistance to the funk.”)
On ‘Funkentelechy’, Clinton references a host of brands’ slogans in warning against the pitfalls of consumerism. In trading your funk in a search for happiness off the shelf, you’ll always be on the losing side (“Heads I win / Tails you lose”). Consumerism and Sir Nose’s posturing was the placebo, whereas funk is the real thing (“Once again, the pleasure principle has been rescued with the aid of the funk”).
Although Clinton’s memoir doesn’t state as such, the Placebo is also generally interpreted as a reference to disco, which in the mid- and late ’70s was sweeping across America. (Clinton does elsewhere note that Funkadelic’s album Uncle Jam Wants You was “a recruitment poster for music that was fighting for its life; we were trying to keep dance music alive without submitting entirely to disco.” The album’s artwork stated an intention to “rescue dance music from the blahs”.
The first ten seconds of ‘Funkentelechy’ signal that the track is going to be restless, constant movement. The drums are the only steady thing as polyrhythmic guitars are mixed in separate channels, and deep bass wobbles away, untied to either of them. After a spoken intro, the first hook begins: “When you’re taking every kind of pill / Nothing seems to ever cure your ill.” You need the real thing, the real funk.
By a minute in, there are also bouncy horns and wandering Bernie Worrell keys. The song’s not straightforward enough to sound like it’s going forward – it’s making funky zigzags, seeing if you can keep up. After five minutes you might have found some grounding, feeling like you know where things are going, but the track’s only half done and there are twists to come. George Clinton references James Brown: “Take it to the bridge!” and the guitar switches to a Jimmy Nolen-inspired part (only drenched in wah-wah), and the vocals flip from playful to gospel-inspired repetitions of “Funkentelechy.”
Soon it’s back to jittery funk with the bass taking more of a lead role. The bass is now similarly wah-wahed as its slapped and popped notes dance their way through a dense collage of rhythms, held together largely by everybody remembering the One. Between the ninth and tenth minutes, drum fills often lead us to the One, which is followed by a sparser few beats.
Parliament and Funkadelic were masters of variations on vocal ideas. Something as simple as delivering the word “Funkentelechy” with different emphasis is an effective way of making sure each minute of an 11-minute track feels fresh. After many repetitions of the drawn out, gospel-tinged, “Fuuuuunkentelechy,” one half of the dual-lead vocals ask, “How’s your FUNK...entele...chy?” Those slight pauses, and heavy emphasis on the “funk” syllable brings novelty over nine minutes in.
Clinton wrote, “If I had to pick one P-Funk record to take to the moon, I’d take Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome. It did certain high-concept things with such a nice light touch, and the music was tight as a motherfucking drum.”
Last week, we bounced to ‘Flash Light’, and looked at the character Sir Nose. This week features that album’s centrepiece and near-title track, the song that is central to its concepts.
In 1978, Parliament were coming off the back of three concept albums in Chocolate City, Mothership Connection and The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, as well as a live album documenting the P-Funk Earth tour, with the shows culminating with the landing of the Mothership. Parliament had had grand plans for their albums since ’75, with Clinton seeking a “complete, comprehensive funk opera.” They'd put black people in the White House and in space, and told the story of funk originating in space and being held in the pyramids.
But in the period before Funkentelechy, Clinton had stepped away from the brainstorming sessions he called Funkathons. With original Parliaments members (from back in their doo-wop days, before the ‘s’ was dropped) having departed, Clinton felt “like [his] heart was broken.” The new gatherings weren’t the same. According to Clinton’s memoir Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?, Nene Montes, a prospective director of a P-Funk documentary, had noticed his withdrawal.
Montes “started taking the lead in introducing new ideas and challenging [Clinton] to think through the various things that were circling in [his] brain.” Montes passed Clinton a note that said “entelechy,” then another with the word “placebo.”
As Clinton notes, “Entelechy, as it turned out, was about potential: it was a word coined by Aristotle to explain the process by which a species becomes most itself.” Clinton began theorising on funk’s ability to “improve the species”. He wrote, “Funkentelechy was a collection of funk anthems about the anthemic power of funk. It described the illuminating power of the music using, as metaphors, common tools of illumination (a flashlight) and power (a gun).” (‘Bop Gun’ was about the “weapon that thwarted any resistance to the funk.”)
On ‘Funkentelechy’, Clinton references a host of brands’ slogans in warning against the pitfalls of consumerism. In trading your funk in a search for happiness off the shelf, you’ll always be on the losing side (“Heads I win / Tails you lose”). Consumerism and Sir Nose’s posturing was the placebo, whereas funk is the real thing (“Once again, the pleasure principle has been rescued with the aid of the funk”).
Although Clinton’s memoir doesn’t state as such, the Placebo is also generally interpreted as a reference to disco, which in the mid- and late ’70s was sweeping across America. (Clinton does elsewhere note that Funkadelic’s album Uncle Jam Wants You was “a recruitment poster for music that was fighting for its life; we were trying to keep dance music alive without submitting entirely to disco.” The album’s artwork stated an intention to “rescue dance music from the blahs”.
The first ten seconds of ‘Funkentelechy’ signal that the track is going to be restless, constant movement. The drums are the only steady thing as polyrhythmic guitars are mixed in separate channels, and deep bass wobbles away, untied to either of them. After a spoken intro, the first hook begins: “When you’re taking every kind of pill / Nothing seems to ever cure your ill.” You need the real thing, the real funk.
By a minute in, there are also bouncy horns and wandering Bernie Worrell keys. The song’s not straightforward enough to sound like it’s going forward – it’s making funky zigzags, seeing if you can keep up. After five minutes you might have found some grounding, feeling like you know where things are going, but the track’s only half done and there are twists to come. George Clinton references James Brown: “Take it to the bridge!” and the guitar switches to a Jimmy Nolen-inspired part (only drenched in wah-wah), and the vocals flip from playful to gospel-inspired repetitions of “Funkentelechy.”
Soon it’s back to jittery funk with the bass taking more of a lead role. The bass is now similarly wah-wahed as its slapped and popped notes dance their way through a dense collage of rhythms, held together largely by everybody remembering the One. Between the ninth and tenth minutes, drum fills often lead us to the One, which is followed by a sparser few beats.
Parliament and Funkadelic were masters of variations on vocal ideas. Something as simple as delivering the word “Funkentelechy” with different emphasis is an effective way of making sure each minute of an 11-minute track feels fresh. After many repetitions of the drawn out, gospel-tinged, “Fuuuuunkentelechy,” one half of the dual-lead vocals ask, “How’s your FUNK...entele...chy?” Those slight pauses, and heavy emphasis on the “funk” syllable brings novelty over nine minutes in.
Clinton wrote, “If I had to pick one P-Funk record to take to the moon, I’d take Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome. It did certain high-concept things with such a nice light touch, and the music was tight as a motherfucking drum.”