Can You Get to "Funkadelic"? Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Funkadelic originated as a mere backing band for George Clinton's Parliaments - not to be confused with "that" Parliament, the later funk group that sounds a good bit like Funkadelic. Both Funkadelic and the latter Parliament belong to the broader George Clinton musical collective, variously referred to as the "P-Funk All-Stars," "Parliafunkadelicment Thang," or simply "P-Funk."

The various groups swapped musicians constantly and toured in tandem; what is said of one is usually true for the other. Parliament has had marginally more charting success (tracks like "Give Up the Funk" and "Flash Light"); Funkadelic, meanwhile, have established themselves as critical darlings. Their most acclaimed album, "Maggot Brain," was initially called a "desolate landscape with few pleasures" (and worse) by the Rolling Stone. Years later, that same desolation became the object of acclaim. Reviewer Chuck Eddy called the "Maggot Brain" track "10 weaving and swelling minutes of [...] disorder that may well express the saddest emotion I've ever heard wretched from a mere musical instrument."

It's a grave underestimation to think that Funkadelic were just a boogie band for disco-dancing. Their music was heavy - not just technically complex, but laden with social awareness and psychedelic sound production. Reconcile if you can that the band responsible for "P.E. Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)" also wrote "March to the Witch's Castle," a devastating Vietnam War elegy:

"The war was over, and the first of the prisoners returned
Needless to say, it was the happiest day in up to thirteen years for most
For others, the real nightmare had just begun
The nightmare of readjustment
And for those, we will pray "

Implicitly or explicitly, licitly or illicitly, every Funkadelic album makes the same argument by its existence, that music can be a vehicle to liberation of all kinds: mental, physical, and social. That the way to get to people is through their bodies, not their minds - and bodies dance.

""We're just a biological speculation
Sittin' here, vibratin'
And we don't know what we're vibratin' about"

It can also liberate you from locked-in, moralizing patterns of thought. It's not the content of a song that decides the mood, it's the playing. Even though much of Funkadelic's subject matter was euphemistic (they always seemed to be singing in pronouns: "Can You Get to *That*?", "Standing on the Verge of Getting *It* On"), this wasn't done to skirt censors (seriously - I don't think they have an album you can play in a school zone). Rather, it suggests a cosmic *something* in the background of the universe - a great Funk so powerful it can't be directly described, only felt. To use the old verbs: you can't just learn it, you have to "dig" it. When Twisted Sister say they "wanna rock," they mean a lifestyle - outrageous, scandalous, leather-clad. When Funkadelic call for "One nation under a groove/Gettin' down just for the funk," they too mean a lifestyle - dance-filled, reactive, harmonious, energetic, poetic.

They always had a habit of talking from both sides of their mouth. Nothing was sacred - the Statue of Liberty, Uncle Sam, U.S. presidents, Mother Nature, (any) God, lunchmeat - and least of all themselves. Parliament's "Mothership Connection" especially just about crosses into Funkadelic parody: "Welcome to station W-E-F-U-N-K [...] home of the extraterrestrial brothers, dealers of funky music, P-Funk, uncut funk, the bomb. Coming to you directly from the mother ship, top of the chocolate Milky Way." To have a dogma is to have structure; to have structure is to stand against Funkadelic's improvizational ethos. "If You Got Funk, You Got Style" - and if you think too hard, you haven't got style.

The full list of albums these tracks appear on is below:

"Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?" - "Funkadelic" (1970)
"Maggot Brain" - "Maggot Brain" (1971)
"Biological Speculation" - America Eats Its Young (1972)
"If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause" - America Eats Its Young (1972)
"Standing on the Verge of Getting It On" - "Standing on the Verge of Getting It On" (1974)
"Tales of Kidd Funkadelic" - "Tales of Kidd Funkadelic" (1976)
"If You Got Funk, You Got Style" - "Hardcore Jollies" (1976)
"Grooveallegiance" - "One Nation under a Groove" (1978)
"Lunchmeatphobia (Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet)" - "One Nation under a Groove" (1978)
"The Electric Spanking of War Babies" - "The Electric Spanking of War Babies" (1981)

The fake answers are just that. How close do you think I got?

Quotations sourced from: rollingstone "album reviews/Maggot Brain" and popmatters "Funk's death trip".