Parliament
GloryHallaStoopid LP

There’s something remarkably deceptive about this record, which came out literally one year to the day after the fantastic Motor Booty Affair and, at least on the surface, has some of the promise of that simultaneously provocative and silly masterpiece, right down to its giddy Overton Loyd artwork. But there are a combined 19 minutes and change on this record that flash some deeper problems in vivid neon. The first is “Party People,” an uptempo borderline-Hi-NRG cut with a pace/energy imbalance that makes it feel like the band’s obligated to rush through an empty-meaning “all about having fun” autopilot mission. Then they forget to stop — it goes on for more than ten minutes, churning away like an example of what Funkadelic meant that same year when they invoked “that one-move groovalistic/ that disco-sadistic” on “Freak Of The Week.” “The Freeze (Sizzleanmean)” is the other drag, a midtempo slog that squanders an excellent Maceo sax performance on maybe their most underwritten song ever (“Can we get you hot?/ Can we make your temperatures rise?” Now repeat 100x.) As clear a Beginning Of The End moment as you can find in the circa-’79 tangle of events that eventually led to P-Funk’s dissolution, Gloryhallastoopid still has just enough power to move butts — even if the two most propulsive cuts, “The Big Bang Theory” and “Theme From The Black Hole,” could be picked up on the same 12″ single. But when Clinton wails “Nothing has changed/ Even the bang remains the same” at the beginning of “Colour Me Funky,” it’s a case of tell-don’t-show that doesn’t have the proof to back it up.

Produs Nou / Anul aparitiei: 1979 / Reissue 2013

Tracklist:

A1 (GloryHallaStoopid) Pin The Tale On The Funky

A2 Party People

A3 The Big Bang Theory

B1 The Freeze (Sizzaleenmean)

B2 Colour Me Funky

B3 Theme From The Black Hole

B4 May We Bang You?