HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Graycap23 said:

At the end of the day..........if it is funky 2 u......then it's funky whether it meets someone else's definition or not. Funk is a feeling........and it is personal.

No...it's not.

FUNK is a state of BEING - and it's UNIVERSAL!

Lol.......no such thing. Everyone hears things on different levels or sometimes NOT AT ALL.

There are many ways to define FUNK, funk can be fast and messy (like can be so nice), can be sparse (kiss/new position), can be slow and moody (joy in repetition) and can be a story (scarlette pussy). The key elements (if you want to define them) is personality, minor chords and seventh chords, off beat snare or bass, use of space and rythm together, and many many other things. But the common thread is that we all know it as Funk. Prince didnt invent funk, but he brought it to the mainstream like no other, perhaps you can say Micheal Jackson did too, but Prince was doing it to a commercial market in more purist way (I cant see someone like MJ releasing a Funk masterclass like "controversy" or "head".

In terms of deep and pure funk, there is no better example on Art Official Age than Time. to me, this song is up there with Joy in repition, and If I was your girlfriend as slow mood funk song, that might go on a bit, but you dont notice because its so hypnotic. Other songs on Art Official Age, are deceptively funky (ie they have hidden elements of funk, like Way Back Home, and U know). To me, Prince is still the master of funk, and is currently the best at it and will always be until he passes (just like James Brown was until he passed). You are born with it, and you die with it.

Peace.

Graycap23 said:

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

No...it's not.

FUNK is a state of BEING - and it's UNIVERSAL!

Lol.......no such thing. Everyone hears things on different levels or sometimes NOT AT ALL.

Oh no? I don't recall Prince singing, "My name is Prince and I feel funky." He sang, "My name is Prince and I AM FUNKY!"

You're welcome.

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Graycap23 said:

Lol.......no such thing. Everyone hears things on different levels or sometimes NOT AT ALL.

Oh no? I don't recall Prince singing, "My name is Prince and I feel funky." He sang, "My name is Prince and I AM FUNKY!"

You're welcome.

What the hell are you two arguing about?

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

nosajd said:

If you can define it, it ain't funky

Bullshit!!! The ORIGNATORS - defined it - quite motherFUNKing well!

"Free your mind and your ass will follow!"

Thank you.

Graycap23 said:

nosajd said:

If you can define it, it ain't funky

At the end of the day..........if it is funky 2 u......then it's funky whether it meets someone else's definition or not. Funk is a feeling........and it is personal.

Bullshit with a capital B.

vinx98 said:

There are many ways to define FUNK, funk can be fast and messy (like can be so nice), can be sparse (kiss/new position), can be slow and moody (joy in repetition) and can be a story (scarlette pussy). The key elements (if you want to define them) is personality, minor chords and seventh chords, off beat snare or bass, use of space and rythm together, and many many other things. But the common thread is that we all know it as Funk. Prince didnt invent funk, but he brought it to the mainstream like no other, perhaps you can say Micheal Jackson did too, but Prince was doing it to a commercial market in more purist way (I cant see someone like MJ releasing a Funk masterclass like "controversy" or "head".

In terms of deep and pure funk, there is no better example on Art Official Age than Time. to me, this song is up there with Joy in repition, and If I was your girlfriend as slow mood funk song, that might go on a bit, but you dont notice because its so hypnotic. Other songs on Art Official Age, are deceptively funky (ie they have hidden elements of funk, like Way Back Home, and U know). To me, Prince is still the master of funk, and is currently the best at it and will always be until he passes (just like James Brown was until he passed). You are born with it, and you die with it.

Peace.

I really appreciate your insight, but I wouldn't necessarily call a track like "Joy In Repetition" funk except in the sense that it's the type of a piece that fits well among tracks that are more typical funk (placing it after "We Can Funk" on GB was a nice decision, I think). Same thing with "Time", although I do understand your point about stuff like that being "deceptively funky". Some people seem to think music becomes funk when it's just loaded with wah-wah guitars, filtered synths, bubbling bass sounds and stuff like that. Prince's approach to instrumentation is far more subtle and that's what he initially got a lot of credit for in the 1980s. Funk was starting to become a parody of itself and was in many cases almost indistinguishable from disco.

What many of the "funk purists" always get wrong with their arguments on "what funk is" and which artists we should call "funk artists" is that most of the defining artists and bands associated with the style of music never played just funk. You can't exclude newer acts just on the premise that they don't make albums that are just "pure funk" from start to finish. There are hardly any classic funk albums out there that consist entirely of funk tracks. Mothership Connection is one, but even most P-Funk albums have so much different kinds of tracks on them that they're not very good examples of any kind of "pure funk" (tracks like "Maggot Brain" or "Mr. Wiggles" do not become "funk" just because they were performed by the same collective of musicians).

... and for fuck's sakes, of course "The Gold Standard" is a funk track and it's defnitely funky. Someone is just trying to stick to his original argument a bit too much here.

babynoz said:

Graycap23 said:

At the end of the day..........if it is funky 2 u......then it's funky whether it meets someone else's definition or not. Funk is a feeling........and it is personal.

Bullshit with a capital B.

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

You're welcome.

dyin'

novabrkr said:

... and for fuck's sakes, of course "The Gold Standard" is a funk track and it's defnitely funky. Someone is just trying to stick to his original argument a bit too much here.

i didn't say that track has no funk to it... i said to me, it's funk-lite... once that synth line hits it sucks the funk right out of it for me... cheese city... kind of like the point you made about funk becoming disco... but something else in this case

anyway... my original point is this... i read comments saying (more or less)... "AOA is great... it's just so funky" ... to which i thought "wtf are you listening to?"... because when i listened to the album... the last thing i thought was "damn this shit is funky"

one last thing on the gold standard... to me.. funk makes you pull ugly/nasty faces... i think this dude is listening to the gold standard

now play the song while looking at that picture ^... i dare ya

babynoz said:

Graycap23 said:

At the end of the day..........if it is funky 2 u......then it's funky whether it meets someone else's definition or not. Funk is a feeling........and it is personal.

Bullshit with a capital B.

Graycap23 said:

babynoz said:

Bullshit with a capital B.

I done tole you about drankin' and postin' late at night....

babynoz said:

Graycap23 said:

I done tole you about drankin' and postin' late at night....

I know some folks that will tell u with a straight face that Pat Boone is FUNKY.

Who am I 2 argue with them? They could be tone death 4 all I know.

vinx98 said:

There are many ways to define FUNK, funk can be fast and messy (like can be so nice), can be sparse (kiss/new position), can be slow and moody (joy in repetition) and can be a story (scarlette pussy). The key elements (if you want to define them) is personality, minor chords and seventh chords, off beat snare or bass, use of space and rythm together, and many many other things. But the common thread is that we all know it as Funk. Prince didnt invent funk, but he brought it to the mainstream like no other, perhaps you can say Micheal Jackson did too, but Prince was doing it to a commercial market in more purist way (I cant see someone like MJ releasing a Funk masterclass like "controversy" or "head".

In terms of deep and pure funk, there is no better example on Art Official Age than Time. to me, this song is up there with Joy in repition, and If I was your girlfriend as slow mood funk song, that might go on a bit, but you dont notice because its so hypnotic. Other songs on Art Official Age, are deceptively funky (ie they have hidden elements of funk, like Way Back Home, and U know). To me, Prince is still the master of funk, and is currently the best at it and will always be until he passes (just like James Brown was until he passed). You are born with it, and you die with it.

Peace.

[img:$uid]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y240/delivertheword/animals/CATGUN.jpg[/img:$uid]

Graycap23 said:

babynoz said:

I done tole you about drankin' and postin' late at night....

I know some folks that will tell u with a straight face that Pat Boone is FUNKY.

Who am I 2 argue with them? They could be tone death 4 all I know.

Just keep them away from me....

If it's syncopated and makes your foot tap, your head bob and your ass sway, it is funky.

Aerogram said:

If it's syncopated and makes your foot tap, your head bob and your ass sway, it is funky.

Agree. I think Jelly Roll Morton is funky!

AOA is funky in spots...it's overtly funky in The Gold Standard and Funknroll...and subtlely funky in spots, like at the end of Time.

If it makes me bob my head, it's FUNKY (to me)

AOA IS FUNKY

Revolution said:

AOA is funky in spots...it's overtly funky in The Gold Standard and Funknroll...and subtlely funky in spots, like at the end of Time.

If it makes me bob my head, it's FUNKY (to me)

My other half had the bob experience toward the end of Time yesterday.

It's not a traditional funk record but a great deal of it is either funk or funk-infused rnb/hip hop, space age Parade /minneapolis sound.

MoBettaBliss said:

novabrkr said:

... and for fuck's sakes, of course "The Gold Standard" is a funk track and it's defnitely funky. Someone is just trying to stick to his original argument a bit too much here.

i didn't say that track has no funk to it... i said to me, it's funk-lite... once that synth line hits it sucks the funk right out of it for me... cheese city... kind of like the point you made about funk becoming disco... but something else in this case

anyway... my original point is this... i read comments saying (more or less)... "AOA is great... it's just so funky" ... to which i thought "wtf are you listening to?"... because when i listened to the album... the last thing i thought was "damn this shit is funky"

one last thing on the gold standard... to me.. funk makes you pull ugly/nasty faces... i think this dude is listening to the gold standard

I get the point of your thread and agree that people here are using the word "funky" in order to make it seem the record has more "earthiness" to it than what it does. Prince has made a lot of artistic compromises on the record and many orgers seem to be in a bit of a denial about that aspect of it.

I think you're not able to appreciate "Gold Standard" for its real merits because it's surrounded by the other, more contemporary-sounding songs on the album. "Funk-lite" is a very inapproriate description to me, as the track's the closest thing that he's done to his old signature funk sound in a while. It could go a bit deeper still, but for a 2014 effort it's a pretty damn daring track to put on your album.

Prince has always incorporated cheesy synth lines in his stuff and they have an aspect of humour involved (humour certainly belongs in funk music). I think you're referring to that steel drum type of a sound that's heard before the verses, which lasts just a few seconds. I don't like it that sound that much myself either, but I would never say that sound alone turns the track into "something else" than funk. (By the way, that type of artificial steel drum / marimba type of sounds started to appear on funk records too in the 1980s once digital synths that could do those sounds were available - before that, the synths most bands used simply couldn't do those sounds).

it's sexfunky, is what it is. the slow, grindy songs speak of long, sweaty nights and tousled sheets

Now THIS is Funk! That's F. U. N. K. Funk!

AOA is working yaw!!! Funky all the way nuf said.

Graycap23 said:

babynoz said:

I done tole you about drankin' and postin' late at night....

I know some folks that will tell u with a straight face that Pat Boone is FUNKY.

Who am I 2 argue with them? They could be tone death 4 all I know.

Naw, Pat Boone is heavy metal all the way...

Prince is funk. It's his nature -- in almost everything he does. Maybe "Joy In Repetition" isn't a funk song, but his vocal delivery is in parts. It's a personality & attitude, not just syncopation. Even in his interviews he comes off as funky, without even trying. I bet when he makes pancakes he makes them taste funky right out of the box.

u kissin ass if u think AOA is funk or funky ...

AOA is funky, AOA is not funky

novabrkr said:

Prince has always incorporated cheesy synth lines in his stuff and they have an aspect of humour involved

i was thinking about this a few days ago... his musical humour, and how for me sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't....i was listening to man in a uniform from the truth album... that trumpet part at the start drives me nuts