YOUR RIGHT, DAMN IT !!!

But if Funk is your scene..As it is Mine..I think The last Really great "GROUP" was
Jamiroquai ! circa 1993-1996... After that, I personally dont really dig the "Discofied funky" vibes that they Rock..
*the original and most essential guys in the "BAND" Stuart and Toby both left the group.
When the band consisted of the original line up of:

Singer Jay Kay, drummer Derrick McKenzie, keyboard player Toby Smith,& bassist Stuart Zender,

They were BADASS !
NO YOUNG MODERN FUNK ACT COULD TOUCH THEM !
Enjoy !

Cool Band. My girlfriend loves them. Yea ur right, no Funky bands anymore.

Stuart Zender brought a funk edge to their music. When he left, he took those funky basslines with him.

Bishop31 said:

Mine too

Oh and I disagree about the 'great' part. Nothing 'great' has happened funk-wise since the early eighties.

FuNkeNsteiN said:

I say Great..Because they took the old school and gave it a hip hop ie: MODERN sensibility..I know many professional hip hop producers & just casual "non funk fanatics" people that gave them MEGA PROPS when they came out! maybe they wouldnt be "fans" perse..But they RECOGNIZED that they were the Real deal !
[Edited 12/19/07 14:27pm]

Stuart Zender;s basslines are so funky you have to eat them while holding your nose!!!!

I have been tracking him on and off for the last few years and no project seems to get finished. BUT ... Maybe him and JK can get back together.

He has great feel, and what's even funnier is he was only playing a few years when he wrote all those great lines.

Would you trade your funk for what's behind door #3?

FuNkeNsteiN said:

if this thread were about !!!, i might be able to get with it a little more. jamiroquai has some nice music, but i think they got stale fast.

Anxiety said:

So as some of their key bandmemebers left Stuart & Toby, the level of Funk died. You can tell by the latest album.
[Edited 12/19/07 17:20pm]

The only UK band that I know that's still maintaining a high level of Funk would be Level 42. Hands Down.
[Edited 12/19/07 17:06pm]

Obviously, no one here has ever heard of Q & Not U.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EEfiu_RsnGs

Too bad they split up in 2005.
[Edited 12/19/07 17:27pm]

You know, a few years back I said here that Jamiroquai was the last great Funk band. And the orgers gave me hell for it. So I wouldn't want you to make the same mistake, prettymansson.

And honestly, the funk of Jamiroquai did get kinda stale after Stuart Zender and the old crew left. Now it's just JK and a cover band. But I think people want a new version of old school bands like Rick James and Stone City Band, Ohio Players, EWF, The Time, Cameo, Zapp, Gap Band, etc.

But why would you want the same thing over again?

I think nu Funk should still have the same spirit, fervor, and influence of the 70's and 80's, but created in a millenium fashion. Otherwise, you'd just be creating a nostalgic act. And that would be kinda lame.

I have seen how people diss Jamiroquai here..But I really dont give a damn..Im 100% a musician..and I know quality when i see and hear it..Jay kay is a much more interesting frontman than TONS of the great old school cats..and the band was tight and rocking a high level of musicality..In the days when sampling "REALNESS" was the rage..I will always proudly say THEY ROCKED & give them their props !

NWF said:

I used to dig them. Their first 3 albums, I thought, were tight. Afer that, I bought a couple of them and just felt like they were rehashing Travelling Without Moving every time out. Dunno what they sound like now, but I'm guessing they haven't moved much beyond beyond that.

I have Trveling Without Moving but its been seriously neglected!

I'll listen to it tonight

Besides Prince, Jamiroquai is definately the only ones still making funk. Great stuff. Too bad the rest of the world ain't got the good taste to get with it.

That's exactly why I don't like their earlier stuff from the 1990s. I absolutely despise shit hop and can't stand to hear even a little trace of it in music. Their older stuff was decent but too slow also. I also didn't like the jazz influence in it.

I absolutely love the albums "A Funk Odyssey" and "Dynamite". Disco was my first love and what got me listening to funk in the first place because after it's "death" in 1979 and the pop world was getting back into rock and new wave, funk was the closest sounding thing to disco at the time. Give me some funk and disco on the same album and it don't get no better. It's like a musical orgasm.

That's another reason why I bitch about tempos being too damn slow today. Since my first love was disco, which was very uptempo, every genre I've been into after it such as funk and house music have been some sort of replacement for it or had some of disco's influence in it even if it's just the danceability part of it.

Disco forever dammitt, and when all disco elements are gone from R&B (like they are today), music ain't shit.

Vive le roi de la discothèque!!!

http://www.youtube.com/wa...re=related

What I love about Jamiroquai is....they're making music that totally ignores current trends.They're stuck in 1978 and that's fine with me They make fast,relentless disco/funk jams with absolutely no trace of shit hop.Funky basslines,strings,catchy hooks,fast beats....these guys understand and realize the importance of a good groove!

Exactly! Now that's the type of Jamiroquai that I love.

The "Old Jamiroquai/New Jamiroquai" style change reminds me of the "Old Prince/New Prince" style change beginning with "Around The World In A Day". Old fans were pissed and Prince had new fans to replace them. The new fans were like "get over it". The Jamiroquai style change reminds of that. The old fans were pissed while folks like me were happy to see it. Y'all got Prince but we got Jamiroquai. Jamiroquai changed their style...."get over it".

vainandy said:

The funny thing is....it's the "New Jamiroquai" that turned me into a fan I didn't even become a fan until 'Synchronized' came out in 1999.I was in a record store the week it came out,and I heard this amazing music playing (the song "Canned Heat").I asked the clerk who it was and she handed me the CD.I couldn't believe that a modern-day band was making music like this!

I eventually went back and bought the previous albums but I have to say,I enjoy their latter albums much more.'A Funk Odyssey' is their masterpiece,imo.

for the Jamiroquai fan on your Christmas list,the recently released 'Live At Montreux' DVD makes a great stocking stuffer

[Edited 12/20/07 4:09am]

It was you that recommended "A Funk Odyssey" to me. I had heard of Jamiroquai back in the mid 1990s and their style was much slower and had elements of hip hop and jazz in it. I considered it "decent" but certainly nothing that I would go out and buy.

I can't tell you how many times people had said...."there is good new music out there but you have to look for it".....and every damn time I look up someone they recommend to me, it is always somebody that makes real music but they never get past slow or midtempo or it's some artsy/fartsy artist making some damn folk music. When you recommended Jamiroquai to me, I remembered them from the mid 1990s and I thought you were one of those type people screaming....."you have to look for good new music, it's out there"..... I thought to myself in an evil Bugs Bunny voice....."he don't know me very well, do heeeee".....After seeing some of your threads, I took a chance and bought "A Funk Odyssey" and it was a completely different Jamiroquai than I remembered in the mid 1990s. I was pleased as hell.
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[Edited 12/20/07 4:08am]

NWF said:

I think of Jamiroquai as a modern-day version of bands like Heatwave,Chic,and the Bee Gees.They're keeping that sound alive,which impresses me.There's already too many artists and bands doing modern R&B/shit hop.We need somebody to take it back to the "old school".Thankfully,Jamiroquai has made this into their mission

vainandy said:

'A Funk Odyssey' is the type of album that Michael Jackson needs to make.

Chic definately comes to mind when I hear them and you're right, we need new artists that are going to get as far from shit hop as possible. That's the only way we are ever going to get rid of and kill that horrible virus that has infected everything.

It's the type of album that all these artists need to be making. Things could start getting back on the right track again. People could start actually dancing and shaking asses on dance floors again instead of making arm gestures that look like they are swatting flies.

vainandy said:

the song "You Give Me Something" from 'A Funk Odyssey' could almost be considered a homage to Chic.