MrSoulpower said:

First of all, I never have and will never deny the Troutman brothers talent. These cats were skilled musicians and very talented producers who knew what they were doing. But let's face it, they wanted to make money. Had they been active a decade earlier, we might have heard some nitty gritty, dirty, lowdown Funk from them. The Human Body album hints Roger's admiration for a rawer Funk sound.

Aha, i see. But i think that besides their musical talent, Roger and his brothers were partly motivated by their father to run a business because they had quite some payback to make for getting all the instruments which they received in advance. Again i think it's great that underground scenes within genres were and still are alive, but you can't always pay your bills on mainly recording music without having a steady income in some sort of way. In that case an artist should take a dayjob and create music in their freetime.

Also, I didn't say that "no one digs Zapp anymore on party nights." I said that if you play some high energetic, raw Funk and you follow with Zapp, it usually doesn't go over too well. Because old Funk has a much rawer, more intense energy.

I can imagine that appeals to a number of people, in the same way that Zapp appeals to a number of other people.

Of course Zapp will always go over well in "regular" clubs where DJs do not venture into Deep Funk. And I'm not saying that Zapp & their kind are bad ... they've made some great records and I definitely enjoyed going to their shows some 18-20 years ago But once I dug a little deeper, they just didn't do anything for me.

Okay, cool.

I'm wondering though, maybe i'm understanding this wrong, but do you see disco as less aknowledgable ? ...

I find it regrettable that disco-music gets such poor recognition. Dj's/producers/remixers such as the late Larry Levan (Paradise Garage) and Frankie Knuckles from that era

are much respected in today's Dance-scene of Deephouse and Soulful Garage to which disco evolved imo.

Through the years i've been interacting with collectors of the more pure disco-depths, and that gave me insight and appreciation by hearing good arranged compositions

within that genre. I personally never saw Zapp though as disco-funk, but more as electro-funk. Zapp's rhythm & beats are imo much rawer than the the disco-beats of the late 70's.

MrSoulpower said:

Shango said:

Analising or reviewing a genre/style as "watered down" comes imo all to personal, subjective preference,

and therefor can't be stated as a fact to which everyone automatically might agree. To each their own.

When a musical genre evolves from a raw underground phenomen to a sound that caters to the mainstream and the masses, then yes, usually it is watered down.

Again, to each their own in the eye of the beholder. Much of these artists had to keep the ca$hflow going, whether they choosed to stay underground artists or not.

Reaching a wider audience seems unacceptable in some situations. As if it's a wrong thing to do. I recently saw a documentary where a classic actor told that it was

"not done" to act in an advertisement commercial during his earlier acting years around the 60's/70's. He was glad those times had changed.

The negative impact of Disco on the evolution of Funk cannot be denied. Ask every Funk musician who has recorded in the 1970s.

Well, Cameo, One Way and Slave who recorded in the 70's are still performing tracks from their late-70's/80's catalogue. It's not that they sell out big venues anymore so they could choose to perform their lesser known material, yet they perform tracks from those earlier mentioned eras. I've heard some interviews with them but never did they stress out how much they hated the fact that disco had such a negative impact. With your profession you certainly might have met a number of artists who agreed with that view, but to generalise that every single funk-artist who recorded in the 70s claims this, feels as a stretch imo. That is a BIG list of artists lol.

[Edited 8/7/10 10:50am]

Funk, like rock, comes in all forms. While I dig '70s funk over '60s funk with '80s funk a close second, I definitely LOVE all the funk I heard from Roger & Zapp. They may not have been "raw" or "primitive" like James Brown or The Meters in the '60s but then again, I rather for them to do what they did (with the talk box and hand claps and keyboard/synth bass riffs) then try to do what groups classified as funk bands are doing now. Not saying what bands are doing now are bad or imitations of James Brown, but computerized funk was always a favorite with me too.

I'm a funk of all trades.

Oh yeah Shango has a good point: not ALL '70s funk artists talked bad about disco.

In fact...WHAT THE FUNK IS SO BAD ABOUT DISCO? If you listen to those who didn't get promoted but still produce great music, it wouldn't be so negative as it was given.

Shango said:

Militant said:

I love this album. It has some serious jams like "You Should Be Mine", which is up there with the funkiest stuff Roger ever recorded, IMO.

TonyVanDam said:

MrSoulpower said:

Just had to address this ... I know where you are trying to go with this, but I don't agree. The earliest Funk artist, the man who pioneered it, is James Brown. His early Funk from around 167/68 wasn't primitive .. it remains the tightest and most sophisticated Funk out there, and nobody - I mean NOBODY - beats James Brown when it comes to Funk. Just listen to "There was a time" from the second "Live in the Apollo" album and you'll know what I mean. Late 1970s and early 1980s Funk was more advanced regarding recording technology. But musically, it was much simpler, much more stale and more watered down - thanks to the impact that Disco had on Funk. After all, the music you're referring to was made to appeal to the mainstream, while early Funk was not. Nothing Zapp has ever released will reach the complexity and sophististication of a James Brown horn arrangement, and no drum computer will ever reproduce the energy of drummers like Clyde Stubblefield, Melvin Parker or Jab'o Starks. How you can call that "primitive" is beyond me.

In that sense, early Funk was and is extremely danceable ... believe me, I see it every night on the dancefloor when I DJ. Early Funk has an energy and edge to it that cannot be matched by later Funk ... If you play a set of rare early, high energy Funk and switch to Zapp, it's guaranteed to kill the dancefloor ...

I think that you're a Disco fan ... and you like your Funk disco-ish, but you ignore that Disco was a serious blow to Funk, and it took Funk artists over a decade to recover from the damage Disco has done to this music. For a while, in the 1980s, it really looked like Funk was about to die.

James Brown's funk was not primitive. But it is definitely a classic example of horn-driven funk. I say the same thing about Kool & The Gang (pre-JT Taylor) & Tower Of Power.

Now if you're a fan of The Funk at its most primitive state, listen to The Meters. THIS classic funk band had no horn section OR synths neither. And to top it all off, The Meters' funk was downtempo most of the time (hence where Dr. Dre/Warren G. borrowed the downtempo idea from for G-Funk).

Now don't get it twisted. I always liked The Meters, given that they're from New Orleans just like me. But their funk has absolutely no ounce of advance technology in it. To my ears, that is primitive.

Just saying.

Yeah the Meters were definitely more primitive/raw than James Brown. James may have been Southern but something about even his rawer funk was more polished. We forget that James was a perfectionist and he strived for the best of his musicians. It wasn't as he let musicians put some lazy arrangements. Even goofs were produced exquisitely (look at many of the Motown records, some people would goof off and the producers would put it in a way where it sounded like it was worked on for two or three takes than just one).

Ugh I still miss Roger.

@ Shango

Lot's of points to address .. First let me state that I've found an appreciation of good Disco (yes, there is such thing) in recent years. So even for a Funk purist like me, there is a nice tune here and there that gets me excited. But generally speaking, Disco has been bad for Funk. Many of Funk's more successful artists have often stated that, and this sentiment is a reflection of their musical progression in the Disco era .. from James Brown to Roy Ayers to the Ohio Players. Let's face it, Disco was an attempt to simplify Funk and make it more accessible for a more broad, often white, mainstream mass audience. The music wasn't performed live but was played buy DJs - which drove thousands of gifted life performers into ruin. Even though I learned to appreciate some Disco music, the taste will always be bittersweet.

It is true that groups like Kool & The Gang and Cameo primarily perform their material from the late 1970s and early '80s today .. and that should tell you something. Kool & The Gang Funk masterpieces like "Who's gonna take the weight", "Chocolate Buttermilk" and "Pneumonia" were substituted by shallow crowd pleasers like "Ladies Night", which has mass appeal ... is that really a good thing? I'd love to see Kool & The Gang perform music from their first three or four albums, but I guess that's not gonna happen ...

Same with Cameo. I was never a big fan, but songs like "Funk Funk" moved me .. do they ever perform them live? No, because the mainstream wouldn't tolerate those tunes ... because they are too funky.

My point is, in most cases, when Funk breaks into the mainstream, it has lost its edge. That's the only way it can have mass appeal .. And here on prince.org, where some people believe that an artist like Prince is a Funk God and drum computers can recreate the same energy as some of the best Funk drummers in the world, people mainly focus on "mainstream Funk" if there is such thing ... and this becomes very obvious in the seven pages of this thread where many continue to claim that Funk is dead because they don't hear it on mainstream radio anymore ...

Timmy84 said:

Ugh I still miss Roger.

I actually liked that one ... I think it came out in '91? That was the time I always went to his show.

Timmy84 said:

Ugh I still miss Roger.

Me too bro.....I was damn near tearin' up while watching that "Unsung" episodes.

Despite them being sampled to death (and damn near everyone at least being familiar with those grooves even if they don't know where they came from), I still don't feel Roger gets the props he deserves.

Militant said:

Timmy84 said:

Ugh I still miss Roger.

Me too bro.....I was damn near tearin' up while watching that "Unsung" episodes.

Despite them being sampled to death (and damn near everyone at least being familiar with those grooves even if they don't know where they came from), I still don't feel Roger gets the props he deserves.

He really doesn't. That dude was a GENIUS.

MrSoulpower said:

Militant said:

Why should I elaborate, when you did not? You are the one making the original argument.

If you can prove to me exactly how a JB horn arrangement is more complex than a Zapp track, then I will provide my counter argument.

Of course, if you playing a Deep Funk set, at a Deep Funk night, the audience will not be expecting to hear Zapp, so it's not going to necessarily work. But I counter that EXACTLY the same thing would happen if you tried to play Deep Funk at a synth-funk night, after playing a bunch of Zapp, Cameo, Prince, Jesse Johnson. So that point is more or less moot.

Play Deep Funk and Synth Funk at a REGULAR club, all mixed up, and see what gets a better reaction.

Zapp and Cameo et al have PLENTY of stank and energy.

And yes - a brilliantly programmed Linn drum can have the energy of a classic human-played drum break. I'd take "777-9311" over "Funky Drummer" any day of the week, month, or year.

I was about to respond to your other points, but when I came accross this ^^ (see bold), I realized that our understanding of Funk and feeling is so fundamentally different, we'll never get to agree.

I think you are right. These are essentially different genres that have a few things in common.

What I don't like is the condescending attitude that you have displayed a little bit (and that people who prefer older versions of a genre tend to do across the board), that synth-funk is somehow "not real funk" or is in some way inferior to other types of funk.

That isn't the case at all. Maybe, because you love the earlier funk so much you feel it was somewhat diminished by electro and synth funk and feel bitter towards it.....and that's fine, but that doesn't excuse you from having an attitude or superiority complex about it.

Let's just agree to disagree and move on. Peace bro.

^ Word.

Oh and Zapp ain't disco, they're electro funk. GET DOWN!

Timmy84 said:

Oh yeah Shango has a good point: not ALL '70s funk artists talked bad about disco.

In fact...WHAT THE FUNK IS SO BAD ABOUT DISCO? If you listen to those who didn't get promoted but still produce great music, it wouldn't be so negative as it was given.

Right on

Shango said:

Timmy84 said:

Oh yeah Shango has a good point: not ALL '70s funk artists talked bad about disco.

In fact...WHAT THE FUNK IS SO BAD ABOUT DISCO? If you listen to those who didn't get promoted but still produce great music, it wouldn't be so negative as it was given.

Right on

And I'm a fan of "disco" artists like CHIC, Donna Summer, and the like. Believe me, they had a LOT of talent that helped to add to the music. Plus disco, LIKE FUNK, made/makes your booty shake.

That's exactly what you and Andy were talking about.

Plus funk and disco are like cousins or big brother/little brother anyway lol

MrSoulpower said:

@ Shango

Lot's of points to address .. First let me state that I've found an appreciation of good Disco (yes, there is such thing) in recent years. So even for a Funk purist like me, there is a nice tune here and there that gets me excited. But generally speaking, Disco has been bad for Funk. Many of Funk's more successful artists have often stated that, and this sentiment is a reflection of their musical progression in the Disco era .. from James Brown to Roy Ayers to the Ohio Players. Let's face it, Disco was an attempt to simplify Funk and make it more accessible for a more broad, often white, mainstream mass audience. The music wasn't performed live but was played buy DJs - which drove thousands of gifted life performers into ruin. Even though I learned to appreciate some Disco music, the taste will always be bittersweet.

It is true that groups like Kool & The Gang and Cameo primarily perform their material from the late 1970s and early '80s today .. and that should tell you something. Kool & The Gang Funk masterpieces like "Who's gonna take the weight", "Chocolate Buttermilk" and "Pneumonia" were substituted by shallow crowd pleasers like "Ladies Night", which has mass appeal ... is that really a good thing? I'd love to see Kool & The Gang perform music from their first three or four albums, but I guess that's not gonna happen ...

Same with Cameo. I was never a big fan, but songs like "Funk Funk" moved me .. do they ever perform them live? No, because the mainstream wouldn't tolerate those tunes ... because they are too funky.

My point is, in most cases, when Funk breaks into the mainstream, it has lost its edge. That's the only way it can have mass appeal .. And here on prince.org, where some people believe that an artist like Prince is a Funk God and drum computers can recreate the same energy as some of the best Funk drummers in the world, people mainly focus on "mainstream Funk" if there is such thing ... and this becomes very obvious in the seven pages of this thread where many continue to claim that Funk is dead because they don't hear it on mainstream radio anymore ...

I understand your point of view, though having different thoughts. One other thing i'd like to remark is that i feel that Cameo still were very edgy when doing an album such as "Alligator Woman". To me their energy during that era is very raw, and this album + Style and She's Strange were projects where you could remark an evolution in their sound. Especially these 3 albums are to me a milepole in their career. An evolvement in one's musical catalogue is not automatically watered down imo.

In the end it all comes down to personal preference, as cliched as that sounds.

[Edited 8/7/10 12:03pm]

Militant said:

MrSoulpower said:

I was about to respond to your other points, but when I came accross this ^^ (see bold), I realized that our understanding of Funk and feeling is so fundamentally different, we'll never get to agree.

I think you are right. These are essentially different genres that have a few things in common.

What I don't like is the condescending attitude that you have displayed a little bit (and that people who prefer older versions of a genre tend to do across the board), that synth-funk is somehow "not real funk" or is in some way inferior to other types of funk.

That isn't the case at all. Maybe, because you love the earlier funk so much you feel it was somewhat diminished by electro and synth funk and feel bitter towards it.....and that's fine, but that doesn't excuse you from having an attitude or superiority complex about it.

Let's just agree to disagree and move on. Peace bro.

Maybe my "condenscending attitude" towards certain posters is based on the observation that these posters have declared Funk "dead" because it is not mainstream and that they fail to acknowledge that Funk is a lot more than just the big hitters like Ohio Players, Zapp and Parliament, and that the mainstream isn't really the place where most Funk has always been. The majority of Funk was created in the deep underground, and only a few artists made it into the charts, but literally thousands of records never sold more than the shabby 400 pieces that were released of them by small, underground labels. And when the big hitters climbed in the charts, Funk already had a history to reflect on. Yet many here feel that these older acts/records/releases don't matter and that they are "primitive."

My second point was that the Funk of the late 70s and early 80s was "watered down" compared to early Funk. You disagree. That's your right, of course. But when you say that a "programmed Linn drum can have the energy of a classic human-played drum break," then I think you're missing the whole point of Funk drumming. Call me condescending all that you want. Ask Stubblefield what he thinks of a drum computer.

Bottom line, this forum usually scratches only the surface of the vast body that is Funk music and Funk culture (which is OK, this is not a Funk forum, it's a forum dedicated to a multi talented, genre spanning pop virtuoso), yet a quite a few peeps here have already delcared the genre indefinetely dead while being entirely ignorant of its current status in the world - because they don't bother to look. I find this odd at best.

And no, I'm not bitter at all. If you read my posts, I am quite content that Funk is underground, because that's where it belongs. I wouldn't want it in the mainstream, because usually, this doesn't work out too well ... you'd end up with "Ladies Night" and other shameful pieces of self-exploitation. If Funk hit's the mainstream, it comes at a price ...

@ Timmy - I didn't say that Zapp was Disco. I apologize if that came over the wrong way. I'd agree that they are Electro Funk. I just think that if a Funk style needs an attribution, then it's too late .. lol But again, that's a matter of taste. I have much respect for Roger and Zapp, I just can't listen to them anymore, just like I don't listen to Prince anymore. You can call that elitism - I just call it a preference.

Timmy84 said:

Plus funk and disco are like cousins or big brother/little brother anyway lol

Yeah, Disco is the little brother who is molesting his older sister.

ON GUARD! DEFEND YOURSELF!!!!

Timmy84 said:

Shango said:

Cinnie said:

I copped the single shortly after my cd-dig

Timmy84 said:

Shango said:

Right on

And I'm a fan of "disco" artists like CHIC, Donna Summer, and the like. Believe me, they had a LOT of talent that helped to add to the music. Plus disco, LIKE FUNK, made/makes your booty shake.

That's exactly what you and Andy were talking about.

Timmy84 said:

ON GUARD! DEFEND YOURSELF!!!!

Counter attack!!!

minneapolisFunq said:

You are such an ignorant fucking dumbass

seriously, atleast you finally said what you have been wanting to say ever since U first jumped on my dick. bitch ass old man catching feelings over MY opinions. how sad.

"true funk" and "Pure funk" are subjective terms.

You can't just count out those 'exceptions' because you prefer a different type of funk.

With your logic Prince would have been moving closer to 'real 'funk, he moved away from synths and brought in the live horns.

I can find R&B from that era that Is far from funky, to throw it all into the same category is another stupid generalization. (whats new with you)

The music evolved and sadly it failed to continue its growth in the 90s.

As others have stated, Troutman and a few other select groups still put out some nice jams. 4 example, Bridging the Gap has a grip of dope joints.

*Midas Touch is dope btw, that bassline is off the hook

Your opinions of me are insignificant. I won't even bother with a retort.

[Edited 8/7/10 12:25pm]

MrSoulpower said:

Well, the facts speak against you. Literally 1,000s of Funk 45s were released between '67 and '71. After that, fewer and fewer 45s were made ... Funk artists made the switch to the LP format, and very few artists were actually signed and were fortunate to release an album or two.

I'm a die hard Funk collector (and I do collect releases up to 1980), and I can assure you that the late 1960s were the most vibrant. Never again in the history of black music there were so many small labels that released Funk records. My own catalog at home consists of thousands of 45s, and I've done my research. The output of Funk 45s saw a drastic decrease of releases after 1973, and less and less groups actually put records out. That's a well documented fact .. a look at the Funky Music Lexicon (the most comprehensive catalog of Funk related releases) will show you that "67 to '71 was the golden era of Funk.

You're talking about Parliament-Funkadelic, the Ohio Players and James Brown ... these were among the very few who made it big. Again, there are thousands of releases from obscure groups from all over the country that worked and released music extensively in the late 1960s, and you have probably never heard of them. And you're right - during the early '70s, the Stylistics, the Delfonics, the Spinners and the Chi-Lites dominated black music charts - which exactly proves my point that Funk has always been underground and only very few artists made it into the charts. JB, Sly and the Ohio Players were just the dip of the ice berg.

I suggest you take a peek below water ... there's a whole world of Funk lurking.

Just wanna address that during the 80's a lot of indy/private labels were printing albums/singles. I've stopped counting how much of those have been auctioned all those years since ebay started online, and still seeing to this day a lot of rare & limited-pressed 45's of 80's grooves.

[Edited 8/7/10 12:27pm]

Shango said:

MrSoulpower said:

Well, the facts speak against you. Literally 1,000s of Funk 45s were released between '67 and '71. After that, fewer and fewer 45s were made ... Funk artists made the switch to the LP format, and very few artists were actually signed and were fortunate to release an album or two.

I'm a die hard Funk collector (and I do collect releases up to 1980), and I can assure you that the late 1960s were the most vibrant. Never again in the history of black music there were so many small labels that released Funk records. My own catalog at home consists of thousands of 45s, and I've done my research. The output of Funk 45s saw a drastic decrease of releases after 1973, and less and less groups actually put records out. That's a well documented fact .. a look at the Funky Music Lexicon (the most comprehensive catalog of Funk related releases) will show you that "67 to '71 was the golden era of Funk.

You're talking about Parliament-Funkadelic, the Ohio Players and James Brown ... these were among the very few who made it big. Again, there are thousands of releases from obscure groups from all over the country that worked and released music extensively in the late 1960s, and you have probably never heard of them. And you're right - during the early '70s, the Stylistics, the Delfonics, the Spinners and the Chi-Lites dominated black music charts - which exactly proves my point that Funk has always been underground and only very few artists made it into the charts. JB, Sly and the Ohio Players were just the dip of the ice berg.

I suggest you take a peek below water ... there's a whole world of Funk lurking.

Just wanna address that during the 80's a lot of indy/private labels were printing albums/singles. I've stopped counting how much of those have been auctioned al those years that ebay started online, and still seeing to this day a lot of rare & limited-pressed 45's of 80's grooves.

The 1980s...I want them.

MrSoulpower said:

Timmy84 said:

ON GUARD! DEFEND YOURSELF!!!!

Counter attack!!!

I'm gonna shoot ya with my bop gun.

Shango said:

MrSoulpower said:

Well, the facts speak against you. Literally 1,000s of Funk 45s were released between '67 and '71. After that, fewer and fewer 45s were made ... Funk artists made the switch to the LP format, and very few artists were actually signed and were fortunate to release an album or two.

I'm a die hard Funk collector (and I do collect releases up to 1980), and I can assure you that the late 1960s were the most vibrant. Never again in the history of black music there were so many small labels that released Funk records. My own catalog at home consists of thousands of 45s, and I've done my research. The output of Funk 45s saw a drastic decrease of releases after 1973, and less and less groups actually put records out. That's a well documented fact .. a look at the Funky Music Lexicon (the most comprehensive catalog of Funk related releases) will show you that "67 to '71 was the golden era of Funk.

You're talking about Parliament-Funkadelic, the Ohio Players and James Brown ... these were among the very few who made it big. Again, there are thousands of releases from obscure groups from all over the country that worked and released music extensively in the late 1960s, and you have probably never heard of them. And you're right - during the early '70s, the Stylistics, the Delfonics, the Spinners and the Chi-Lites dominated black music charts - which exactly proves my point that Funk has always been underground and only very few artists made it into the charts. JB, Sly and the Ohio Players were just the dip of the ice berg.

I suggest you take a peek below water ... there's a whole world of Funk lurking.

Just wanna address that during the 80's a lot of indy/private labels were printing albums/singles. I've stopped counting how much of those have been auctioned al those years that ebay started online, and still seeing to this day a lot of rare & limited-pressed 45's of 80's grooves.

That's true. Singles never went away. And today, new Funk acts release vinyl 45s, and DJs play vinyl 45s (for various reasons .. nostalgia, superb sound, easy to carry and the fact that many songs were only released on 45s and not on albums.)

But the output of Funk 45s in the years '67 to '71 remains unreached. I don't think we'll ever see a spike like that. I've been collecting Funk 45s for 15 years now, and I still hear or find 45s that I've never seen or never heard before.

Timmy84 said:

Shango said:

Just wanna address that during the 80's a lot of indy/private labels were printing albums/singles. I've stopped counting how much of those have been auctioned al those years that ebay started online, and still seeing to this day a lot of rare & limited-pressed 45's of 80's grooves.

The 1980s...I want them.

Those singles you want ? .... start saving bucks