The Essential Music Library: Funk/Disco

Cafe Society
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The Essential Music Library project is an attempt to get the many musical minds of the SDMB to sit down and discuss what works are absolutely necessary for a well-stocked musical library. There will be roughly 20 threads detailing a variety of genres so that we can get the depth that would be missing from a single-threaded discussion and the breadth necessary to cover what’s out there.

This thread’s topic is funk and disco.

Previous threads: Project Planning | Classical | Rock | Jazz | Modern Rock | Blues | Punk/Post-Punk/New Wave | Opera/Choral Music | Rap/Hip-Hop | Gospel | Electronica | Contemporary Classical | Pop | Film Music/Musicals | R&B/Soul | Grass & Roots

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Herbie Hancock, “Headhunters”
----------, “Thrust”
Tower of Power, “Back To Oakland”
Parliament, “Chocolate City”
Stuff, “Stuff”
The Meters, “Look A Py Py”
Charles Earland, “Black Talk”

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Funkadelic, America Eats Its Young and the compilations Finest or Music for Your Mother.

Parliament, Funked Up or Tear the Roof Off, depending on how much money you feel like spending or how much time you have to download stuff.

Sly and the Family Stone, There’s a Riot Goin’ On.

Disco is a singles thing to me, and it would take some thinking to come up with 10 or 12 songs that I’m not embarrassed to admit liking.

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Guess.

:wink:

Hint: check username.

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Wow…that pretty much nailed it. I might add Sly Stone’s “Fresh” and Earl King’s “Street Parade” to the mix, although that really may not be considered “funk” in the purest form.

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If you don’t have the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever it may not be a legitimate disco collection (even though disco was on its way out when the film came out).

I will also say that Donna Summer - Live is a must have. It makes me want dance 'til my feet bleed, snort mountains of coke, and have sex with the world (as any great disco song should).

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For mainstream disco, you gotta have some KC & the Sunshine Band.

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James Brown.

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             Yeah man! George Clinton. Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay!!!!!
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Rick James==Bustin Out of L7, The Barkays, Confunkshun, Ohio Players, Lakeside, Mary Jane Girls, I’ll think of more later.

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Prince, Morris Day and The Time, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam (with Full Force), The Gap Band, Chaka Kahn, Gladys Knight, Barry White, Al Green, Percy Sledge, The Commodores.

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Incidentally, if you get a couple of Clinton albums - and you should - you’ll also have a good understanding of the backbone of West Coast rap. I wish I could count how many rap songs sample “Atomic Dog.”

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Funky Nassau…The Beginning of the End