James Brown isn’t merely the Godfather of Soul, he is also the man who invented funk. And others built upon that, but no one more than George Clinton. Whether its the rocking funk grooves of early Funkadelic, or the complex multi-movement songs of prime mid-‘70s Parliament, or his underrated solo records for Capitol in the ’80s, Clinton kept finding new ways to funk, guaranteeing that we would always have One Nation Under A Groove. Let’s pay tribute to this essential artist by grabbing the iPod or MP3 player, hitting shuffle, and sharing the first 10 songs that come up.
The Diodes — Tired Of Waking Up Tired (Tired of Waking Up Tired: The Best of The Diodes): This is a Candian new wave classic. Back in the day, some might have called this punk, but its really just a rocking tune with an automatic pop hook. This is the band’s peak, but they have quite a few nifty and clever tunes on their first couple of albums.
Al Green — Take Me To The River (More Greatest Hits): You know a song must be great if it has been covered by both Foghat and Talking Heads. This is an upbeat soul number from the good Reverend Green which mixes biblical metaphor with a story of love gone wrong. The song has about three different hooks and a sublime middle eight. Fantastic.
Paul Kelly & The Messengers — Everything’s Turning To White (So Much Water, So Close To Home): Kelly is a great Australian singer-songwriter who writes great melodies but has a rough hewn rock style that gives them grit. On this song, however, it’s only Kelly’s voice that provides any grit, as it is a pretty economical number that fans of Ron Sexsmith would probably dig.
Lewis Taylor — Hide Your Love Away (The Lost Album): This is not a cover of The Beatles/John Lennon classic from the movie Help. This is another soft-pop gem from cult fave Taylor. This has a gentle Laurel Canyon vibe that fans of the latest John Grant record might dig.
Ron Sexsmith — Nothing Good (Other Songs): The second Sexsmith album is still my favorite as he perfected his pithy approach to writing observational pop songs. It’s no wonder Elvis Costello championed him around this time. Sexsmith has a limited but extremely expressive voice — he always sounds committed to what he is singing, while his melodies are friendly and familiar in the best possible way.
Fools Face — Land Of The Hunted (Tell America): Tell America is one of the 10 best power pop albums ever made, This Springfield, Missouri band featured four songwriters who all had a great command of melody. Not only did they cook up a great batch of new wave kissed pop-rock songs, they sometimes added social commentary that was not typical of bands during the skinny tie era. This is a chugging number with spectacular drumming.
Dolly Varden — All Gonna Change (The Panic Bell): A wonderful Dianne Christiansen song from the most recent album by this Chicago band. A lot of Christiansen’s material is comparable to latter day Rosanne Cash — spare (a theme for today, I guess) compositions with keenly observed lyrics. This is the most produced of all of Dolly Varden’s albums and there are lots of nifty sonic touches to augment this otherwise simple acoustic track.
Nirvana — Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nevermind): The basis for a great Weird Al Yankovic parody. Moreover, a song that changed music significantly, both for good and bad. Alt-rock sent harder rock in new directions,and also, for a few years, opened up the airwaves to a wider variety of rock music. Even today, the effects are felt, as the existence of viable commercial channels for independent music is partially due to Nirvana’s breakthrough.
Linton Kwesi Johnson — Come Wi Goh Dung Den (Dread Beat An’ Blood): The influential reggae dub poet’s debut album sets the formula that always worked for Mr. Johnson: solid reggae grooves and his intense rhythmic recitations of his politically charged lyrics. All that changed over the years was sharper music, stronger vocals and better production. But the music is swell and LKJ’s passion is contagious.
Big Audio Dynamite — James Brown (Megatop Phoenix): After Brown got into an altercation with a cop, a lot of folks were inspired to write a song about it, including Mick Jones. This is a pretty typical BAD number, with a sort of funky groove. But it’s not as good as Pop Will Itself’s “Not Now James, We’re Busy”, the best song on this subject matter.