Parliament

George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and the rest of the Parliament Funkadelic and Rubber Band
hydra seem blessed with unlimited inspiration. Clinton, who helps produce and write
nearly everything these bands release, taps a---you'll pardon the expression---mother lode
of black popular culture, gathering up all genres of music, humor and pulp fiction.
Funkentelechy vs, the Placebo Syndrome is the new "funk opera" by Parliament,... More >

This seems like your representative 'delicment LP at first, featuring one irresistible and quite eccentric dance cut, other dance cuts that are at moments even more eccentric (including one based on nursery rhymes), bits of inspired jive, bits of plain jive, and an anomalous slow one. But with familiarity the three rhythm hooks that anchor the album start sounding definitive. And never before has George Clinton dealt so coherently with his familiar message, in which the forces of life--autonomous intelligence, a childlike openness, sexual energy, and humor--defeat those of death: by seduction if possible, by force if necessary. (Grade: A)