Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop

Released - July 1973

Genre - Funk

Producer - George Clinton

Selected Personnel - Bernie Worrell (Keyboards/Melodica); Boogie Mosson (Bass); Tyrone Lampkin (Percussion); Gary Shider (Guitar/Vocals); Ron Bykowski (Guitar); Tiki Fulwood (Drums); George Clinton (Vocals); Ben Edwards (Vocals); Ray Davis (Vocals)

Standout Track - This Broken Heart

Cosmic Slop is another Funkadelic record that only crept its way into my affections after growing on me for a fair while. Like America Eats Its Young, it can't help but feel like a bit of a letdown in comparison to their career highs like Maggot Brain and Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, but after a bit of patience its own individual merits begin to show themselves. Apart from anything else, it probably proves itself as one of Funkadelic's most consistent albums. The truly standout songs aren't numerous but, unlike most of their other albums, even including the aforementioned classics, there's not a single track that I find a struggle to get through. It's a good, consistent and slice of the band's now comfortable funk-rock style with a few moments that hold their own in the broader context of the Funkadelic discography.

In the wake of the success of Maggot Brain, bandleader George Clinton had resorted to diversity and eclecticism to ensure not becoming complacent and trying to copy the formula that had worked for the band. As a result, Americas Eats Its Young was a vast, sprawling double album with plenty of misses as well as hits but with an impressive array of different styles and tones of songs. In the wake of that more sprawling experiment of an album, it feels on Cosmic Slop like Clinton & co. have settled into a comfortable new formula, consisting of short, moody, grimy funk rock songs that give prominence to new recruit Gary Shider's guitar (and, in places, the keyboards of Bernie Worrell, although his contributions would be far more foregrounded when Clinton started dividing his attention between Funkadelic and Parliament). The lengthy instrumentals and improvised jams of Free Your Mind...And Your Ass Will Follow or Maggot Brain have more or less been left behind, with more coherent and conventional song structures taking their place. That said, there is little sense that Funkadelic has in any way been sanitised or tamed in this new format - quite the opposite, in fact. The edge of mania and seediness and weirdness that made their early albums so unique is still strongly evident, probably more so than on America Eats Its Young. Whether it's in the squelching, beeping sound effects of opening instrumental "Nappy Dugout" or the shrieking and wailing of "March To The Witch's Castle," there is still unsettling sonic weirdness aplenty here.

"March To The Witch's Castle" comes close to being the big standout of the album, being a dark, militaristic march set to Shider's elegantly simple and menacing guitar riff and the droning and wailing of the band's vocalists, over which Clinton's characteristically slowed-down vocal recites a Biblical ode that laments the treatment of Vietnam war veterans returning to America. While Funkadelic were never explicit in their lyrics when it comes to contemporary political allusions, and they avoid being so here, it's still the closest they ever got to an overt protest piece. While I love the simmering intensity and strangeness of "March To The Witch's Castle," my favourite track from this album remains "This Broken Heart," which is quite simply a really pretty love song. Originally recorded by doo-wop group the Sonics in the 1950s, the unadorned prettiness of its melody is a testament to its origins, but there's still the requisite amount of strangeness and ferocity in Funkadelic's arrangement of it to put their own stamp on it. Elsewhere, on songs like "Cosmic Slop" and "Trash A-Go-Go," the band anticipate some of the more ferocious hard-rock jams like "Red Hot Mama" or "Alice In My Fantasies" on the following year's Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, although it would take the return of guitarist Eddie Hazel to inject these sorts of songs with the required level of ferocity. Shider acquits himself here as a more than capable guitarist, and one who slots into the Funkadelic sound very well, but there are few moments where he steals attention from the band and does something truly incendiary, as Hazel was able to almost habitually. One of the other standouts is the lovely "No Compute," a breezy, almost jazzy number whose spoken vocal and fiery guitar lines combine to create a piece of easygoing, effortless cool.

The return of Hazel was by no means an ousting of Shider, either - he would stay on as Funkadelic's main guitarist after Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On acted as Hazel's true swansong within the band, but his return certainly elevated the band back up to truly legendary status for one more album, something this record only briefly manages to achieve a couple of times. It's certainly not a bad album, and for anybody who truly loves Funkadelic's greatest albums and wants to hear other examples of their good work, there's plenty to enjoy, but it's not going to be revered as forgotten gem by too many fans. After Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, the focus of Clinton's attentions shifted a little. Parliament was resurrected in 1974 and became perhaps the more impressive of the two twin groups for a while (Funkadelic's 1975 record Let's Take It To The Stage is disappointingly unmemorable, while Parliament released a string of classics like Mothership Connection and Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome), but the more aggressive funk rock of Funkadelic, in contrast to the more dance-oriented music of Parliament, would come back with a bang in 1978 with the brilliant One Nation Under A Groove.

Track Listing:

1. Nappy Dugout (George Clinton; Boogie Mosson & Garry Shider)

2. You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure (George Clinton & Sidney Barnes)

3. March To The Witch's Castle (George Clinton)

4. Let's Make It Last (George Clinton & Eddie Hazel)

5. Cosmic Slop (George Clinton & Bernie Worrell)

6. No Compute (George Clinton & Garry Shider)

7. This Broken Heart (William Franklin)

8. Trash A-Go-Go (George Clinton)

9. Can't Stand The Strain (George Clinton & Eddie Hazel)