Originally Published on Dec. 19, 2017
The Song of the Day is:
Funkadelic – “Super Stupid”
From the album Maggot Brain (1971)
Is that not the funkiest album cover of all time? Seven more years into their career, Funkadelic would write a song called “Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?!”. Those paying attention absolutely knew the answer to that question. The mission statement of early Parliament-Funkadelic was pretty much that Parliament would be the R&B group consisting of five vocalists and unlike say, the Temptations, they had their own instrumentalists. Funkadelic, was kind of the reverse of that, the instrumentalists ran wild with their eclectic styles, featuring vocal assistance from the singers of Parliament. Of course, all this took place under umbrella of George Clinton, and the two groups were on different labels. Eventually the groups would be musically indistinguishable, but early on Funkadelic pursued their wild interests. Eddie Hazel, who sung and played guitar on this song was basically announcing he was taking up the psychedelic fuzz guitar mantle in the absence of Jimi Hendrix, and he burns it up. I gotta imagine that this group could stand toe to toe with Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Black Sabbath of the same era. It’s a shame that classic rock radio never got hip to Funkadelic. The song has been covered by Audioslave (Chris Cornell music love good funk-rock, as Soundgarden had also covered the classic “Fopp” by The Ohio Players).
Hear Today, Grown Tomorrow 