Parliament – Mothership Connection

What can I say about “Mothership Connection” that I didn’t just say about “Up For The Down Stroke?” This was one of the first records I bought this year – since 1975, my record collection had been without it. Why? I dunno. Of course, 15-year-old me would never have been ready for this, and the utter weirdness of this album cover would not have helped at the time.

Weirdly, even in high school, I somehow had some awareness of “Give Up The Funk” – as the single went gold and it went to number 15 on the Billboard charts, so it definitely got some radio play – at that time, our Top 40 AM radio stations were reasonably diverse. And there was nothing a high schooler at the time would love more than the chance to flirt with danger by singing “Tear the roof off the mothersucker” while walking through the halls. I haven’t checked, but it seems like there must have been a radio edit that obscured that.

This is solid, solid funk. Yeah, a little more straight-up than Funkadelic, but what isn’t?