Top Twenty Funk Albums? Top Twenty Soul Albums?

Hey Don't forget the disco!
Disco Singles 1) Chic - Good Times.
2) Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder - I Feel Love.
3) B.T. Express - Do It 'Til You're Satisfied.

Soul -
7) Smokey Robinson - Quiet Storm.
8) William Bell - Soul Of The Bell.
9) Michael Jackson - Off The Wall.
10) Temptations - Cloud 9.

Do comps not count? If they did I'd say (funk) James Brown - Foundations of Funk

Similarly, I also cannot stand a vast majority of techno - beginning with house and extending out through various other "subgenres" (jungle, etc.)

Heheh - no not at all I love to dance! Afro-funk, hip-hop, funk, hell, even Andrew WK makes me dance... 99% of the "raves" (or whatever you want to call events where people play electronic dance music at ear-splitting volumes and take lots of drugs to help them dance all night) were unbelievably painful events for me, I never enjoyed them. Mostly because of the music.

But anyway, back to LISTMAKING!

My submissions on the funk side:
Betty Davis "They Say I'm Different" (come ON people!)
Parliament "Mothership Connection", "Motorbooty Affair", "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome"
Wattstax "The Living Word" Vol. 1 (mindblowing live record)
Graham Central Station s/t

Also, "What's Going On?" and Otis Redding are outrageously overrated.

As for soul, yeah, this is looking kinda generic (and very 60s-70s centric). Uhm, where's "Sign O' the Times"? I would probably put "Night Beat" at number one tho.

Anthony: I've got a bunch of friends/bandmates into techno, so I do get exposed to stuff and hear the odd thing that I like. It's just that (like disco) there's a number of things about techno both as a culture and as a musical style that just bug the shit out of me, not the least of which is the endless stream of material that all sounds nearly identical.

Can I nominate the Temptations "Psychedelic Shack" on the soul side?

I do, at least if by "golden period" you are speaking of 1964-66

Out of his 1972-76 output "Innvervisions" is my least favourite. Some of the lesser known tracks are quite nice though.

Black Rock(has a beatles cover version Geir!),
I don't like the idea of doing cover versions. The original should be performed by the composer and should be the one and only version. Everything else leaves too much room for improvisation in a genre where notation has been made obsolute by the tape recorder.

1) Aretha Franklin - Live at the Fillmore West
2) Dusty Springfield - Dusty in Memphis
3) Temptations - Anthology
4) Ray Charles - Genius of Ray Charles
5) Supremes - Ultimate Collection
5) James Brown - Love, Power, Peace
6) Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?
7) Bill Withers - Live at Carnegie Hall
8) Donny Hathaway - Extension of a Man
9) Otis Redding - Dock of the Bay
10) Sam Cooke? Tina Turner? Prince? Isaac Hayes? Sade?

This excercise is super tough because you have to include:

1) singles comps. (since hell, that's what most soul albums are)
2) live performances (for obvious reasons)
3) too many men, because the industry was sexist and they got more albums

I have this new theory that Geir is an avant-garde collective who spends lots of time formulating opinions that are not just wrong but legendarily, mind-bogglingly, fiercely wrong. I imagine some kind of master text they've been compiling over the years that has flowcharts & schematics indicating what is "Geir"'s opinion on this or that subject, and that the senior members of the collective are celebrated amongst their clique for being able to "Geir" on cue. I strongly suspect the involvement of Stephen Mallinder, Genesis P-Orridge, some/all of the Residents, and/or Momus.

1. Genesis: Selling England By The Pound
2. Genesis: Foxtrot
3. Genesis: A Trick Of The Tail
4. Yes: Close To The Edge
5. 10cc: The Original Soundtrack
6. 10cc: How Dare You
7. Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
8. Yes: Tales From Topographic Oceans
9. 10cc: Sheet Music
10. Genesis: Wind And Wuthering

1) mlk
2) kool keith
3) nitsuh
4) james brown
5) nelson mandela
etc etc etc

But here are some more suggestions:
Ann Peebles - I can't stand the rain
Curtis Mayfield - Curtis Live
Aretha Franklin - I never loved a man the way I love you
Ray Charles - Live
Isley Brothers - 3+3
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell - Greatest Hits
Bobby Womack - The Womack Live

Soul Side: Lee Dorsey, Ann Peebles, Don Covay, Joe Tex

Possibly as far from funk or soul as you could imagine. Hence my list. :-)

Anyway, why do you lump "rock" (including McCartneysque pop, which has nothing at all to do with rock) as one genre while insisting on viewing soul and funk as two different genres. If "rock" is one huge genre, including all guitar based and song-based music, then R&B/soul/funk/disco/even dance is "rock" too.

That already exists. Most "melodic" hip-hop is all covers anyway.

Geir in sabotaging threads he doesn't like on purpose shockah!

Just repeating the old argument that long-form soul odysseys (like Hot Buttered Soul or that Harold Melvin album), weighed down with social conscience and precious arrangements and thematics, took the pop and fun out of soul and drove the flock to funk and disco. I think highly of this pop-centric argument, though I also think highly of Greil Marcus' arguments for the greatness of Hot Buttered Soul.

I totally agree! I think I even said something to the same effect in a different thread recently. I don't know if you'd feel the same Geir, but I think that it's important to emphasize that the unit in which pop music exists is the recorded song. Cover versions and live versions are just imperfect replicas.

Jerry Garcia to thread regarding live versions. :-)

However, I agree with you regarding cover versions, while there are a few exceptions when it comes to live versions.

I wonder what Geir thinks of Beauty and the Beat, Edan's weirdly melodic psych-rock-sampling hip-hop record.

James Brown - Sex Machine

Funkadelic - Let's take it To the Stage and the whole damn catalog

Mutiny - Mutiny on the Mothership

Bootsy collins - aah the name is bootsy baby

Fela - his whole catalog

Blowfly - Porno Freak

Gap Band "You Dropped the Bomb on Me"

Soul --
Clarence Reid -- Funky Party comp
Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up On Me
Otis Redding - Live at The Whiskey
Eddie Floyd -- "Big Bird"
James Brown -- "Please, Please, Me"
Staple Singers -- "I'll Take You There"
Betty Wright "The babysitter"

1. Kool and the Gang (pre-1976)
2. Cymande
3. Bohannon
4. Fatback Band
5. Meters

I'd add Betty Davis but you'd just accuse me of being PC.

1) Al Green – I'm Still in Love With You (so beautiful, so smooth, so much feeling)
2) Sam Cooke - Live at the Harlem Square Club (musical joy)
3) Solomon Burke - a comp ('cause he was a singels man)
4) Bobby Womack - A compilation (no album of his is strong all the way through, but his just to great a musician to be left out)
5) Aretha Franklin – Lady Soul (what a voice!)
6) Dusty Springfield - Dusty in Memphis(beautiful soul)
7) Bill Withers - Still Bill (I know, Just As I Am, but I just simply like this one better)
8) Gladys Knight & the Pips – Imagination (I like the pompus stuff)
9) Sam & Dave – a comp ('cause they were singles men, maaaaan what energy)
10) Marvin Gaye – Lets get it on (What's going on never did it for me, but this is the best make out music ever made)

Time to set the record straight. Vote in the

~~~ ILM 1970s SOUL/FUNK/DISCO ALBUMS POLL ~~~