Atomic dog album10/2/2023 ![]() He continued, “None of this meant that we weren’t trying for some kind of revolution, only the revolution we had in mind was peaceful, hedonistic, and prone to winking at itself in the mirror. Some people read the image as threatening, or paramilitary, but they were only looking at the surface. Regarding the album’s iconic cover, George Clinton wrote in his 2017 memoir, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?, “There’s a photo that shows me sitting in a wicker chair, in a parody of the famous Huey Newton portrait. The song would reach #1 on Billboard’s R&B singles charts and #77 on the Hot 100, propelling its parent album to gold status. On August 21, 1979, Funkadelic released “(not just) Knee Deep,” the dancefloor-friendly lead single from the Uncle Jam Wants You album, which would come out the next month in September. Clinton always conceptualized big, so surely his empire wasn’t big enough. Some argued that Clinton’s P-Funk empire was too big. Finally, keyboardist Bernie Worrell was signed to Arista Records. ![]() was also home to Bootsy’s Rubber Band and one album from guitarist Eddie Hazel, while Atlantic Records got the Brides of Funkenstein and Fred Wesley & the Horny Horns. in 1976 after ending its contract with Westbound. Parliament was signed to Casablanca Records, as was the female-fronted Parlet, while Funkadelic signed to Warner Bros. ![]() They all consisted of the same core members and employed the same production and writing teams with Clinton at the helm, yet were all signed to different record labels. The Mothership rode on for years amid successful tours throughout the late ’70s, carrying with it Clinton’s slew of projects and spinoffs. Funkenstein, who was introduced in Parliament’s 1976 album, The Clones of Dr. The Mothership landing became the live P-Funk show’s climax, as the spaceship appears to fly over the audience and then land on stage, with Clinton emerging from its rafters dressed as his character Dr. Clinton believed in it enough to convince Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart to fund its construction as well as the cost of touring it around the country in massive halls and arenas. The Mothership was also a real, larger-than-life theatrical, and expensive, spaceship prop. The Mothership spaceship, as a symbol, played an integral role in Parliament’s 1975 platinum-selling album, Mothership Connection, which found Clinton and crew partying in outer space, in a fantasy that excited the group’s core enthusiasts and attracted a larger audience – then overwhelmingly young and black. The most common narrative told about the Parliament-Funkadelic legacy is generally concerned with the Mothership. But the empire’s triumphant rebirth, under the span of just one year, and thanks in part to the “story of a famous dog,” would be the most fascinating strike back of all. When you get to that stage, there’s nothing you can do short of a freak situation.” While not quite planned, P-Funk’s swift ascent in popularity was followed by a series of setbacks at the start of the 1980s, which almost threatened to topple what Clinton’s funk army had built in the previous decade. But like with anything, there’s a planned obsolescence that comes around. The story of P-Funk is a mesmerizing, dizzying and miraculous testament of longevity, marked by rebirths or, as Clinton often described, periods of “planned obsolescence.” He told the Los Angeles Times in 1989, “We were hot as fire. He plans to remain involved, in the studio and on the sidelines, continuing to direct the super-group that he founded and worked hard to keep alive. At 77 years old, Clinton is not ending his work as an artist, producer, songwriter, conceptualist and overall referee he just oversaw the recent releases of new albums by Parliament ( Medicaid Fraud Dogg, 2018 – the first Parliament release since 1980) and Funkadelic ( First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate, 2014). In 2018, Parliament-Funkadelic leader and pioneer George Clinton announced that he would retire from touring in 2019 – or whenever he decides – marking another major milestone in the history of the massive P-Funk empire which he has masterminded for some six decades.
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