Word: funked
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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Harvard basketball is in the doldrums, drifting helplessly in an early season funk. With its best (only?) long-range shooter bench-ridden with two dislocated fingers, the Crimson couldn't hit from the outside, couldn't penetrate inside--in short, couldn't score...
Fortunately, this album has not followed the path of the Bowie-Eno collaborations, which allowed Eno's synthesizers, loops and feedbacks to dictate the tone. Instead, the Heads have chosen their own tone, and the tone is funk. People knew things were up with the band when they toured this summer with Parliament-Funkadelic's horn section, and then it was announced that Byrne and Eno would release an album based on African tribal songs called My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (whose release has since been blocked by legal difficulties...
...songs were recorded in a style similar to that used by funk groups and reggae dubbing: a core band records basic all-purpose instrumentals (and on this album the music is really basic--one chord rhythms, no choruses, bridges, passages) and then later on lyrics and perhaps a solo instrument are dubbed in. Too bad that Eno couldn't leave well enough alone and had to tinker with the sound more. On "Houses in Motion" he makes a guitar sound like an Arab calling the faithful to pray: a nice trick but an unnecessary diversion. At least four recording processes...
...might think that side one is just some variations on a repetitive theme. Second listening might lend the same impression. Eventually "Cross-eyed and Painless" (the first single to be released) and "The Great Curve" emerge as the kind of songs Byrne was looking for: a driving variation of funk with lyrics almost as entertaining as those of Parliament-- "The world moves on a woman's hips, the world moves and it swivels and bops." Unfortunately, "Born Under Punches," like "Seen and Not Seen" on side two, is a victim of the risk that Byrne took: the combination doesn...
...McDonald who wrote the band's first major hit in two years, Takin ' It to the Streets, and helped change the Doobies from journeymen to super stars. McDonald's sprightly, airy tunes telescoped neatly with Templeman's cushy production. The results had hints of funk and disco, discreet jazz inflections and uninsistent horn breaks, and sounded like contemporary nightclub music. McDonald, who professes vast admiration for R & B luminaries like Marvin Gaye and Sam and Dave as well as tunesmiths like Burt Bachrach, says, "I like to write hits. My biggest reason for writing a song...