Cahiers du Musique

HALLELUJAH! Parliament-Funkadelic is one of those groups that's earned a legendary reputation but also feels strangely underappreciated. Immeasurably influential and respected, yet not given the same serious consideration as other luminaries in popular music. The reasons for this oversight are complex and veiled. In our view, Parliament-Funkadelic's contributions to the musical canon through their originality, audacity, and prolificacy, are virtually unrivaled. Before digging in, any conversation about Parliament-Funkadelic must begin by untangling what to a funk neophyte must seem like a convoluted web of names and personalities. Definition of P-Funk In 1956, George Clinton founded the doo-wop group, The Parliaments, in Plainfield, New Jersey. They had little to moderate success through the '50s and early '60s, and it wasn't until Jimi Hendrix burst on the scene in the US during the Summer of Love, 1967, that George Clinton truly began to find his voic...

The Ronettes What kind of music blog would this be if we didn't even give our two cents on the greatest pop songs? A strange and backwards one, that's what kind. I'm more than okay with strange but backwards is a dealbreaker for me. It is a quality I cannot tolerate in others or myself. I took a slightly different take on the usual music list. It isn't numerical, but hierarchically grouped  under Greek mythological inspired headings. I do single out the most perfect song, but as the title of this piece explicitly states, this list is limited to songs since 1950. Perhaps a future post will focus on 1890-1949. But for now, to the business at hand. To me, a perfect pop song must fulfill three criteria: Superior production quality relative to the time-period. It's got to sound really good. This also implies it's going to be recorded at a major studio. That's just how it goes.  Themes and lyrics that focus on love, youth, freedom, subversion, def...