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What happened to funk?

#61
bolophonic said:
What kind of music do you think has had a bigger impact on the role of bass than funk?
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I wouldn't even try to quantify this on a global or general level.
On my own playing jazz and classical music have had much more of an influence.
To me it's not about The Bass, it's about fulfilling the role effectively and appropriate to the style one is playing at any given time.:)
 
#62
bass12 said:
But the musical landscape of today simply would not be what it is had funk never happened.
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Same can be said about any and all kinds of music.

But...when did this become about validating a style of music?

I haven't seen anyone try knock funk of the position so many see it in.
As to the original question...what has happened to it?-It evolves ,changes with time, at least to a point.
It'd be gone or had become a mere museum piece if it didn't.

...as has been said many times before this post.
 
#63
Freight Train said:
Pardon me if I soap-box it a little. And speaking as someone who has worked in music production since 1974. What has happened to funk is the same thing that's happened to soul and r&b. Sorry if this sounds racist, which it's not intended to be, but we have not had a strong infusion of black bassists and drummers since the mid 80's, because everyone wants two turntables and a microphone and have no interest in forming an actual band. I don't bash hip-hop like some, because my mastering business was built on a strong rap base, including Manny Fresh, D.J. Screw and 8-Ball & MJG, but it has totally overtaken all other forms of black music. And what passes as r&b now, IMO, is a total joke.
Yes of course we've had some excellent black bassists and drummers in the past 20 years, but the numbers no way compare to what it was up to the mid 80's.
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Maybe this is true maybe it isn't, but as a person working in music production aren't there some technical things going on that have contributed to funk being less embraced in modern mainstream music (at least in the US I don't know about anywhere else).

1) Editing drums to a grid. A lot of swing and feel is lost when people edit to a grid and that steals funk. People have become used to this style of percussion and feel that if drums aren't perfectly on "beat" then something is wrong. As you mentioned what passes for RnB has contributed to this.

2) Extreme sub-bass has changed people's expectations of bass. I have heard many recent albums where the bassist is obviously very good and could play other things but because modern production demands tons of low end they can't play any higher notes. This is not to say that playing only low notes can't be funky but it is arguably less interesting and if the playing is funky it can often be missed.

From the OP's original point, I also think that funk may have been abused a bit in the 90s. This may have even been partially due to the success of RHCP. There were so many albums in the 90s where a band was not funky at all and there would be funk basslines on some of the songs. Sometimes this was probably the artist's choice but other times I can just imagine the producer saying "RHCP is blowing up the charts you need more funk." Often times the results were horrible. So perhaps we are just in recovery from all that horrible psuedofunk of the 90s. True funk is still to be found if you look for it.
 
#66
FilterFunk said:
The clips that have been included in this thread are pretty cool, but when I think of P-Funk, James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, the Isley Brothers, the Brothers Johnson, AWB, Kool & the Gang, Stevie Wonder, the Commodores, Cameo, Earth, Wind & Fire, Tower of Power, the Bar-Kays, etc., and the fact that all you had to do was turn on the radio to hear them, I do wonder what happened to funk in general.
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I was a senior in high school when Rapper's Delight blew up. Two turntables and a microphone is what happened. Count up the number of mouths to feed represented by these bands and how expensive it would be to go on the road. I remember the Maynard Ferguson Big Band had dropped 4 horn players from the classic big band configuration, going into the 80s aging funk horn sections faced similar cuts

Funk was the rebellious music of my ethnic/generation. Hip-Hop of my little brothers. Look at the bands mentioned at the top. The Commodores, EW&F, Kool and the Gang, Atlantic Star... if they were able to deliver love songs instead of making little money off of me they made big crossover money. And with strings or synths providing a pad suddenly you did not need the Brecker Brothers, EWF or Tower of Power Horns....providing hits on the one
 
#67
Jhengsman said:
I was a senior in high school when Rapper's Delight blew up. Two turntables and a microphone is what happened. Count up the number of mouths to feed represented by these bands and how expensive it would be to go on the road. I remember the Maynard Ferguson Big Band had dropped 4 horn players from the classic big band configuration, going into the 80s aging funk horn sections faced similar cuts

Funk was the rebellious music of my ethnic/generation. Hip-Hop of my little brothers. Look at the bands mentioned at the top. The Commodores, EW&F, Kool and the Gang, Atlantic Star... if they were able to deliver love songs instead of making little money off of me they made big crossover money. And with strings or synths providing a pad suddenly you did not need the Brecker Brothers, EWF or Tower of Power Horns....providing hits on the one
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You and I are about the same age. I agree with everything you're saying, and I would add that sampling also happened to funk, along with the aforementioned synth pads and turntables. It is a lot cheaper for touring AND in the studio. Not that there are no hip-hop bands, but since hip-hop blew up, there's been less and less incentive for black kids to learn to really play instruments and form bands.
 
#68
cnltb said:
Same can be said about any and all kinds of music.
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If you're looking at dominant styles of music then no, the same cannot be said about any and all kinds of music. Without funk there would be no hip-hop, no house, no techno - and all of those styles have had a major impact on popular music, not just in North America but globally.
 
#71
Kwesi said:
I will say this. NOTHING stays the same. There are very few genres that you can look at today that sounded the same 20 years ago let alone 40. I just happen to be one of those guys that's always looking forward to my next big thing.
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While I agree to a point, the art of songwriting of 'most mainstream genres' has gone downhill! Songs written in the 60's and 70's are still being played while the music of today will not stand the test of time!

Funk is still around. TOP has done a good job. Brian Culbertson and Prince have done a good job. Wayman Tisdale did a good job. George Duke does a good job as well as Marcus Miller and Gerald Albright and Jeff Lorber. And countless other lesser known acts (of which I have plenty of). Funk has evolved into a segment of Smooth Jazz and a backdrop for Gospel & Rap music.
 
#74
DWBass said:
While I agree to a point, the art of songwriting of 'most mainstream genres' has gone downhill! Songs written in the 60's and 70's are still being played while the music of today will not stand the test of time!

Funk is still around. TOP has done a good job. Brian Culbertson and Prince have done a good job. Wayman Tisdale did a good job. George Duke does a good job as well as Marcus Miller and Gerald Albright and Jeff Lorber. And countless other lesser known acts (of which I have plenty of). Funk has evolved into a segment of Smooth Jazz and a backdrop for Gospel & Rap music.
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Whether or not it'll stand the test of time is something we'll have to wait and see. Maybe the variation and intrigue of mainstream songwriting has gone down (in terms of arrangement, not lyrics) but I've got to disagree that funk has become a subset of other genres. It's still very much it's own thing, we just see less of it as it's own thing.
 

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