george clinton
The 50 Best Albums of 1982
Looking back at 1982 in music, the headline is obvious: Thriller Sells A Bajillion Copies, Becomes World’s Biggest Album. But is it the year’s best album? Funny enough, Michael Jackson‘s sixth LP hardly even affected the charts that year — it snuck out in late November, just as Men at Work’s 1981 blockbuster, Business as Usual, began its commercial stranglehold in the U.S. Only one record on our list, Fleetwood Mac‘s chart-targeted Tusk follow-up, Mirage, hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200. (Doesn’t it seem weird, looking back, that Prince‘s 1999 peaked at No. 9?) Lots of fascinating shit was happening in 1982, and you didn’t always find it on the radio. On our list, we included everything from early hip-hop (Grandmaster Flash) to horror-punk (Misfits) to lo-fi synth-pop (Solid Space). Revisit...
Eddie Murphy Working To Star As George Clinton In Developing Biopic
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Jason Koerner / Getty Eddie Murphy has proven time and again that he has the chameleon-like ability to transform himself into any character he’s embodying for a role. The veteran actor and standup comic legend reportedly is working on a role as Funk pioneer George Clinton in a developing biopic. Deadline reports that Murphy and others are hard at work on securing rights from Clinton to move ahead with the film and hire staff to flesh out the story. Murphy, who will be one of the film’s producers, has a current three-film deal with Amazon Studios but it isn’t known if the biopic will air on the streamer. As the outlet aptly notes, Clinton, now 80 years young, laid the groundwork early on as one of the pioneers of the Funk sound. The film will follow Clinto...
The 50 Best Live Albums of the 1970s
The concert industry exploded in the 1970s, and the live album, a stopgap project once reserved for only the biggest artists, became a compulsory ritual and a pivotal moment for many artists. Live albums captured legendarily loud bands like The Who and The Ramones in their natural element. Once obscure regional acts like Bob Seger, KISS and Cheap Trick exploded into the mainstream with live albums. The Band, The Stooges, and Velvet Underground put their final gigs on vinyl. Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young (as his ongoing archive series shows), and Jackson Browne recorded entire sets of new songs onstage. The Grateful Dead released several official live albums (and continue to do so) that only made fans want to bootleg shows on their own more. With the 50th anniversary of a landmark live album, Th...
Public Enemy Drops New Video for ‘Grid’ Featuring Cypress Hill and George Clinton
In keeping with the dark lyrics of Public Enemy’s single “Grid,” the group dropped an appropriately apocalyptic video featuring pals Cypress Hill and George Clinton. The clip includes footage from PE’s performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Directed by David C. Snyder, the video for “GRID” is the latest from PE’s recent album, What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? which saw the previously released “Public Enemy Number Won” video from the LP. The album marks the lineup’s return to Def Jam after a 20-year-hiatus. SPIN named Public Enemy its #9 artist of the last 35 years. Read the homage here. We also spoke with Chuck D about when the group dropped their surprise new single in June and recently about the new album. Check out the “Grid” clip below: [embe...
Public Enemy Share Animated Video for ‘Grid’ Featuring George Clinton and Cypress Hill
Public Enemy dropped an animated video for “Grid,” the latest from PE’s recent album, What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?, the group’s first album in over 20 years for their first label Def Jam. The video was directed by Ice the Endless, with background by ThatOneDudeZach and visual effects by RMELL and ARTJCON. Public Enemy group performed the song along with Cypress Hill and George Clinton on CBS’s special live broadcast of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert immediately following the first presidential debate in September. The song and vid is an excoriation of our screen-addicted society, with lyrics including “Communication breakdown it’s a take down / are you awake now or consumed by a fake clown? / World Wide Web keep the spiders fed / Looking at my feed, trolls everywhere...
Public Enemy Recruits Mike D, Ad-Rock, Run-DMC, George Clinton and More for New LP
Days after announcing their new album, What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?, Public Enemy just revealed who they collaborated with on the new record. They definitely enlisted some heavy hitters. George Clinton will be featured on both “When the Grid Goes Down” and “Grid,” which also brings in Cypress Hill. Mike D and Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC will be on “Public Enemy Number Won,” while Ice-T and PMD lent their voices to “Smash the Crowd.” Public Enemy previously released their collab with DJ Premier, “State of the Union (STFU),” and “Fight the Power: Remix 2020,” where they share the mic with Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi and YG, while Questlove takes on the turntables. The updated version of “Fight the Power” premiered on this year’s BET Awards. Chuck D will a...
