Funk Rock


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Buy Now	Freaky Styley (more) »rank: 9611 by: Red Hot Chili Peppers : essential recording:With their second album, Freaky Styley, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were still growing into their oversize funkdafied britches. The polished funk-punk-metal-rap hybrid of later albums was still in its seedling stage here, with the group yet to successfully merge those elements. Still, there's a consistent old-school garage feel. Flea's bass lines, normally in hyperdrive, are clipped and springy, like bare feet hopping on a hot Los Angeles blacktop. Lead singer Anthony Kiedis risks sounding like a parody of the vocal styles he's trying to emulate but commands the songs with every variation of bravado his voice can muster. And finally, ...	Buy Now	Frizzle Fry (more) »rank: 11244 by: Primus : :Released on the independent Caroline label in 1990, Frizzle Fry documents the San Francisco Bay area thrash-funk trio at its energetic best. The bare-bones production serves the group's skeletal sound well and makes the most of nearly live performances of gems such as the antiwar 'Too Many Puppies,' the stoner testimony of 'Spegetti Western,' and the madcap litany of 'Groundhog's Day.' Larry LaLonde's guitar is more melodic and concise than the squirrelly avant-gardisms of later albums such as Pork Soda (many of the lines were written by original guitarist Todd Huth). Bassist Les Claypool, meanwhile, is just stunning. By turns sounding like a ...
Buy Now	Red Hot Chili Peppers (more) »rank: 8180 by: Red Hot Chili Peppers : :Released on the independent Caroline label in 1990, Frizzle Fry documents the San Francisco Bay area thrash-funk trio at its energetic best. The bare-bones production serves the group's skeletal sound well and makes the most of nearly live performances of gems such as the antiwar 'Too Many Puppies,' the stoner testimony of 'Spegetti Western,' and the madcap litany of 'Groundhog's Day.' Larry LaLonde's guitar is more melodic and concise than the squirrelly avant-gardisms of later albums such as Pork Soda (many of the lines were written by original guitarist Todd Huth). Bassist Les Claypool, meanwhile, is just stunning. By turns sounding like a ...	Buy Now	Robbin' the Hood (more) »rank: 6873 by: Sublime : :Long Beach garage kings Sublime rode the cresting wave of late-'80s/early-'90s Cali punk to a well-received 1996 major-label debut whose success was overshadowed by tragedy: frontman Brad Nowell died of a heroin overdose just a month before its release. This 1994 album was their freshman indie outing and the record that largely secured their ticket to the majors. Instead of building on the energetic, if formulaic, punk-reggae fusion of their 1992 40 Oz. to Freedom (with its sometimes awkward, too-dumb-to-be-ironic lyrical bent), Robbin' displays a Nowell whose slow evolution as a songwriter is more than compensated by an eager plundering of old-school rap ...
Buy Now	Fungus Amongus (more) »rank: 13081 by: Incubus : :As Incubus themselves note about Epic's 2000 rerelease of 1996's Fungus Amongus: 'The recording's are basically a snapshot of our band, circa 1993-1995. As even the most discriminating ear could deduce, [we were] still struggling to find our feet.' It's a caveat not really necessary for Incubus fans, of which there are now many, thanks to their diverse, unique, and thoughtful brand of funky, sometimes-acoustic rock, exemplified on 1999's impressive Make Yourself. This early effort, written and recorded when band members were in their teens, smacks heavily of Primus and Faith No More fanaticism, influences which, on later discs, are blended into an ...	Buy Now	Uplift Mofo Party Plan (more) »rank: 7722 by: Red Hot Chili Peppers : :As Incubus themselves note about Epic's 2000 rerelease of 1996's Fungus Amongus: 'The recording's are basically a snapshot of our band, circa 1993-1995. As even the most discriminating ear could deduce, [we were] still struggling to find our feet.' It's a caveat not really necessary for Incubus fans, of which there are now many, thanks to their diverse, unique, and thoughtful brand of funky, sometimes-acoustic rock, exemplified on 1999's impressive Make Yourself. This early effort, written and recorded when band members were in their teens, smacks heavily of Primus and Faith No More fanaticism, influences which, on later discs, are blended into an ...
Buy Now	A Crow Left of the Murder (more) »rank: 9351 by: Incubus : :Kicking in like a compellingly acrimonious version of Rush ('Megalomaniac') before meandering through what can rather uncomfortably be termed noodly, time-signature lottery jazz-metal terrain A Crow Left of Murder probably identifies Incubus as the average Pearl Jam fan's second-choice for chin-stroking mosh action. Brendon O'Brien (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) produces and singer Brandon Boyd possibly fancies himself as a bit of a Vedder-esque sage, even blustering 'My secret arsenal is an infinite ageless ink well' on the otherwise acceptable metal squawk of 'Pistola'. Boyd obviously has big issues with the ills of the world but the lyrics to 'Talk Show on Mute' (reality TV ...	Buy Now	Second Hand Smoke (more) »rank: 10685 by: Sublime : :Most posthumous albums are shrouded in a sense of morbid nostalgia and grim curiosity. In Sublime's case, there was also some cruel irony to contend with: the California nuevo-punk outfit's promising self-titled major-label debut and commercial breakout was released barely a month after frontman Brad Nowell's death from a heroin overdose--and their de facto demise. But such was the Long Beach band's longtime following that raiding the vaults, however sparse, was inevitable. Released 18 months after Nowell's death, Second Hand Smoke more than lived up to its title, cobbling together a collection of outtakes from their debut and padding them out with (sometimes ...
Buy Now	King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime (more) »rank: 26808 by: Faith No More : :Most posthumous albums are shrouded in a sense of morbid nostalgia and grim curiosity. In Sublime's case, there was also some cruel irony to contend with: the California nuevo-punk outfit's promising self-titled major-label debut and commercial breakout was released barely a month after frontman Brad Nowell's death from a heroin overdose--and their de facto demise. But such was the Long Beach band's longtime following that raiding the vaults, however sparse, was inevitable. Released 18 months after Nowell's death, Second Hand Smoke more than lived up to its title, cobbling together a collection of outtakes from their debut and padding them out with (sometimes ...	Buy Now	One Fierce Beer Coaster (more) »rank: 10906 by: The Bloodhound Gang : :Like their white-trash Pennsylvania homeboys in Ween and Dead Milkmen, Bloodhound Gang are offensive, rude, stoopid, and vigorously gutter-minded, but they're better off for knowing what they are. And having admitted it, they also happen to be surprisingly clever and pretty damn funny. The group's second album, One Fierce Beer Coaster (yes, the cover is designed as a beer coaster--a nod to the band's frat-boy constituency), is full of smart lines, great hooks, and creative arranging. Not one of the record's 10 originals misses its mark. Unlike Bloodhound Gang's 1995 debut, Use Your Fingers, which was essentially a sample-heavy rap album with rock ...