Mothership Connection

I was not ready for these levels of Funk. My Funkometer EXPLODED and I got Funk particles (Funkocules) all over my room.

This album! I think a person either has to be not into funk music at all or just dull as dishwater to not like this album. It is 38 and a half minutes of pure fun from start to finish. Blasting this in the car yesterday turned a normally frustrating traffic-filled drive into a joyous trip where the usual bad drivers around me couldn't even remotely get under my skin. THAT is the power of funk!

A story problem: If a Parliament record averages 100bpm, and has a runtime of 38 minutes, how many involuntary head bobs will the listener experience? (The answer is 7600, because you'll listen to the whole thing twice). My personal enjoyment: 4.5/5 Did it belong on this list: 5/5

Funk just does something to me that no other genre can do. 15 seconds in and my erection was bursting out of my shorts. 2 minutes in and I was wanking at such a rate that I thought I was going to catch fire. By the end of the album I was broken, crying with happiness, exhausted, delirious and totally overwhelmed. 5 stars and a raging boner for this one. Amen brother!

Incredible album. It feels like the music is unfolding in real time not necessarily as a live show, but as an all encompassing experience. George Clinton's futuristic vision is pervasive and engaging. The personnel on this album are the very best at what they do. This might be the definitive funk album.

I really dislike funk but parliament are undeniably good at making it. It’s repetitive and there’s all this chat in the songs. It’s a great example of a classic from my second least favourite genre. I danced a bit during the first track, despite myself.

George Clinton makes a type of funk that is explicitly a character of the genre. It is exaggerated compared to the likes of Curtis Mayfield and Sly & The Family Stone. Parliament brings phatter beats, wonkier bass, and an explosive personality to the vocals. It's so good! Of course, we have to pay respect to Bootsy Collins in the band for bringing awesome bass skills to this funk. This carries over from his significant work with James Brown, making for a truly funky sound. Also worth noting Bernie Worrell's work on the synthesizers, who would go on to work with the Talking Heads on Speaking in Tongues and live album Stop Making Sense. Clearly, a star-studded lineup coming together brought together to just record some fun songs. And they are great! Okay that's it. Go listen :)

Extraordinary, extraterrestrial, talented musicians (the drums are particularly superb) play toe-tapping funk jams with a unique style and swagger. Ingenious.

If you’re not rating this 5 stars…what are you even doing with your life?

Now, this is more like it. Stuff like this is the reason I started this. Never head of the band, never really listened to much in the genre and it's certainly not what I'd ever have picked out to listen to. Absolutely loved it. From the opening bars this was just great to listen to. It's opened up a whole back catalogue to me - perfect. Obvious 5 stars. First one yet.

I am positively blown away! I wish I could have experienced how groundbreaking this album was in 1975. This album takes you on a delightful journey, starting with introductions in "P-Funk". I can't get over how many genres and instruments they crammed into seven songs. The amount of fun contained in this album... I just had so much fun listening, and I listened to this album a lot today. I can't wait to listen to it again. Let us also take a moment to appreciate this absolutely funkadelic album cover. It is so seventies but I don't care. Love those platform wedges.

Fun, fun, fun (or should I say funk, funk, funk?). The only track I disliked was "Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples" because there was some weird deep warbling synthesizer sound that was making my stomach twist. Aside from that, this was just freakin' fun to listen to, particularly Mothership Connection (Star Child), which I've heard sampled a ton ("Swing down sweet chariot, stop, let me ride"), and of course Give Up the Funk which is an awesome classic. Favorite line of the album: "Can you imagine Doobie in your funk?"

Funktastic voyage for sure. I now get why George Clinton is an oft-cited musical influence. I can hear everything from the Commodores to Bruno Mars in this album. A little too decadent at times but some cool stuff. I found myself laughing at the storyline and personas within P-Funk (like listening to the Ladies Man narrate a song). Sometimes that got annoying later in the album. The underlying beats on both Mothership Connection and Unfunky UFO were super cool. Sometimes it felt like the album blended together too much, but I wonder if he/they were going for seamless.

https://youtu.be/ccvB00h6EnI

Mothership Connection forces me to examine what it is to be locked in a groove. This is a party record that has guests nervously looking at each other as they dance, each wondering if they're still on the same song, and if that song is ever going to stop. There's a lot of laughter, a tremendous bowl of punch, and gallons of helium going around, but there's this hovering fear that these garrulous hosts have locked the front door, and you can't help but notice that the chairs have been taken away, and new hosts keep entering from hidden entrances, usually with a bizarre keyboard or brass instrument. That it manages to contain seven endless songs in just over 40 minutes is sorcery, or induced hallucination. Colossal rhythms and hypnotic melodic repetition disguise the fact that much, maybe most of each track's tracks are populated by odd voices and instruments music worthy of a residency at your local chin-stroking freak jazz parlour. When the voices sing yeah yeah yeah, they give me the feeling they're telling us they're not listening to whatever we have to say. Yeah yeah yeah, not leaving this groove, mate. This review may have been influenced by my watching our newly toddling do repeated circuits of our home's ground floor for most of the first runtime. Simon, I can send you the video. I'm exhausted - goodnight!

Shut the funk up

9.75/10 - GOATed album, quite literally defined the pinnacle of funk & ahead of its time. The songwriting & musical ability of George Clinton & Bootsy Collins is fully on show

I think this is the most fun album that I've gotten on here. I don't even have a ton to say about it, but it's just 40 minutes of ridiculousness and fun funk music. Right from the beginning you get this goofy outer space radio intro thing, and then they kind of keep up with this concept throughout. I guess these guys were part of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective that released a bunch of albums over the years. The driving force seems to be the lead guy George Clinton, who sang a few songs on here and produced the album. There's just so much to like here. "Mothership Connection (Star Child)" gives us the line "If you hear any noise / it's just me and the boys" that inspired the famous Dave Parker Pirates t-shirt, and "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker" is an iconic beat. The beats are good, it doesn't feel like it drags on at all, it influenced a bunch of later stuff, just an awesome album. Funk music can be a bit of an odd one on here because it just feels like it represents such a distinct moment in time, but this one really feels iconic and fun and a bit timeless in what it's trying to do. I didn't really expect to have a 5-star funk album, but this one deserves it for sure. Favorite song: Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) Other: P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up), Mothership Connection (Star Child), Unfunky UFO, Handcuffs 1/18/25

It's George Clinton introducing Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, and it oozes cool. On this album you'll learn that we want the funk, it's gotta be that p funk and if you give the people what they want when they want they'll want it all the time. Clinton is such a cornerstone of this music scene this has got 5 stars for that alone.

Now this is the definition of funk. If you're not movin' and groovin' to this album, your pulse should be checked. Apparently based on Geoge Clinton's vision of the future where black astronauts interact with alien worlds. The names of some of these songs alone make this album great: "Supergroovalisticprosifunstication", " Night of the Thumpasorous Peoples." The Library of Congress added this album to the National Recording Registry for its enormous influence on jazz, rock and dance music. Just in the short time that I've been doing this 1001 challenge, I've heard the influence of Parliament and particularly this album in every hip-hop/rap album that I've listened to. Not only there, a few of these songs reminded me of the late 70's/early 80's Talking Heads. Not to mention the soon-to-be disco era. I'm sure I'll hear it in other areas as I go along. For me, it's Bootsy Collin's bass which really lays the groovy and funky foundation for Parliament songs. But, there is a lot more going here on with horns, keyboards, synthesizers, multiple singers and psychedelic, jazzy-sounding guitars. Of particular note, are the synthesizers/keyboards which add weird sounds, noises and a backdrop which definitely solidifies the whole outer space album concept. Not a bad song here. 7 altogether. To me, some of them stray into jam band territory with their extended jams. The album also has their most recognizable song "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)." This was a lot of fun.

Incredible. Very rarely can an album be all over the place yet thematically consistent. As for this listener, whether one pays attention or not, Mothership Connection and its tractor-beam appeal invokes the sort of positive indifference that may in fact resemble a perfect album. Fun, energetic, yet brilliantly executed, there is just something about this record that balances tongue-in-cheek silliness along with intelligent blink-and-you-miss-it profundities.

Yes a great album. Fun. Skillfully played. Non pretentious. Relentlessly groovy. There's just not a single misstep. Totally cool album. 5 stars

That was the perfect amount of funk

None of these songs should be more than 3 minutes long.

классика фанка, отличный альбом.

While I deeply respect funk music for its contributions to music as a whole and how innovative and important it is in music history... I just really don't like it personally. Give up the funk is a fun song, I just don't need an entire album of it. But it wasn't bad, I just don't love it

I mean it is funky, no false advertisement here.

Can't say I'm a fan, but sometimes you can't deny the funk. It's upbeat, fun and infectious, so why not?

I know I'll be in the minority here, but I did not love this, which is odd 'cause I usually like funk. I guess I prefer when it has a bit more variety to it. Something about this one felt exhausting to me. 2.5 stars

This is a 70’s funk album and boy they wouldn’t let you forget it was funk. There was a funk pun every 2 seconds. The instrumentals were groovy and the songs were catchy but I was like eh. Also the last song sounded like 5 minutes of flatulence.

Funky but very repetitive. Not my style of music.

Does funk get cooler than this? The short answer is No. The longer answer is also No.

They named a song on this album 'Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication', that alone is enough to get it 5 stars on top of the entire list being bangers.

This morning, I went into deep space with some chocolate brothers and sisters! The beats phat, funked up & gangster lean! James Brown's old backing band (The JBs) was tearing the roof on the Cadillac shaped space shape as I danced on that deep purple shag carpets! Feet don't fail me now! George Clinton & Bootsy Collins were showing The Ohio Players around, so I ate some pizza with the other sexy bitches! Not to get all Yelp-y on you all but book your tix ASAP no telling when P Funk needs to take care of intergalactic business! Here today, gone tomorrow (at least physically) so WORD UP! MC ADAM & JAM MASTER J send all of their love! They were jamming w/ Bonzo when they stopped for a second and J said, "Respect to the 1001 crew!"

Funky

Funk superpowers

WOW. Holy shit what an album. If you're listening to this walking around it immediately turns the colour contrast up on everything around you! The bass line's are filthy and the funk is OFFENSIVE. George Clinton FOR LIFE!

This album is full of bangers from start to finish. It is incredible. Such a funky journey - lots of fun on the ears. No notes.

10/10 i didn’t expect to be transported to a funky town, it was so good i wanted the funk

Very new style for me, but I think it's well done! Enjoyed the flow of the tracks and it lifted my mood! Nice find!

I loved every second of this -* glad i waited until it could have my full attention. Out of this world 😀 *ai can pry the em dash from my cold dead hands

W-E-F-U-N-K ! “Give Up The Funk” is one of those earworms that can force itself from my lips at any given point and again, I really enjoyed hearing it as part of the broader album. I loved the alien-radio concept that carried through and am just so impressed by how clearly I can hear each individual instrument? Everything works in perfect harmony but everything also gets its moment to shine? I love funk and I love THIS funk in particular. 5 stars!!

Far from my first listen. A classic, great funk from top to bottom. A sound on it’s own

I heard that this is the only universe where George Clinton manages to form P-Funk. Be eternally grateful that you’re in it too.

This album is genuinely so good

Space funk!!

Getting P-Funked up! This one hits on a regular basis. Not always the most elevated lyrics, but you can't help but smile and groove.

Already heard this one. Love it.

I grew up with my mom playing Funk and Parliament, so I am familiar with some of there songs and some of them live in my current playlist. However, this is the first full album I have listened to, and boy am I mad at myself for not doing it sooner. This album was a beautiful display of Funk and it had me had bopping and grooving on my morning commute to work until I finished listening to it a second time at my desk. The bass lines are groovy throughout, the guitar and saxophone really have their place to shine. I also love all the weird synth sounds they chose on this album. And when the narrator of the album speaks, you can feel how smooth he is and captures you and makes you want to hear more. It's also cool hearing the songs in my head that have sampled this album.

WHO WANTS THE FUNK. Me I do, I always will, I needs the funk. It's world-class, it's so fun, George Clinton and Bootsy Collins are well funny as well. Toe tapping and shaking my booty all morning. Best Track: Unfunky UFO

Feels like the musical equivalent to joking around with your friends in a garage on a winter night. It’s a fantastic time, and it feels isolated in a good way. It feels like it’ll never end, not that you want it to.

Great album start to finish, proper Uber Muscular Funk this.

Full albums a banger from start to finish. Its hard to listen without bopping your head throughout Standout - it’s hard to single one out, you've gotta listen to it start to finish. I did like handcuffs a-lot though.

FUNKY UP YOUR GENITALS.

The grooves. The fun. Absolute joy to listen to. 5 stars.

This album was so so so so fun to listen to that it just deserves a 5. Will 100% be listening again. Funk just hits on another wavelength that other genres don’t

this album was alot fun. its wild how many times this album would go on to be sampled in 90s hip hop.

P-Funk! The Allstars? George…Clinton…and…the…Parliament…. Funkadelic?!?!! Extraordinary, extraterrestrial, masterful musicians all, but hats off to Bootsy Collins on bass and Maceo Parker on horns! A funkalicious party jam from beginning to end! 5⭐️

Hard to be in a bad mood listening to this absolute funk masterpiece.

Too many classics and famous samples galore.

A sonic vision of a better intergalactic world with the Afrofuturism vibe. Such a fun album. Sci-fi sounding funk is something I always forget I need. It oozes cool, was groundbreaking, and musically tight as fuck. You can see its influences throughout the decades following. Love the voiceovers, the synth, the baselines, the guitar funk riffs. It's fun to listen to, sounds fun to have made, is sexy, is cool. Fits a bunch of different moods. It just has so many of funk's features and does them all so well across the songs. Wouldn't say funk is a core genre of mine but this is a brilliant album.

This album got me FUNKED UP!

Pure P-Funk Power. Kick back and digg. Thanks Lollipop Man.

Day 4: This album was amazing, I thought I was being too harsh with previous reviews but, an album or genre will just click. This deserves every right to be in must hear albums.

A few weeks ago, I heard Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” and thought it was one of the best parties captured on record. It turns out that George Clinton wasn’t even matching his own efforts from three years earlier. “Mothership Connection” is a rip-roaring, all-singing, all-dancing and by all accounts seminal album in the evolution of funk. I’m ashamed of not having heard it until now, but I’m making up for lost time by repeating it again… and again. The best party tracks are the most famous: “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)” and “Give Up The Funk” are both so impeccably put together. I’d heard much of the music across the record sampled in Dr Dre’s “The Chronic” (where they were the highlights) so it was a great experience hearing them all in full. The sci-fi overtones are brought in throughout as a campy way without ever feeling trite or forced. There’s just the right amount of synth lines in the mix without letting it feel too dated or kitsch, and the rest is just pure horny goodness… In “Unfunky UFO”, the band channel Sky and the Family Stone with a slightly harder-edged riff, and a delectable “yeah yeah yeah” refrain beaming its way down the minor scale. “Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples” closes on an amazing nonsense singalong refrain. Even “Handcuffs”, bearing perhaps the most questionable lyrical content, has a killer accompaniment which it’s near-impossible not to enjoy. If you aren’t bopping along, you’ve been funked all the way into a black hole. It’s early days but each time I’ve listened to this album, it’s been impossible not to be grinning away, with the sense of experiencing a true classic.

Always been a huge fan of Give Up the Funk, what an epic TUNE! So nice to hear the whole album, it's wall to wall bangers. Really enjoyed listening today! I'm sure this album had a huge influence on a few different areas of music, I could hear this in a lot of dance music. It's such good vibes. I love that they were trying to shock people by "putting Black people in outer space" it's a great statement but sad that this was considered shocking at the time.

We want the funk. Give up the funk. Best track: Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)

Peak funk

This is why I started going through this list. Killer album I’ve never heard of in a genre I never listen to. Such a fun listen

First album down (5th June 2025). Man does this thing GROOVE. I’ve never listened to much funk before outside the RHCP and I don’t know why because this album is the epitome of sex appeal and I’m getting jiggy with it. Note to self: listen to funk more. 8/10, too much funk for its own good. I got funk-saturated.

Funkalicious grooves from the mothership, baby!

I funking love this one. I saw these guys in the 90's with a gigantic mothership on stage. What a great show! This is a fun album that no doubt influenced later Westcoast hip hop. It doesn't get funkier than this, unless you're talking about another Parliament, or Funkadelic album. I saw a recent documentary about this group, and I lost a lot of respect for George Clinton. He's basically a big piece of shit, and he screwed all these great musicians out of money. Crack is wack. I give this a funky 4.

Grew on me after 2 listens 7.5/10

TIL Jemaine Clement var en ung mand med sprød stemme i 1975. Det her album er en objektiv banger. Super funky!

Thoughts before listening: I don't know what's on this album but I'm sure it's great. I know this is one of Parliament's most celebrated records so I'm excited to listen. Review: Yep...this is awesome. This is the definition of funk music (as they remind you over and over again) and a lot of it is very recognizable since its been sampled so many times in hip hop songs. Mothership Connection and Give Up the Funk are the best songs, but I enjoyed the whole album. Some of the talking was annoying and there is definitely a lot of repetition to the songs, but this is still a fantastic record.

Amazing funk album. The space theme really suits George Clinton's music. Not a single boring moment throughout the thing except maybe the skit parts. Also album cover is great

Kalle: 1. Paska joo vittu meta biisi 2. Damn töi loppuosa tää alkaa olla iha decent 3. Vktuttaa ei enää vktuta tää genre En jaksa rate jokainen biisi mutta toi Night of the thumpasorus peoples hauska toi lead instrumentti 3:14 miten sitä voi seurata ilman seuraamatta mitään muuta, koska se kaikkimmuu on soinut kokoajan samana The Bumps Bump siisti moni instrumenttinen alku Handcuffs Best lyrics

During a 2 am drunken fish and chip order, friend of mine requested his chips be seasoned with “so much chicken salt, that when I eat them I go ‘whoa, that is way too much chicken salt’”. His wish was granted, and he had to throw his order in the bin because it was completely inedible. I thought of this story while listening to this. I imagined lining up at the funk store to order an album with so much funk, it becomes unlistenable.

It started of really cool, I was very excited because it was funk, but the album does not hold the fun all the way trough.

It is the embodiment of a party and a good time. I was very amused to learn that the motif of aliens coming to Earth to bring up the funk dates so far back. A lot of 'danceable' tracks.

This was too funky for me. I suspect it is objectively too funky. I almost didn’t have a good time.

Groovy

Nr. 134/1001 P-Funk 4/5 Mothership Connection 3/5 Unfunky UFO 3/5 Supergroovealistic 3/5 Handcuffs 4/5 Give Up The Funk 3/5 Night of the Thumpu 3/5 Average: 3,29 Funky and soulful record. For me more background music, than something I would actively listen.

Yeah, it had some cool songs on it. Was over very quickly.

Best Songs: (The whole thing's a groove) Listen Again: Probably

Cool, catchy funk to start the week. Good listen, ended sooner than I expected.

Another one I'd never get around to listening to if it weren't for this website. Really enjoyable when it was on, managed to get a lot of work done! Not sure I'd choose to listen again, but it's good I can identify some Dr Dre samples from their origins. Creative and fun if not particularly indelible.

More talking about funk than actually funking here. Feels like the album never really starts, they just keep telling us we're about to get funky. Well, I'm ready. I want to funk. Lets go. Yes, you play funk. I like funk. Let's do this. Should be a good match here, and yet... we don't seem to be funking? Was I not clear that I'm ready to funk? No more preparation needed.

Something about this felt very disingenuous, like they just checked off all the basics of a funk album while constantly trying to tell you that they're so funky

Give Up the Funk is an absolute classic and entirely makes this album worth it, but outside of that I wasn't feeling most of these. P-Funk, Mothership Connection, Unfunky UFO, and Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication all sound like the exact same song, so the fact that they're four in a row is insane. The album ends with Night of the Thumpasorus People, which consists of a group of dudes going "goo goo ga ga" for three minutes straight. Give Up the Funk feels like the whole reason this is here. Maybe I am just not a funk dude.

A generous serving of funk with a near fatal overdose of 70s on the side.

It felt too repetitive and didn’t change a lot in each song

Funky with sci-fi. This is entertaining.

Funky and cool! Big fan

really strong, like the grooves; fun

Feels like if Funkadelic is the part where you throw every conceivable P-Funk idea and element into the blender, Parliament is the part where it comes out as an incredible yet still pulpy juice. Honed to a sharp edge, the whole ensemble sounds fantastic, Bootsie and Bernie are obviously showing up front and all but still, everything is exactly right for you to nod your head, tap your feet, shake your ass and go off to weird space for 40 minutes. George Clinton groups never take themselves seriously, this one is very unserious too but it’s also the sheer craft behind being so unserious is wild. Also fascinating to listen to this one and have some of the later samples jump out to me so quick, this really was a treasure trove (again, testament to how good and forward-thinking this sounds).

Its has a really cool vibe i love it and it didnt make me miserable like the last one

Funk On

You smell that??? That’s some funky shiiiit. Love love love this vibe. 4.5

Funky! This had me grooving. It’s brimming with joy, and makes me smile. 9/10 Outstanding