Customer Reviews

Chocolate City

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I dont really feel like giving a detailed review, I just feel that this is a 5 star album and it deserves credit. I just played it again after a three year hiatus and I was blown away, just like the first time I heard it, over 20 years ago. Funk is not supposed to be perfect....its about what moves you or provokes you, it's as simple as that.
I'm not one to buy reissues, remasters, and such. I have found that sometimes a remaster can be worse than the original! This is one remaster you're going to want to get, though.
If you want great funk, this is it and you really can`t go wrong with this great disc.

This album has some good stuff on it. The song Chocolate City, with some great political commentary, has one of the most memorable lines from any song- "You don't need the bullet when you got the ballot." Most of the rest of the album is great dance music- my favorites are Ride On and Together. It doesn't end as well as it begins- I couldn't get into Let Me Be or I Misjudged You- but overall the kind of funk you want from Parliament.

Can you dig it CC? to each his reach and if I don't cop it ain't mine to have...Love that line from Chocolate city, love the horns and that Bass guitar sound of Bootsy's Mu-Tron! I especially loved "I Misjudged You". This song is indeed "The Parliaments" the sound of the harmonies and the musicianship sound "Funkadelish" but then again so are they! I loved the album when they came in on "I know what you can do, let us lay some funk on you" I laughed and danced on the one with these strange critters and then it all made sense on the next album, "Mothership Connection". The guys were different from the Moments, The Tavares, Dells and all the other bands and singers comming up--Playful but man, could these guys play and sing! A tight album with some good tracks---a keeper. Parliament got you going with "Up for the Downstoke" and set the stage with "Chocolate City" to let you know that "there is a new sheriff in town" and he's coming a spaceship! Not riding in on a horse like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, This dude came in on a freakin' spaceship and took over the airwaves and let you know that if you didn't like "Up Fo the Down Stroke" or "Chocolate City", you were dancin' to "Standing on the Verge of Getting It On"---that was them too--(That Fuss was us--remember?)If you did attempt to adjust your radio, they were on all stations and slapped some "Cosmic Slop" on you! A very tight album, setting the stage for the funk to come......

The 'Chocolate City' album was the beginning of what would become the Holy Trinity of P-Funk: Clinton/Collins/Worrell. These three funkateers wrote just about all of the songs on this LP, and set the stage for the classic 'Let's Take It To The Stage' and 'Mothership Connection' albums that followed. The title cut is a masterpiece of smooth, Jazz-flavored Funk, with a dead-on-the-point narrative by George Clinton. The Funk continues to flow throughout the LP, until.... "Let Me Be", a sparse, piano-driven, gospel-tinged testament, comes in out of nowhere, reminding the listener that this is Parliament-Funkadelic that you're listening to, therefore expect the unexpected. Only Parliament-Funkadelic could interrupt a steady stream of Funk and throw in some good ol', gut-wrenchin' Soul! The music continues with "If It Don't Fit, Don't Force It", utilizing an up-tempo, light R&B rhythm to mask the far more sophisticated lyrics. The album takes another unexpected turn with "I Mis-Judged You". On this tune Parliament tries to sound like Blue Magic, and...well, it just didn't work. Actually, the song isn't a bad song. They just sound inebriated while singing it. At one point, the singers rush ahead of the tempo and...well, you'll just have to hear it for yourselves. "Big Footin'" brings the Funk back home with some scorching Glen Goins vocals. 'Chocolate City' is a must for any P-Funk collection.

..which is why I only gave it 4 stars. I agree with the music fan from Virginia-I really couldn't get into "Let Me Be" or "I Misjudged You", no matter how hard I tried. "Let Me Be" was gut-wrenching enough to make you want to ... IMHO and "I Misjudged You" was depressing. However, especially the first 5 tunes, the rest of the songs were ULTRA FUNKY-just the type of funk you'd expect from Parliament. Ride On!!!!

This is generally considered the first "true" Parliament album. It has the horns and wah-wah guitars that were the black music standard at the time. It also features some crazy, distorted bass playing by some William Collins kid. And some decent lyrical concepts that rose above the usual love song treacle. "Together" and "RIde On" are incredibly fun, and "Big Footin'" manages to keep the listener's head bobbing despite the fact the melody changes three times within the song! THe only real weak link within the album would be "Let Me Be" which is boring despite the inspiried vocals. All in all, a funky, if unpolished album. A good sign of things to come.

Like Up for the Down Stroke, Chocolate City is a perfectly adequate album that nonetheless fails to scale the heights that later Parliament discs would. It's a really rough album, featuring, for your entertainment, the worst song Parliament ever attempted: "I Misjudged You", a pained attempt at an orchestrated ballad. Ballads were never P-Funk's strong suit in the first place, but even by those standards it's a bad song. It honestly sounds like someone mashed up the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" (the lyrics), Pink Floyd's "Echoes" (the string arrangements sound a LOT like that classic riff), and some random doo-wap ballad from the '50s (Melody; vocals; the overabundance of strings), and decided to have the whole thing go on for five minutes. Not good. The keyboard-and-vocals "Let Me Be" isn't a heck of a lot better, either, but it is a slight improvement over "Misjudged". However, both are comperable to stinkers like Funkadelic's "Baby I Owe You Something Good" (funky power ballads should never exist).
Onto the rest! Basically, other than those two ballads this is divided into good funk and mediocre funk. On the good side you've got your black-power title track (though it's not racist - when people talk about the "God bless Chocolate City" refrain, they forget the "And its vanilla suburbs" part), with fascinatingly weird trumpet solos and a great interlocking keyboard/bass part. Great lyrics, too, packed with humorous off-the-cuff pop culture references. "Ride On" is even better, booty-shakin' funk-rock like Funkadelic's "Red Hot Mama". The lyrics need a bit of work, though. Compare "Don't worry 'bout bein' right, just be for real" to "You don't have to worry that it's wrong" from Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" released two years previous. It probably isn't a direct rip-off, but it's not a very original chorus. Actually, it pretty much recasts "Let's Get it On" and any other funk baby-makin' song. But it's got a groove, and that's all that counts. The stomping, hilarious "Big Footin'" is one of Parliament's most udnerrated cuts. The last of the "great funk" songs is the Sly & the Family Stone-like "Together", with wonderful group vocals and an unbelievably catchy refrain. The remaining three songs ("If It Don't Fit (Don't Force It)"; "What Becomes Funky"; "Side Effects") aren't bad at all, but they're mediocre and essentially interchangeable. This was actually my first Parliament studio album (I bought it because I liked the group and it was cheap), and while I'm glad I own it, Mothership Connection and its ilk are much better.

This album from funkified Parliament is pretty much a personal rendition albeit kinda old school of Washington, DC otherwise known as "chocolate city". I remember listening to this album well when I was a child and never really understood it enough to really groove to it but now I do as an almost thirty year-old. Tracks like the first one chocolate city, don't force it and common law wife are pretty much in the vein of previous Parliament songs. Any fan of Parliament is sure to get into this cd.

Wonderful album. Better than Mothership Connection. If you can't punch through walls yet, this is what you're missing.

What a thrill this is! Released April 1975 on the Casablanca label, Chocolate City takes you on a FUNky ride from the beginning when the magnificent title track grabs your attention with its impossibly catchy futuristic tale through images of a blacker America. George Clinton would've never imagined someone with his very name being at the head of the White House, let alone a real black man with a non-American name.... Anyway, this isn't about now.

Clinton's sense of humour is contaminating and his wit flawlessly flowing. Parliament had it all around those days: great grooves to great lyrics played by great musicians. Bootsie Collins and Bernie Worrell's input can't be understated.

The album is quite varied with different approaches to songs - things like the excellent harmony-filled I Misjudged You and the eccentric keyboard-driven Let Me Be being clear examples of that. Ride On, Together, What Comes Funky and Big Footin' are all funkaddictive stuff and will sure leave you funkin' for fun as a side effect.

Summing it all up: this great sounding remaster is music good to your earhole. Let Parliament lay some funk on you.