Do You Want To Go To Funky Town?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6pg18bJt-A

Do you want to go to Funky Town?

I don’t know about you, but that look at :59 made me seriously reconsider my move to Funky Town, shiny pants be damned.

Lipps Inc. was a studio band that released the seminal synth pop track Funkytown in 1979. The group was formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Steven Greenberg, who wrote and produced all of the group’s music. The lead singer and saxophonist was Cynthia Johnson, and the rest of the group was made up of session musicians.

12 thoughts on “Do You Want To Go To Funky Town?”

  1. Aaawwwww Synthhead; you made my day.. well, evening, well.. what’s left of it anyway (Thursdays is my synth evening; a (forced) time to sit down and relax (sorta ;)).

    I really like blasts from the pasts and IMO this one is truly a classic. Not merely because everyone says so, but because it really is. Don’t think “open $favorite_daw_here, insert vocoder, add good mic; I’m home free baby!” but instead try to imagine a period where there actually were no DAW’s such as Ableton Live, Reason, Reaper and name the rest….

    The lot of you fellows may think “sure, I can see that” but honestly.. Try talking to modern kids about the past sometimes 😉 The kid of a good friend of mine has a hard time understanding that when we (my friend and I) grew up we didn’t have cellphones. Not because we couldn’t afford them, no, because there simply /were/ no cellphones back then.

    With that in mind I can really see people looking at this video and think “mwa… easy”. Yeah; easy now, /not/ back then 😉

    Oh; Synthhead; I see your 0:59 and raise you (sorta) the weird facial expressions between 1:07 and 1:15;-) (after that I scrolled down and started this; the music is IMO awesome but the video is best scrolled away ASAP :-)).

  2. Thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyou, I needed that. That was really really good to hear. The synths are great, but the guitar riff is what makes it for me.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going over to YouTube to find some Soul Train clips. And maybe a little KC and the Sunshine Band, or perhaps some Wild Cherry. Screw it, it’s disco and funk for the rest of the day.

  5. HA ! Now just where are those old pair of rollerskates? Need to break those out and head to the roller rink downtown and show the youngsters how it’s done !

    1. I want to shoot that boom-bap beat through the heart with an extra-large harpoon. Its the worst thing to happen to music since punk bagpipes. Actually, I should respect other people’s hates as well, but argh, boom-bap is as pernicious as termites. Georgio Moroder’s “disco” always bugged me, but his “Cat People” soundtrack was just plain superior synth work. It was eerie and lush. It was like Wendy Carlos got channeled through a wonderful weirdness filter for a moment. As an American, I love to hate what I hate, but you only justify the right if you also nod at the great things.

  6. I still want to go to Funkytown. What is the url for the Funkytown coach tour? I feel like that would be the most thorough and cost effective method of seeing all of what Funkytown has to offer.The guitar riff is what makes it for me too.

  8. All of today’s “cutting edge” video techniques will also look this cheesy in a couple decades. Shakey cam, fast cuts… all that junk will be on the future YouTube and be laughed at just like we laugh lovingly at this today.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *