Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On

Having expanded to a more diverse line-up - this time around 15 members - Funkadelic got back on track a bit with the album Standing on the Verge of Getting It On. George Clinton repeated a gimmick from " America Eats Its Young" by re-recording an Osmium track, specifically the title track "Red Hot Mama". However, kicking off with a hilarious double solo (the first voice sounds like Sir Nose d'Woidoffunk's happier brother) and given a fierce new sound, this song bodes well for Standing on the Verge as a whole. In particular, Eddie Hazel's guitar work is awesome; after his absence from Cosmic Slop, it's good to hear him back in full force alongside Bernie Worrell, Cordell Mosson, Gary Scheider and the rest. Overall, compared to the sometimes overly polite Cosmic Slop, Standing on the Verge is an intense, frantic mess in the best sense of the word, with heavy funk pieces that still rock today, making a lot of supposedly loud and dangerous rock sound anaemic. A case in point is "Alice in My Fantasies" - the piece is psychedelic from the start, and the vocals are on the edge, as is the music - or the wild, wonderful title track. There are quieter moments too, but this time with more poignancy, such as the slow jam 'I'll Stay', which recedes rather heavily into the background while the song moves confidently forward. In an unexpected but effective twist, "Jimmy's Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him" is a friendly, humorous song about a gay friend; given the mediocre homophobia of later hip-hop, it's nice to hear that some of the founding fathers held looser views.

- Ned Raggett. allmusic.com.