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America Eats Its Young

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America Eats Its Young
Studio album by
Funkadelic
ReleasedMay 22, 1972
Genre
Length69:06
LabelWestbound
ProducerGeorge Clinton
Funkadelic chronology
Maggot Brain
(1971) 		America Eats Its Young
(1972) 		Cosmic Slop
(1973)

America Eats Its Young is the fourth album (a double album) by Funkadelic, released in May 1972. This was the first album to include the whole of the House Guests, including Bootsy Collins, Catfish Collins, Chicken Gunnels, Rob McCollough and Kash Waddy. It also features the Plainfield-based band U.S. (United Soul), which consisted of guitarist Garry Shider and bassist Cordell Mosson, on most of the tracks. Unlike previous Funkadelic albums, America Eats Its Young was recorded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and in the UK. The original vinyl version contained a poster illustrated by Cathy Abel. The bottom of the poster features the first widespread appearance of the Funkadelic logo, which would appear on the cover of their next album Cosmic Slop.

Composition

According to Dave Rosen of Ink Blot, America Eats Its Young was radical in that it "devours" African-American music whole "and regurgitates it back as a virtual catalog of styles and sounds. Containing no hit singles and precious few catchy tunes, America Eats Its Young is primarily an experimental record that doubles as a lesson in the history of black music."[4] Dave Swanson of Ultimate Classic Rock said that Funkadelic stripped away the "sounds of rock, funk, soul and psychedelia" that had defined their previous albums, instead delivering a "hard funk offering"[2] Biographer Kris Needs described the album as Clinton's "grand statement" on the Vietnam War and "other elements that were afflicting his country", and further added that it featured Clinton's "most ambitiously epic production yet to befit the socially-conscious themes bristling among the love ditties and reworks."[5]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[6]
Blender[7]
Christgau's Record GuideC+[8]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[9]
Funk (Rickey Vincent)[10]
The Great Rock Discography6/10[11]
Mojo[12]
Pitchfork8.1/10[1]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[13]
Select[3]

Vernon Gibbs of Soul Sounds wrote in 1973 that most fans of Funkadelic were "universal in their condemnation of certain parts of America Eats Its Young," while conceding it himself to have a "dearth of top notch material" for a double album, and said that the consensus highlights "could not offset the badly thought out stuff".[14] Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) that the album was marred by its double length, "programmatic lyrics" and usage of strings as well as Funkadelic's continued use of sleeve notes by the Process Church of the Final Judgment, further singling out "Biological Speculation" and "Loose Booty" as the album's only good songs.[8]

Among retrospective reviews, Andrew Perry of Select panned the album as an unappealing, "cluttered jazz-rock fusion" that was alone in the Parliament-Funkadelic discography and which "seldom [earned] the accolade of true funkadelia." He also felt Clinton was largely uninvolved with the album, which instead profiles "vague polemic" that provides "neither the entertainment nor the hedonistic alternative of the moon-age anti-manifesto that was Clinton's trademark".[3] Christgau revisited the album for Blender, where he reiterated his dislike of the liner notes and described it as "Funkadelic's worst album", whose domination by Bernie Worrell scorched "the widespread and plausible muso theory that his keyboards were what made P-Funk P-Funk. Strewing chaos and screwing his friends, George Clinton was what made P-Funk P-Funk."[7] He later called it Clinton's "most Zappaesque" album.[15]

More positive was Ned Raggett of AllMusic, who described America Eats Its Young as a double album that was "worth every minute of it" and a departure from the "endless slabs of double-album dreck that came around the same time" as Funkadelic brought "life, soul and much more to the party".[6] The Rolling Stone Album Guide says that although America Eats Its Young is not Funkadelic's best album, it "introduces key elements that will lead Clinton to Parliament", such as vocal harmonies and Worrell's playful, catchphrase-heavy humour, and favoured the "party tunes" over the album's "political anger".[13] Dominique Leone of Pitchfork called it a "disparate, schizophrenic record" where Clinton's attempts to make it more crossover-friendly were thwarted by its length, adding "there's simply too much material, and too many conflicting directions to really make this seem anything other than a Frankenstein production." He nonetheless compared it to the Beatles' White Album (1968) due to it "containing too much great stuff to dismiss, but by almost anyone's standards, containing more than it needs."[1] Mojo named it an "expansive work by a huge funk collective".[12]

Track listing

Side One
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."You Hit the Nail on the Head"George Clinton, Clarence Haskins, Bernie Worrell7:10
2."If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause"Clinton, Garry Shider3:43
3."Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time"Clinton, Worrell5:50
Side Two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."A Joyful Process" (released as the B-side to "Loose Booty")Clinton, Worrell6:10
2."We Hurt Too"Clinton3:47
3."Loose Booty" (released as a single-Westbound 205)Clinton, Harold Beane4:45
4."Philmore"Bootsy Collins2:40
Side Three
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."I Call My Baby Pussycat"Clinton, Billy Bass Nelson, Eddie Hazel5:00
2."America Eats Its Young"Beane, Clinton, Worrell5:45
3."Biological Speculation"Clinton, Ernie Harris3:00
4."That Was My Girl"Clinton, Sidney Barnes3:41
Side Four
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Balance"Clinton, Worrell5:52
2."Miss Lucifer's Love"Clinton, Haskins5:50
3."Wake Up"Clinton, James Wesley Jackson, Worrell6:20

Songs

Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time

The song was recorded in London, with the assistance of English drummer Ginger Baker, who was one of Clinton's favorite drummers.

Personnel:

A Joyful Process

This song starts off borrowing the music from the children's Christian song, "Jesus Loves Me".

We Hurt Too

Loose Booty

Philmore

This song represents the first major songwriting effort of Bootsy Collins as a member of Parliament-Funkadelic, and is widely considered the introduction to his musical persona.

I Call My Baby Pussycat

George Clinton sang lead vocals, with Frank Waddy on drums.

The song is a remake of a faster version, titled "I Call My Baby Pussycat", recorded by Parliament on their 1970 album Osmium. Two versions of the song (fast and slow), based on the original Parliament version, appear on the 1996 live Funkadelic release Live: Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan – 12th September 1971.

This later version of the song was originally retitled "Pussy," and that title appears on the cover of some vinyl versions of the album, and on some modern CD reissues. Under record company pressure, the titled was restored to "I Call My Baby Pussycat," on future Parliament-Funkadelic releases featuring the song, and some future CD pressings of America Eats Its Young. Both titles can be found on modern CD pressings of the album.

America Eats Its Young

Biological Speculation

That Was My Girl

The song is a remake of a 1965 version by The Parliaments.

Balance

  • Lead Vocals: Bootsy Collins

Miss Lucifer's Love

"Miss Lucifer's Love" features vocals by Fuzzy Haskins and string and horn arrangements by Bernie Worrell. Its songwriters are George Clinton and Fuzzy Haskins.

  • Lead vocal: Fuzzy Haskins
  • Lead guitar: Eddie Hazel

Wake Up

Personnel

Charts

Album - Billboard (United States)[16]

Year Chart Position
1972 Pop Albums 123
1972 R&B Albums 22

Singles - Billboard (United States)

Year Single Chart Position
1972 “A Joyful Process” R&B Singles 38

References

  1. ^ a b c d Pitchfork Media review
  2. ^ a b Swanson, Dave (May 22, 2019). "How Funkadelic Got 'Heavier' on America Eats Its Own". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  3. ^ a b c Perry, Andrew (September 1990). "Reviews: Re-Issues". Select: 102.
  4. ^ Ink Blot review
  5. ^ Needs, Kris (August 3, 2014). "America Eats Its Young: On George Clinton's Grand Statement". The Quietus. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  6. ^ a b Raggett, Ned. America Eats Its Young at AllMusic
  7. ^ a b Blender review Archived 2009-08-27 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: F". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved February 24, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  9. ^ Larkin, Colin (1997). Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music. London: Virgin Books. p. 498. ISBN 1-85227 745 9.
  10. ^ Vincent, Rickey (1995). "Essential Cosmic P-Funk Albums". Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of The One. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312134991.
  11. ^ Strong, Martin C. (1994). The Great Rock Discography. Edinburgh: Canongate Press. p. 213. ISBN 0862413850.
  12. ^ a b "Mojo review". Archived from the original on 2012-03-24. Retrieved 2013-07-04.
  13. ^ a b Rolling Stone review
  14. ^ Gibbs, Vernon (July 1973). "Marking Time with Funkadelic — an interview with George Clinton". Soul Sounds. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  15. ^ Christgau, Robert (July 28, 2021). "Xgau Sez". Robert Christgau. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  16. ^ American Eats Its Young – Awards
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