Pumpin' It Up!
Andre' S Grindle | Bangor,ME. | 09/12/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This is the uncut version of the P-Funk All Stars
1983 album 'Urban Dancefloor Gorillas'.For the most part the
best thing about this version is the album cover is MUCH better!
And "Pumpin' It Up" is still stronger.The main problem with the
All Stars:all they really do is jam endlessly and the comic
and absurd elements of Parliament are not present in favor of
the constant repitition of hooks.Musically it's classic P-Funk
but conceptually it falls far short of the Parliament/Funkadelic
masterpieces George Clinton was turning out just three years earlier.For most devoted fans of the Mothership this must sound
like the P-Funk concept at it's absolute lowest ebb."
Great 1980's P-funk
Fritz Langlois | Second star to the right | 01/08/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"HYDRAULIC FUNK is the original P-FUNK ALLSTARS album. It had first surfaced under the moniker URBAN DANCEFLOOR GUERILLAS, with some missing bits. So this is the real thing here.
In the early eighties, Parliament and Funkadelic were seemingly disbanded; but the core of the band still went on making (great) records, under various names, most notably P-FUNK ALLSTARS and GEORGE CLINTON's "solo" efforts. I can recommend them all, they are a logical continuation of Clinton's concepts. HYDRAULIC FUNK takes the P-funk sound well into the eighties, with highly successful results in my opinion. The tracks are varied and adventurous, not one of them is bad. There is a very unusual (and very good) song by Clinton called "ACUPUNCTURE" with a sax player very unlike Maceo Parker. The usual P-funk suspects are on board, like Bootsy Collins, as well as Clinton friends of ages such as Sly Stone (present also on Clinton's album AND HIS GANGSTERS OF LOVE)and Bobby Womack (also on Clinton and family's HOW LATE DO YOU HAVE 2 B B 4 U R ABSENT?)...
Well, Clinton's inspiration certainly never failed him. The grooves of "COPYCAT" and "CATCH A KEEPER" for example are P-funk masterpieces.
The picture on the cover is amazing.
Great P-funk album."