George Clinton: You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish

George Clinton: You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish

1983

Capital Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Nubian Nut  2. Quickie  3. Last Dance  4. Silly Millameter  5. Stingy  6. You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish


 The second solo album by Vice-President George Clinton (1739–1812)...



I guess I should have mentioned this yesterday, but I use the term "solo" very loosely...Looking at the album credits, there doesn't seem to be very much separating this from your average P-Funk album, all the same names are there (Bernie Worrell, Eddie Hazel, Bootsy Collins, etc.)..I'm not sure why these particular albums bear Clinton's name only. A label dispute? To help differentiate the more "up-to-date" style? I'm not really sure and I don't have the strength to google it...

I also have zero idea what the title of this album means...The cover art alternates between telling us it means nothing and giving hints to its hidden meaning...

Apparently this is a clue, but I don't get it...Maybe it's a warning to a fish to not bite a hook? Maybe a warning about getting hooked on something? But that doesn't explain the barcode...Those were a pretty recent development then...Maybe that has something to do with it...There's also all that talk about world destruction and "Nuclear Fishin'" in the title track,  but what's the connection? What am I missing?!? Gahhh, why do you do these things to me, George?

"This means something..."

 Anywhoo, this is a pretty killer album...I'd always heard that it was the inferior follow-up to "Computer Games," but this is almost as good...It might pale a bit next to "Computer Games" high-tech  8-bit appeal, but it's a pretty cool throwback to the deep-funk of prime Parliament-Funkadelic, with just an extra touch of rock thrown in ("Quickie" in particular, has some pretty heavy guitars).  There are a few quintessentially 80's touches, though..."Nubian Nut" is a full-on rap song, with George using a Kurtis Blow kinda flow, and "Last Dance" makes great use of  David Bowie's recent hit "Last Dance"



And the whole thing culminates with the title track which manages to be both apocalyptic and hilarious...Sort of the free-form musical monologues that are always the high-points on any P-Funk record, with an endless array of clever "fish" related puns... It stretches out to almost 9-minutes, and by the end I'm still begging for more..."Lord Bless This Fish..."

So yea, happy as hell I picked this one up, if anything I think it's actually more consistent than the more-celebrated "Computer Games" and taken on its own it's definitely funky shit...So let's check out "Last Dance" by George Clinton...What are you some kind of psychedelic wallflower?..