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Back in the business with another episode of “Songs of the week”. This week those energetic funk classics are on my repeat button. Funk of today has developed a lot since the old days. James Brown played a great part in the development of funk. Funk also lies at the base of the popular disco music style of the 1970s. “Everybody was kung-fu-fightinggggg”…remember that one? Sounds like disco, dances like disco, smells like disco…But no, it wasn’t 100% pure disco.

In the 1970s jazzmusicians began to experiment with funk, which led to jazzfunk. In the 1980s there was like a massive chain reaction against the “overkill” of disco music of the 1970s. The synthesizer was introduced and made a statement in several music genres, including funk. Ofcourse the 1980s and funk have to be mentioned in one sentence with Prince, who took funk to another level. After the 1980s, funk blended with other music genres like nowadays hip-hop, R&B and rock.

But back to the 1980s, because there lies the origin of my own favorite blended funk songs. Enjoy and…keep it funky (on your ipod or your speakers).

 

Salt-N-Pepa – Push it

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cyd charisse band wagon

The 1980’s were golden years for some artists which we all remember. Memorable songs came out and the videoclip started to overrule the radio. Like artists of today are inspired by artists of the 1980s, artists of the 1980s were inspired by old Hollywood movies of the golden Hollywood era (1930s-1950s).

A few videoclips and their old Hollywood inspiration resource…

1. Band Wagon – Girl Hunt, 1953 | Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal, 1988
My favorite. A lot of similarities but at the same time both videoclips have a personal twist. Same outfit, same atmosphere, very different dance style in two different era. Fred Astaire (with Cyd Carisse) and his typical great dancing v.s. Michael Jackson who introduces his famous anti-gravity lean…

 

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