20 Jazz Funk Greats

'20 Jazz Funk Greats' remains one of the key albums of the late-1970s - predicting most of what was to follow (electronica, industrial, avant-garde, ambient, new wave etc.) & also being one of those varied long-players common to that era (see Can's 'Tago Mago', Faust's 'IV' or Eno's 'Another Green World'). The cover is very British, I think - the so-called 'wreckers of civilisation' - dressed in standard-dress of the seventies - some members look like they could be in The Fall, another a stock-hippy - while Genesis P-Orridge has a snappy white-blazer on (the white & the ironic title a deliberate move against the fascist-nazi tags being placated on TG due to songs like 'Zyklon Z. Zombie'). & Cosey Fanni Tutti remains the epitome of cuteness; the smile & the rest is put into context by the reverse of the cover (& the related pic of an abandoned Range Rover, nodding to 'Beachy Head')- the band stand in the same way as a corpse lies at their feet. & this is TG's most approachable album!!!!The title track opens proceedings- an industrial-groove that was borrowed for Scritti Politti's 'The Sweetest Girl' starts, later followed by P-Orridge's atonal-violin & some syn-drums (that would later find their way into Joy Division; see 'Insight'). Someone whispers words like "jazz" and "funk" - the former predicting 'The Fast Show' then! TG sang when they felt like it, so 'Beachy Head' (named after the popular British suicide-point) drifts toward the ambient - after Eno & capturing the vibe of such a place (a body lies undiscovered at the bottom- no one stops you as you step off - no sound as you are falling...). This is most definitely after-Eno & along with tracks from 'In the Shadow of the Sun' & 'Journey Through a Body' is TG's most ambient-work (the violin lulls colliding with ambientelectronica could be seen to influence Silver Mt Zion or The Aphex Twin, say...)'Still Walking' shudders into life, a spoken-word vocal ups the sinister stakes as violin-drones (after Cale) drift in the background. Various TG-members speak the lyrics - another instrumental track ('Tanith') pops up next (this is the one that sounds like a Krautrock-vision of 'Headhunters' or 70s-Miles!).A key TG-moment is next- the timeless anthem 'Convincing People', which was one of the few older songs TG played on their recent reformation (others included a vastly reworked 'What a Day'- much better than the one here & 'Hamburger Lady')'Convincing People' I've always seen as TG's defence of art - perhaps rejecting it all with "We don't want to convince people..." ; then again, it's probably about the Occult, or cultdom, or brainwashing...who knows? One that would fit on a playlist next to 'Rocket USA', 'Nag Nag Nag', 'Being Boiled' & 'Kitchen Person', however...'Exotica' is another ambient-instrumental exercise - Richard D. James was most definitely aware- it sounds like something from 1994's 'Selected Ambient Works II'!!! The classic 'Hot on the Heels of Love' is next - this featured on Rough Trade's excellent 'Electronic 01' compilation a few years ago (02 would be nice...) & along with 'Walkabout' (which also turned up with 'Hot on the Heels...' on the recent 'Taste of TG' compilation) finds TG in a realm not far from the hallowed Kraftwerk. 'Hot on the Heels...' as later tracks like 'Adrenalin' & 'United', most definitely predicts the so-called rave-culture that would develop in the mid to late 1980s (& people think New Order were electronic-pioneers? Yeah, after TG, Suicide, Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League#1, Kraftwerk, Ultravox!, Silicon Teens/The Normal, Associates, Neu! etc- all of whom were doing that before them!).Many think this is TG's nicest LP, well maybe, but the lyrics to 'Persuasion' still make me feel ill - especially when set to a dirge (related to 'Hamburger Lady') & some screams. They appear to take a killer's perspective with lines like "I've got a little biscuit tin to keep your panties in/Soiled panties, white panties, school panties, Y-front panties..." This pre-empts similarly themed tracks by The Smiths ('Handsome Devil', 'Suffer Little Children') & pretty much pushes taboos as far as most have taken them in popular music. The version of 'What a Day' here sounds like the 70s-equivalent of 'Come to Daddy' or 'Temper Temper'; the recent Camber Sands-version (which intergrated 'Lazy Sunday' & seemed to rip it out of John Lydon) is much, much greater.The album ends on the minimal-electro-dirge 'Six Six Sixties' - which features suitably terrifying guitar from Cosey Fanni-Tutti & then two-alternate live-takes of 'Discipline' - from Berlin and Manchester respectively. These alternate takes, as the many live-albums demonstrate, that the live-realm was particularly TG's forte - Grateful Dead for the punk-post-punk-industrial-etc.-generation...'20 Jazz Funk Greats' remains a classic, do I sound like a care that the technology has dated? It probably is the most approachable TG-album, but still pushes the envelope with tracks like 'Discipline', 'Persuasion' & 'What a Day'. Without this, a lot of other bands and records thereafter may not exist, or in quite the way they are/were. Demented British-artists and their demented art...wonderful-

Awesome cd

Good Industrial Music Pioneers. Very good!

Brilliant record and it arrived on time.

give your mum a break from il divo. buy her this. you'll be her favourite child then... for ever.

ha ha ha! there's no jazz-funk on it! well, the title track is definitely a pastiche or a tribute to the genre, complete with the 'nice!' and the 'yeah!'ha ha ha! there aren't even 20 tracks on it! well, there are now, due to the addition of a 2nd disc containing year appropriate live performances and both sides of the 'discipline' 12" (which is the only gap in my t.g. (original) vinyl).many reviewers concentrate on the apparent current 'hipness' generated by t.g., and on how divisive they were in their day, but my experience, in my youth, was far simpler - virtually everyone i knew hated them with a vengeance! this just fueled my appreciation of them, and i still regard them as one of the most influential outfits ever - because, once you broke through the crust of image, the contents were often outstanding in their extremity and ambition!okay, the irony of the title and the superb cover shot were the first things to grab you, but once you're dealing with the contents you are in the midst of a hugely significant groundbreaking ( by t.g's standards) pop album! yes, pop, earth-shattering real pop - i don't think there can be any doubt of the influence cast by this piece of work. you can still hear it in music made currently! of course, a lot of the meat on the bones was supplied by genesis's 'nastiness' as demonstrated in the classics, 'persuasion' and 'convincing people' and the dancecentric 'what a day', although for the most part, the album is instrumental. check the sordid atmosphere on 'beachy head', or the plaintive 'tanith', or the uplifting 'walkabout'. we haven't even mentioned 'hot on the heels of love' yet, and it is a monster disco classic, written to shadow donna summer's 'i feel love'. brilliant! they never made another record like this, and probably no-one else would be able to. in a nutshell, one of the most important records of the 70s! and chris carter's re-mastering job is a fine one!the 2nd disc contains seven live pieces from various locations in 1979, including more guttural and confrontational takes on 'persuading people' and 'what a day', a magnificent 'five knuckle shuffle' and several pieces new to me, but in similar feral veins. the live material discs as regards this series of releases are well compiled and an essential sample of the t.g. live event (for those of us not lucky enough to have attended such) without having to shell out a fortune on o.o.p. sets. the package is rounded off (bitten off?) with 19 minutes worth of the manchester and berlin sides of the 'discipline' single - rough, rhythmic and compelling!beautifully packaged in a triple fold out sleeve with an 8 page booklet attached showing a mini reproduction of the poster given away with initial original vinyl copies (is it still mint if it's got drawing pin holes? thought not!)!

a great experimental record !

Experimental stories

Provocatori fin dal titolo, ancor di più dall'immagine di copertina che li ritrae in un paesaggio fiorito e colorato, con i volti sorridenti e rassicuranti che non lasciano presagire quello che è il folle contenuto del disco!Tra le formazioni più innovative e spigolose dell'intero panorama musicale, fondano il genere "Industrial" a metà degli anni '70 influenzando intere generazioni di musicisti per entrare a gamba tesa nella storia.Non di facile presa, ma di sicuro interesse "20 Jazz Funk Greats" propone quella che è la visione, distorta, di Genesis P-Orridge e dei suoi compagni. Suoni disturbanti, ritmi ossessivi, in un tappetto sonoro elettronico che non lascia indifferenti.Qui nella versione Deluxe in doppio CD, l'intero album e un live concert del 1979.Da avere assolutamente.

Un disque essentiel, bizarre et surprenant qui fonctionne encore par son originalité.

It’s kind of hard to sum up Throbbing Gristle’s “20 Jazz Funk Greats” album in a brief review. But here we go: it’s AMAZING!! This album is uniquely different from their other works in that you can hear Sleazy, Gen, Chris, and Cosey all contorting the title of the album into the theme of what industrial music originally was and, in a lot of ways, still is: an avenue for true experimentation. With bands like Nine Inch Nails utilizing the talents of soulful backup singers, and Ministry adding country harmonica atop hip-hop record scratching layered over industrial guitar riffs, just know that Throbbing Gristle were one of the first musicians to cross-polonize genres. But, then again, that’s what the true spirit of jazz was all about....That said, this is NOT a “jazz” album. But it IS!! Sorta.

Un disco de 1979, donde ya creaban atmósferas densas y oscuras, IMPRESCINDIBLE , TG, sin dudas unos adelantados a su tiempo.

didnt even know til it got here, 5 days early might I add, that it was a clear green pressing. nice esthetic. I am beyond satisfied.