Singles from Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow
"I Wanna Know If It's Good to You?" Released: December 1970
Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow is the second studio album by American funk rock band Funkadelic, released in July 1970 by Westbound Records.[5] It charted at No. 92 in the US, the band's highest charting album release until 1978's One Nation Under a Groove, and included the No. 82 single "I Wanna Know If It's Good to You?"[6]
Background
The album was recorded at United Sound Studios, Audio Graphic Services, and G-M Recording Studios in Detroit.[7]George Clinton described the recording as an attempt to "see if we can cut a whole album while we're all tripping on acid."[5]
The album's gatefold cover forms something of a visual pun, echoing the sentiments of the album title. The woman holding her arms towards heaven in an ecstatic pose is found to be nude upon opening the sleeve.
The original 1970 issue's artwork featured the woman facing downward, and the "Free Your Mind..." title in brown. Reissues beginning in 1990 reversed the woman's direction (substituting an alternate photograph where her head is more inclined and her fingers are more widely fanned), and have varied the placement and color of the text.
Music and lyrics
The album and its title track, a feedback-drenched number taking a third of the album's length, introduces the subversion of Christian themes explored on later songs, describing a mystical approach to salvation in which "the Kingdom of Heaven is within" and achievable through freeing one's mind, after which one's "ass" will follow. Many of the songs, such as the title track and "Eulogy and Light", subvert Christian themes (including the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm) and satirize capitalism.[5]
On the Billboard charts (North America), Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow peaked at #11 on the Black Albums Chart and #92 on the Pop Albums chart.[5] The album and eponymous song influenced the band En Vogue, leading to the title of their hit song "Free Your Mind".[14]
In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said this promising but ultimately confusing album has contradictory messages that might either promote "escapist idealism or psychic liberation", and a disorienting aesthetic that is most successful on "Funky Dollar Bill".[10] He later wrote that it is not surprising that the album became "a cult fave in slackerland," as "not only is the shit weird, the weirdness signifies."[15]
In a positive review, AllMusic's Ned Raggett felt that both the album and title track are worthy of the credo and that the other songs range from "the good to astoundingly great."[8]Record Collector magazine's Paul Rigby called Free Your Mind a "superb" album which mixes "a dirty groove with wacked-out sound effects and razor-sharp lyrics.[3]Pitchfork described it as "a lot more 'rock' and a little less 'soul'" than the band's debut, and compared the title track to "a Sly Stone jam gone haywire, with fuzzed out guitar and bass, distorto-organ, and spoken, chanted or otherwise freaked vox appearing all over the mix."[16] In a retrospective review for Blender, Christgau opined that the album did not live up to the title credo.[9]
Martha Reeves appeared on this project but wasn't credited. Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent, the singers to be known as Dawn, appear on "Friday Night, August 14th."
^"Album Reviews". Billboard. October 24, 1970. p. 60. Retrieved November 30, 2013. Funkadelic is back again, this time bidding to 'free your mind' with more psychedelic-soul that's bound to separate from the sense.
^ abcdRudland, Dean. "Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow reissue liner notes". Westbound Records: 3. 2005.
