Why FunkyTown is not actually funk(y)
How it all got started
Let’s set the scene. It’s the year 1979. Steven Greenberg, founder of the disco group “Lipps Inc.”, is working on the group's debut album “Mouth to Mouth”. While the wordplay of combining Lipps Inc. and Mouth to Mouth is a solid 10/10 success, this couldn’t be said for all the songs on the album. All besides “FunkyTown” would be doomed to remain in the shadows of the synthy banger we all know from the ’80s (or in my case, Shrek 2). FunkyTown went on to become a #1 hit in 28 different countries worldwide. But what is this funky town they speak of?
The actual Funky Town
Apparently, New York. Greenberg wrote the song while living in Minneapolis. He dream of moving to New York, a city he deemed a “funky town”. While I don’t want to go too deep into it, New York doesn’t seem very “funky” to me. Creative, innovative, passionate, big, bold, yes. But funky? Not really. A grid of perfectly aligned streets filled with yellow cabs, bright lights and aspirations seem too structured to be called funky. So the case of New York being funky remains to be decided, but is FunkyTown a funk song?
Well, first of all, nobody claims it is. The town is supposed to be funky, but to me, the title also implies a certain funkiness is present in the song. Secondly, genres (like most labels created by humans) are more fluent than they appear on paper. So what is funk?
Funk 101
Let’s kick off by saying that I’m not a music expert by any measure, however, I do listen to a lot of funk music and spent at least a solid hour on research. Probably not enough to make me the world’s leading expert on funk, but close enough.
In the early sixties, Funk originated out of a mixture of soul, jazz, and R&B (rhythm and blues). It focuses on creating a strong rhythmic feel by using the combination of bass and drums. This makes a tune funky and may induce the urge to dance. This brings me to my first problem, the One.
On the One
James Brown is seen as one of the founding fathers of funk. On the One refers to a drum groove where the emphasis is placed on the first beat.
One, two, three, four.
This swinging beat defines the canvas on which the funk song is then painted. The next essential layer is the bass. While some bands still have an acoustic bass, it mostly came to be known as a genre for electric bass. The instrument was invented in the mid-1950s, so everyone still thought the sound was fresh. The drums created the groove and kept it steady, creating space for the bass.
The song above perfectly illustrates the pattern. First, the drums define the structure, with low tones from the bass settings the scene. Then we add some percussion and guitar, and the bass is set free to spice up the sound. The drums and bass form the groove, and the guitar and percussion are added as accents. Knowing this, let’s get back to FunkyTown.
(Not so) FunkyTown
Let’s do a little exercise. Take a moment to close your eyes and try to imagine what FunkyTown’s bassline sounds like. If you could hear it, get yourself a sticker. If you couldn’t, which is most likely, it’s probably because it is about the least memorable part of the entire song. It’s a pretty standard computer bass sound, nobody even came near an actual bass in the making of this song.
When I think of FunkyTown, I hear three things: the lead synth melody everyone recalls, the robot-like vocoder vocals, and the strings.
The drum and bass, combined with the emphasis on the one are all missing. Just so you don’t think these are the ramblings of a mad man, I put both songs side by side to look at their waveforms (volume/amount of noise visualized).
Rapid-fire round
To round off, let’s quickly look at the actual prominent sounds that make FunkyTown such a banger, and how they fit into the funk genre.
The lead synth melody everyone recalls
While synthesizers are used across the funk genre, they are rarely used in such a prominent position. The synth line is FunkyTown, it defines the song. It forms the basis for the song, which is not a role the synthesizer often takes in funk.
The robot-like vocoder vocals
The vocals, delivered by Cynthia Johnson, are used in many ways throughout the song. Sometimes vocoded (the semi-robot sound that later became autotune), sometimes doubled. These effects are relatively modern at that time and not often used in the funk context. Funk tends to focus more on harmonies based on multiple singers, like Earth, Wind and Fire, or solo artists with background vocalists
The strings
Strings and horns are added to this song to dress it up nicely. The sweeping strings and sax-man solos give life to the tune. While horns are pretty common in funk, the strings as a prominent instrument push it out of the genre.
Then what is it?
FunkyTown is not a funk song, as far as we’ve established. But then again, like most strict labels created by humanity, genres are pretty difficult and often more fluid than they are made out to be. The prominent use of synths, strings, and modern drum groove most likely makes FunkyTown a disco song.
But then again, they never claimed the song was funky, just the Town.
