Play that Funky Music

Hello! This is going to be my last blog post, so I got to go out with a bang. This week I decided to write about the song "Play That Funky Music," written by Wild Cherry. This multi-million record was extremely successful, reaching number 1 on both the pop and R&B charts. It remains such an iconic piece and artists from later decades, like Vanilla Ice, have tried to recapture the magic of the song through their own covers.

 I think this song completely captures the entirety of funk music. The beat is very high tempo and makes you want to get up and dance. It is such a good dancing song that growing up I vividly remember dancing to this song on Dance Dance Revolution. It has a fun blend of different instruments that add to the "funkiness" of the song such as: bass, drums, trumpets, saxophones, and an electric guitar. The lead singer Parissi’s style of singing also adds another element of funk. The instruments, singing style, and lyrics play an important key role in setting the tone of the piece. The lyrics do not really discuss any pressing issues of the time and tend to be pretty repetitive the whole song. In Funk music this was very common, because the majority of people do not focus on the words of a song while dancing in an exclusive night club. I think the song “Play That Funky Music,” and other songs like it were used as an escape from reality.