Top 25 Funk Albums That Shaped a Musical Movement

It was sometime in the latter part of the 1960s that R&B gave way to soul and, by extension, funk.

It wasn’t a scene so much at first as it was a grouping of like-minded artists taking their music to new depths (those deep, deep bass lines) and occasionally darker, definitely looser new places, all set to a dance beat established by dovetailing drums.

The list below of the Top 25 Funk Albums, as selected by members of UCR’s staff, doesn’t attempt to pinpoint the exact moment funk became a thing. Instead, it’s an outline of many of the biggest players and most influential makers of the music, from album-length declarations of faith to popular soundtrack LPs.

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The kings of the genre are here, often looming as a large presence; James Brown, George Clinton‘s P-Funk collective and Sly Stone all emerged in the ’60s and found greater success in the next decade, shaping and then reshaping the music to their times. By mid-decade, funk had grown into a distinct entity, a branch of soul music easily identifiable by its elastic rhythm section and greasy licks laid on top.

The Top 25 Funk Albums also reveals a few lesser-known acts, including an Afrobeat superstar and a jazz legend or two. While many of the albums below come from the music’s peak period of the early and mid-’70s, records from the previous decade and the following one also make the list. It’s a rich and surprisingly diverse selection of albums and artists that reveal just how multileveled funk could be.