posted: 2024-03-30 As Grande As Grande Mahogany

If Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories was an ode to the glitz and glam and trying to form an emotion nostalgic connection to the disco genre by putting it through the sound of the present, I feel like As Grande As does the same to the sleaziness of psychedelic funk, just without the heavy hitters like “Touch” or “Instant Crush” or “The Game of Love.” Still, Grande’s clear passion & love for funk is extremely evident on this record and it’s entirely infectious.

There’s too much influence from all eras on this thing and it’s shockingly impressive how Grande blends all these sounds together and makes the sound his own. It’s incredibly fun to play musical detective and spot all the inspirations and influences from the obvious Sly & The Family Stone, Funkadelic & Jimi Hendrix to the sleaziness of Dirty Mind/Controversy-era Prince to the modern slappiness and punchiness of Thundercat, Yachty’s Let’s Start Here and Tame Impala. There’s going to be an overlap of positive comparisons (and maybe even some brand new ones will show up as this record eventually blows up, thanks to Fantano) and that’s not really a bad thing at all. It just means Grande has made a funk record so funky and distils the whole spirit of funk into one great record that it’s hard not to call it a giant love letter to psychedelic funk. It’s insane, trippy, scary, dirty, passionate, everything that describes your iconic funk albums.

uncontainablesilliness, RYM