Truth and Soul cover

Truth and Soul

Released

Fishbone’s second full-length album was their first to show their full genre-hopping potential and foreground their social consciousness; straight out of the gate, they turned Curtis Mayfield’s antidrug “Freddie’s Dead” into a crunching metal anthem, following that with “Ma and Pa,” a jumping, shouting ska workout with introspective lyrics about frontman Angela Moore’s parents’ divorce and its effect on his younger sister. Then there are the two Bad Brains-ish hardcore blasts, “Deep Inside” and “Subliminal Fascism”; the AOR soul-rock of “Mighty Long Way”; the “Ghost Riders In The Sky”-bending “Slow Bus Movin’ (Howard Beach Party)”; and the impossibly funky “Bonin’ In The Boneyard,” featuring the fiercest slap bass of the ’80s from the band’s incredible anchor, Norwood Fisher. They seemed determined to prove that they could do literally anything, and convey a strong-willed, even militant political message in the process.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
Shaft cover

Shaft

Isaac Hayes
Maggot Brain cover

Maggot Brain

Funkadelic
Jazz Is Dead 05: Doug Carn cover

Jazz Is Dead 05: Doug Carn

Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Doug Carn, Adrian Younge
Head Hunters cover

Head Hunters

Herbie Hancock
Funky Kingston cover

Funky Kingston

Toots & the Maytals
Made In England cover

Made In England

Atomic Rooster
Aja cover

Aja

Steely Dan
Flood cover

Flood

Herbie Hancock
Circles cover

Circles

Mac Miller
Soul Makossa cover

Soul Makossa

Manu Dibango