If pressure creates diamonds, then something in Let’s Take It To The Stage must have been fueled at least a little by Clinton’s desire to wrest Funkadelic free from the flimsy supports (or lack thereof) at Westbound. The after-the-fact contractual obligation would come later (via Tales Of Kidd Funkadelic), but Funkadelic kicked the door down on the way out, filling Let’s Take It To The Stage with a barrage of limber heavy funk anthems and hard-hitting sub-three-minute numbers that played up all their best sides. This is where William Collins fully became Bootsy, who augmented his nascent Space Bass sound on “Be My Beach” with the first instance of his characteristic Snagglepuss-gone-Hendrix voice and knot-tying referential come-ons (“I’d just like to be your bridge over troubled waters mama… dig while I smoke on it”). It’s got maybe their freakiest revamp of an older tune, a towering death-sludge monster called “Baby I Owe You Something Good,” with a stunning lead by original Parliaments singer “Cool” Cal Simon. And it’s where they came up with maybe their purest mission statement — “Shit! Goddamn! Get off your ass and jam!” — with the help of a random, unknown white junkie kid who found his way into the studio and offered to sit in on guitar for $25; the result was one of the most breath-snatching solos you’ll ever hear. (So Clinton gave the kid $50. He vanished, and they never did identify him.)

It’s also one of their most combative albums — not to confuse combativeness with hostility, more like an extra-heavy dose of the dozens. The title track is a call for a cutting session, Clinton pulling cards on “Fool And The Gang,” “Sloofus,” and “Earth, Hot Air, And No Fire” in the process of cranking out the kinds of filthy nursery rhymes Andrew “Dice” Clay would shamelessly gank. And as often as the music rides like good-natured, stank-riddled disco-funk, there’s deep distress between the lines: the ache for comfort in music in gorgeous ballad “The Song Is Familiar,” a defense against spirit-killing hedonism in “Better By The Pound” (“Feeling good is the bait Satan uses to fish for you and me”), and the manipulative exchange between groupie and doorman in “No Head No Backstage Pass.” It’s an unsettling vibe to the last of the truly heavy Funkadelic records, a facet that would fall away once they hit Warner Bros. and started transmogrifying into a Parliament without horns.