He wrote a track about the universal desire to leave a dead-end town in search of something electric. The lyrics are famously simple: "Gotta make a move to a town that's right for me / Town to keep me movin', keep me groovin' with some energy."
To one generation, is the 1980 disco-funk anthem by Lipps Inc.—a synth-driven dream about escaping a boring existence for a city of lights, rhythm, and groove. To another, specifically those navigating the darker corners of Reddit, Twitter, or shock sites, the word triggers something visceral and horrifying: a reference to a graphic cartel execution video. Funkytown
How did one word come to represent both carefree Saturday night nostalgia and absolute human depravity? This is the long, strange journey of Part 1: The Birth of the Groove (1979) Our story begins in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the winter of 1979. Disco is dying in New York, but in the Midwest, a session musician named Steven Greenberg is tinkering in a studio with a Moog synthesizer. Greenberg wasn't a frontman; he was a producer and songwriter looking for a hit. He wrote a track about the universal desire
When Steven Greenberg sat at his Moog synthesizer in 1979, he wanted to write a song about movement, progress, and joy. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. He just never could have predicted that forty years later, the internet would build a second Funkytown right next door. How did one word come to represent both
So, the next time someone says, "Let’s go to Funkytown," you have two choices. You can lace up your roller skates. Or you can close the browser and walk away.