Why indeed.

I feel like a lot of people - OKPs included treat Sly & the Family Stone's "Stand!" the same way they treat anything Marvin Gaye recorded before 1970 (which includes, mind you, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "How Sweet it Is", and "I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE", among others) - it's tolerated rather than revered, and pushed aside for discussion about what they _really_ wanna talk about.

While this is often excused with Gaye's stuff with lines about "well, he didn't write it" (oh, and Marvin wrote "What's Going On"?), "he didn't have creative control" (the only one I'll allow), etc. None of those excuses work with Sly & the Family Stone.

I think part of it is a general lack of taste for anything too "rock" sounding, and everything the Family Stone did pre-"Riot" was heavily rock influenced. There's also the unstated idea of praising an auteur over an ensemble - the pre-"Riot" Family Stone albums were actually _Family Stone_ albums, and that they turned out as good as they did depended upon a group effort. The same can't be said of "Riot" and can be said even less about everything that followed.

Maybe it's just the cynicism of the culture that appreciates the cynicism of "Riot" over the optimism of "Stand!" I've heard it said that "Riot" is more "honest", but at the time "Stand!" was put together in late 1968/early 1969, Sly believed in every word of the ideals he sang about on that album. He _was_ that positive, happy person. It was PCP and an increasing delve into coke during the two years that separated the releases that flipped him into the cadaver that appears on later releases. Not that hearing a man who sounds near suicide or overdose can't be fascinating - because on "Riot" and a good bit of "Fresh", it is - but why praise it so much over actual intended achievement?

In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to point out some things:
1. I do own all of the Sly & the Family Stone albums - including original vinyl copies of "Dance to the Music", "Stand!", "Riot", and "Small Talk".

2. Unlike many of you, apparently, I came in to Sly via "I Want to Take You Higher" and "Sing a Simple Song". I never cared much for "Family Affair".

3.The first Family Stone album I heard all the way through was "Stand!", then "Riot", then "Dance", "Life", "Fresh", "A Whole New Thing", "Small Talk". The other stuff I've heard at various times after hearing "Dance".

4. I've read two, going on three, books on Sly & the Family Stone, and I realize reading the history of the band makes me look upon "Riot" and the other post-PCP albums differently than someone who only knows the music alone.

5. I'm a fan of Sly & the Family Stone, not just Sly. I like Freddy, Larry, Rose, Cynthia, Jerry, Gregg, and Little Sister too.

That jam is just incredibly dull and lasts way too long. Of course, there are lots of 60's albums I dig that are only 20 minutes and some change (late 60's Beach Boys anyone?) but in this case, the record just feels too short/uncomplete since there's more than ten minutes I don't care for; the rest of the album is GREAT though and I think the songs are better than on "Riot".

On "Riot", I like every second on the album and I also feel that the sound with the interplay between the various instrument is totally unique and awesome-"Stand!" is straighter which doesn't necessarily make it worse but it doesn't feel as "special" in its approach to rhythmic interplay.

>That jam is just incredibly dull and lasts way too long. Of
>course, there are lots of 60's albums I dig that are only 20
>minutes and some change (late 60's Beach Boys anyone?) but in
>this case, the record just feels too short/uncomplete since
>there's more than ten minutes I don't care for; the rest of
>the album is GREAT though and I think the songs are better
>than on "Riot".
>

~Austin

I feel the same way about the latter half of "Africa Talks to You". I don't feel that way at all about "Sex Machine".

There's nothing wrong with that.

Just don't act like there's something wrong with the inverse.

~Austin

different standards and reaction.

in Marvin's case he went and changed his personna, the 60's him was slick and trying to appeal,his 70's flip had edge and the subject matter went 180 from the motown machine.

Sly went from the universal peacock love theme, to a darker haunting place that said it is scary out here.

folks get into this oh you being serious mind set as if the early hits were push over? double standards at work,

I got Stand, Fresh, and Riot though.

I didn't really know there was a characterization of 'Riot' being superior amongst the kind people here. Makes sense though. They were going for a more 'heavy funk' sound. Stand is more 'produced' with more attention paid to the details. Riot gets pretty sloppy at times....but it's also more spontaneous.

minus one (1) extended jam session. i forget the name of it.

i'm not saying that answers your question...
but that is why i didn't keep that album, though.

there's way too much overlap between that album the greatest hits
compilation.

(which also, when you think about it, proves how incredible "stand" was,
as an album.)

>Maybe it's just the cynicism of the culture that appreciates
>the cynicism of "Riot" over the optimism of "Stand!" I've
>heard it said that "Riot" is more "honest", but at the time
>"Stand!" was put together in late 1968/early 1969, Sly
>believed in every word of the ideals he sang about on that
>album. He _was_ that positive, happy person. It was PCP and an
>increasing delve into coke during the two years that separated
>the releases that flipped him into the cadaver that appears on
>later releases. Not that hearing a man who sounds near suicide
>or overdose can't be fascinating - because on "Riot" and a
>good bit of "Fresh", it is - but why praise it so much over
>actual intended achievement?
>



the idealism contrasted with the cynicism is what makes
both the early stuff and the "riot..." album
so amazing to play back to back.

esp the people around here can get more in line with the cynicism/scartsic nature of Riot than the pure hippy lovey dovey the world can be save by us view of Stand.

I mean look at the world Riot won one of the albums that blew the 60's of peace and love out and brought in the 70's

and melodramatic backstory attached to them

which is why for years folks round here argued that Marvin's best album was Here, My Dear.

smh

>and melodramatic backstory attached to them
>
>which is why for years folks round here argued that Marvin's
>best album was Here, My Dear.
>
>smh


plenty of albums have lyrics about love gone sour.
how many contain lines as brilliant as...
"somebody tell me please/
why do i have to pay attorney fees."


not saying the backstory doesn't help the albums
mystique... but it's his weirdest album.

>which is why for years folks round here argued that Marvin's
>best album was Here, My Dear.

I never thought anyone called that one the "best".
An underrated album in the catalog, a favorite... but the best?

that sounds kinda funny. Even Marvin himself would have been like "WTF"?

(BTW, it is one of my favorites... but that's funny)

right?

>

maybe more beautiful than whats going on.

>maybe more beautiful than whats going on.
>
>

I just don't see how anybody would call it his best.

(I do think I Want You is in the running for best, though... Trouble Man is another one the Lesson fawns over, and again it is very strange and interesting. But come on.)

one of the best (broken) love songs ever imo.

no wonder he repeated it three times on the album lol.

Here My Dear is definitely *one of* his best. But he's got so many albums that are so good for completely different reasons, I honestly don't think I could say what my favorite is. But I don't think I've ever had a moment where I thought Here My Dear was his solitary best work. I like it a lot, but I go back to I Want You and Let's Get it On way more. So, *shrug*

More sideposting: what is the general consensus on In my Lifetime? Do people like that album? Is it underrated? Is it boring? I happen to like it, even though I realize it's far from his most enduring or consistent work.

Anyone else?

~Austin

it's better than midnight love, so there's that.

Now *there's* an overrated album.

I really only like 'Turn on Some Music.' The rest of the album is completely useless for me.

~Austin

seemed too "weird" and minimal for Marvin.
like people get on Stevie's '80s stuff being "cold" and "electronic", but that album really felt like that to me.

Midnight Love or Lifetime?

~Austin

not In My Lifetime?, lol... that was the last "Marvin"-sounding album

I thought that's what you meant. But if you were talking about Lifetime, I was going to ask if you could expound a little.

~Austin

>More sideposting: what is the general consensus on In my
>Lifetime? Do people like that album? Is it underrated? Is
>it boring? I happen to like it, even though I realize it's
>far from his most enduring or consistent work.
>


it got think it got pretty mixed/ lousy reviews when it was out.
the critics look at it in a slightly better light now...
but it's like last on the list.

personally, though... i love it.

>>More sideposting: what is the general consensus on In my
>>Lifetime? Do people like that album? Is it underrated? Is
>>it boring? I happen to like it, even though I realize it's
>>far from his most enduring or consistent work.
>>
>
>
>it got think it got pretty mixed/ lousy reviews when it was
>out.
>the critics look at it in a slightly better light now...
>but it's like last on the list.
>
>personally, though... i love it.

"Funk Me" alone is worth the price of admission.
That it was released as it was intended, title and all recently, is a wonderful thing. It still sounds more like a 1979 album than a 1981 one.

Previous to that, I'd heard the greatest hits. Stand! is also one of
my favorite Sly songs. However, Stand! isn't my favorite Sly album,
and it has nothing to do with any of the reasons you mentioned.
As I stated in that other post, I prefer A Whole New Thing and Life
to Stand! Why, you ask? Because those are his more "experimental" records
and that's what Sly really wanted to do.


After Sly dropped A Whole New Thing, his label told him he was too left.
So he said, "aight, I got something for that ass" and came back with
Dance To The Music. Now this song was catchy and radio friendly yet
still defied conventions.. something Sly loved doing, musically. So he
gave them what they wanted and also got to do what he wanted.

Now, riding on the commercial success of DTTM, he went back left with
Life. We open with one of my favorite Sly joints in Dynamite.
Experimental, rock-ish yet funky... But very LEFT, especially for an
R&B artist. One of my favorite Sly songs though.. the shit just HITS me.
There's also stuff here like "I'm An Animal", "Chicken", "Jane Is A
Groupie", "Into My Own Thing" etc.
This album is very similar to A Whole New Thing in its out-of-the-box
stylings. I love it when Sly takes it there, but this album didn't
do the numbers. Again, he was being too experimental for radio.

So, fuck it, back to doing it for the people... and we have Stand!
The amazing thing about Sly is he was so musically gifted that he could
make hits whenever he felt like it. You want big hits? Aight. It's
nothing.

Then drugs take over and he's scrapping songs left and right, just
completely in his own zone, Larry bounces but Sly was probably too high
to notice. We get TARGO, which sounds like it came from Sly's subconscious
mind. Listening to this album is like hearing what goes on in Sly's
head. Personally, that's why I enjoy it so much. I get more from
that album that I would get from a personal journal of his. Fuck what
you heard, Spaced Cowboy is BASED music from the 70's.

But without going on forever, that's the short version of why I prefer
AWNT, Life, and TARGO over Stand! As I stated before, I love Stand!,
but I just love the others more.

i consistently see both albums receive 5 star reviews.

yeah, ppl talk about Riot as the superior album.

but it's like, if Riot is a 10, Stand is a 9.5. or a 9.75.

chill.

some ppl like one album a little more than the other. you feel the opposite.

cool.

but don't create this false problem.

They talk about it like it's nothing or disregard it entirely.

I have never seen it. I've seen both albums receive 5 star reviews. Riot usually gets a slight edge.

I give Riot the edge bc I like Funk more than Soul. So, I prefer "Just Like A Baby" over "Somebody's Watching You", for example. But this hair splitting. Both albums are stellar. Most reviewers agree.

no, guy.

i'm talking about professional reviewers, for the most part.

back when i was researching Sly before i had bought most of his albums, i read several reviews of both of these albums. every single review i read gave both albums 4 or 5 stars. after i'd read enough i decided to start w/these 2 albums. but then i saw that the Anthology album had all of the Stand! tracks except 'Sex Machine' and 'Somebody's Watching You', while only 'Family Affair', 'Smilin', 'Thank You', and 'Runnin Away' from Riot were included. so i went w/Anthology and Riot, skipping Stand for the time being. i knew that w/those 2 purchases i'd have what those in the know agreed was the best of Sly's middle period.

anyway, i have not noticed ppl shitting on Stand in favor of Riot as you say you have. again, outside of a few contrarian OKPs, whose opinions are easily dismissed.

backstory and mythology attached to it. plus the backstory is a more tragic one. whereas stands one is more triumphant. most people like the former. riot is more funk, darker, and without the happy vibe of the 60s/family stone. stand is much more upbeat, and celebratory, so if you dont like too much smiling in your music, it prob wont be for you. riot is seen as the more 'serious' album. where sly didnt care about commercial considerations, or how people would take it. its his 'depressed' album (even tho i dont think it sounds like hes depressed, or at least it doesnt make me sad). its also his drunken rambling album (i think he purposely wanted to sound drunk), and you know how critics and fans love shit like that.

"stand", "somebody's watching you","don't call me nigger, whitey" are like statements/messages that I can't imagine anyone really groovin' to on their ipod. "Sex machine" isn't that good either. So that really just leaves "sing a simple song" and "you can make it if you try" and maybe "everyday people" as having some really musical impact.

Most of the songs on "riot" have a musical impact. So the message (as messed up as it is on "riot") didn't get in the way of the music being impressive.

>"don't call me nigger, whitey"
>"Sex machine"

*side eye*

"luv n haight" why would anyone want to go back to a simple straight-foward song like "stand"?

I think it's actually more sophisticated than "Luv n' Haight"

"stand" is eh, whatever the deceptive good qualities.

"stand" (the song) is little more than a feel good statement.

>"stand" (the song) is little more than a feel good statement.

on it being a "feel good statement" and not on any musical quality at all.

Nukka is onto something about the strange attraction people have to cynicism.

I think it is much more courageous and challenging to be positive in a fucked-up world than it is to wallow in negativity, and I tend to gravitate towards music that embraces that.

I guess it comes down to a difference in mentality more than musical taste, really. *shrug*

that's a musical basis there.

It's direct and it makes its point without noodling and rambling and meandering all over the place?

Well, I think that's actually an admirable quality, though others mileage may differ.

As for it being "simple"... "Stand" is actually more harmonically sophisticated than "Luv N Haight," and it's got some cool rhythmic shifts too. The "funky" part of "Stand" goes harder than "Luv N Haight," and if you don't realize how innovative it was to switch genres that way *in the middle of the same song* you need to take a better look at what was standard at the time that song was recorded.

Let's not even get to the poetry of the lyrics...

Of course... preferences are preferences. You prefer "Lub N Haight" to "Stand." Nothing wrong with that. But I think your dismissal of "Stand" is unfair and pretty wrongheaded too.

it seems in 1968, in the midst of a social revolution lots of ppl in the Family Stone audience believed they were on the verge of a new awakening. a dawning of the age of aquarius and shit. and the album represented that belief.

by late 1971, many members of that audience no longer held those beliefs so closely. King was dead. rioting had destroyed inner cities. Hendrix and Joplin were dead. the Vietnam War had escalated. Nixon was in office. the dream had died. Riot reflects the sort of burn out i've read was running rampant among the folks who'd previously been flower children. they were lost and confused and in a funk.

why do we gravitate to the darker, moodier record? b/c we don't believe that 'a simple song might make it better'. we know it didn't. we know that 'the yellow one' still won't accept 'the black one' for living with 'the skinny one' trying to be the 'poor one' and whatnot. we know ppl are still fucked the fuck up and not everyone makes it 'even if they try'. sorry. we've seen too much to put much stock in Pollyanna fantasies about the power of positive thinking. or in the power of positive thought alone. we've seen Reaganism destroy our world. we've seen crack ravage our communities. and on and on. we're too far gone from that hippy-dippy 60s stuff to go back now.

so while those Stand! songs are awesome, they don't hit home like the Riot songs.

or, we could just blame hip-hop.

yeah, let's do that instead.

>or, we could just blame hip-hop.
>
>yeah, let's do that instead.

lol

both albums have been sampled extensively. Stand! maybe a little more. but Riot's spirit is closer to hip-hop than Stand!'s.

...in that both are two-part songs where a more song-like part is followed by a hard funk-coda. Of course, the verses in "Luv..." are much funkier than the poppy ones in "Stand" but the "chorus" is quite melodic and poppy too. Anyway, I think you overstate the difference a bit; they obviously sond different but they are both killer tunes...

That's an interesting perspective.

i thought the same thing after being in this post and having listened to both songs.

>Anyway, I think you overstate the difference a bit; they obviously sound different but they are both killer tunes...

Luv N Haight is one of the most advanced funk songs ever. Stand is a simple pop song. Stand has a funky coda/ending but that doesn't make it a two part song. Lot's of 60's/70's songs had a different sounding endings than the rest of the song - just a flourish or whatever. Doesn't make them 2 part songs.

The ending of "Luv n haight" shares the same music as earlier parts of "Luv n haight" so the ending isn't a complete new thing like the ending of "Stand" is completely new to "stand". So I wouldn't say "Luv n haight" is a two part song either.

>Luv N Haight is one of the most advanced funk songs ever.
>Stand is a simple pop song.

A simple pop-song would not change like that.

>Stand has a funky coda/ending but
>that doesn't make it a two part song. Lot's of 60's/70's songs
>had a different sounding endings than the rest of the song -
>just a flourish or whatever. Doesn't make them 2 part songs.

It's not a flourish-it lasts quite some time and has a VERY different sound and rhythm. And yes, a couple of 60's songs have radically different sections and if they have two, I would call them two part songs. Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" is a multi-part song.

>The ending of "Luv n haight" shares the same music as earlier
>parts of "Luv n haight" so the ending isn't a complete new
>thing like the ending of "Stand" is completely new to "stand".
>So I wouldn't say "Luv n haight" is a two part song either.

I think it is. You are right that some elements havce appeared earlier. However, the overall infrastructure of the song clearly changes from a verse-chorus song to a reptitive chant over intense music. I have no problem calling it a two-part song...

Surprised noone has mentioned this but the verses of Stand are pretty deceptively composed too.

You got 4 bars of 4 than a bar of 2
Leads to six bars of 4
Then repeats.

It's not the Rites of Spring but I definitely wouldn't call it simple. The key changes are not typical either and help emphasize the oddity of the structure. It still flows naturally too, even though it's out-of-the-ordinary. Still hummable...It's a well-written song.

Especially Don't Call Me Nigger Whitey. And I love Sex Machine. It's the most Riot-like song on the album.

>And I love Sex Machine. It's the most Riot-like song on the album.

Riot has stellar songs like "luv n haight", "you caught me smilin'" "Time" and "Spaced Cowboy", those impressive songs are way more musically impressive than "sex machine"

"just like a baby" and "thank you for talkin' to me Africa" might be slow and repetitive but they're better than "sex machine".

"sex machine" is left far in the dust.

for the record, i love both songs. i give both 5 stars in iTunes.

that being said, both of them can be tedious. i'm likely to skip either of them, depending on my mood.

There's more contrast and movement in the song IMO... the little riff they go into in the end is SO dope...

sometimes i listen to the beginning of the song, w/the lyrics, and then skip to the end for that release.

They *hint* at the riff many times during the (admittedly very) repetitive mid-section and when it finally arrives, it's like "Fuck yeah!". I don't know, maybe he could have cut out a couple of the "TIMBEEER"-repetitions and made a more effective song but maybe then the release wouldn't have been as strong...

i just don't feel like sitting through 8+ minutes of that all the time.

stand is a great album, but its like purple rain, thriller etc, an album made of superhumanly good singles that all stand alone, stand might be from 68 but its one of those albums made only by perfectionists so you can tell a lot of time has been spent making sure the positioning of each and every note has been carefully decided. genius really. but it makes it hard for me to listen to seamlessly like i can with riot. plus riot has a certain mood that runs right through it.

'Everyday Ppl' eclipses every other song on both albums, i think.

but Riot is more consistent overall.

again, this is hair-splitting, imo. both albums are stellar.

Riot = 10
Stand! = 9.75

i think thats what makes the stand outs stand out that much more

theyve all got that pop energy and brightness about them

riot is more subdued and drunken and withdrawn even when its funky and sort of up/midtempo

the intro to 'Just Like a Baby' is some low-down, dirty shit. just about all of 'Africa Talks To You'. motherfucking 'Thank You For Talkin To Me Africa' is gutter music. 'Spaced Cowboy' is so low it's frightening. it sounds like a k-hole or an acid hallucination or a heroin nod. 'Time' sounds like the bottom of a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 mixed w/Oxy-Contin.

who else could make albums this different in tone? Prince? Miles? MARVIN, that's who. LOL but, i digress.

but since i learned he was involved w/this album i've assumed he had something to do w/it.

i really, really wish i could find out definitively who played what on this album.

im sure he talks about sly and riot in that book.

but he doesn't remember what songs he played on. Nobody does lol.

Apparently, Larry is on the album too.

EDIT: Actually, I think Larry did play on it but Sly might have erased all his parts.

i read he's on one song.

Greg too.

That bass sounds a lot like his "voice" too.

Just Like A Baby is 100% Sly and Bobby. You can hear Bobby's rasp if you listen real close.

I'm pretty sure that's Bobby on guitar as well. The bluesy licks sound a lot closer to his Communication-era stuff than any of Sly's playing (or Freddie's, for that matter).

Just an unbelievable song all round. I swear, the way their voices blend sends chills down my spine every time.

>Just Like A Baby is 100% Sly and Bobby. You can hear Bobby's
>rasp if you listen real close.

but I didn't want to make a wrong assumption!

It's dreary & monotonous. I know monotony is an aspect of funk, but this is just like damn, can we get some kind of change after 6 minutes?

Nah, give me the Sly that was all about doing coke & having interracial orgies.

I think okayplayer prefers boring music in general though.

I felt the same way about Riot for the longest time... The only tracks I could relate to the first time I heard the album was "Family Affair" and "You Caught Me Smilin"

It grew on me, though. And I love it. But it IS a mess of monotony and "boredom"... maybe purposefully so.

>I think okayplayer prefers boring music in general though.

Yeah, I think OKP tends towards "soundscapes"... Music that is more about texture than melody and harmony, where the background functions as the foreground.

Sort of like the musical equivalent of a Terrence Malick film.

>Yeah, I think OKP tends towards "soundscapes"... Music that is
>more about texture than melody and harmony, where the
>background functions as the foreground.
>
>Sort of like the musical equivalent of a Terrence Malick
>film.

From Voodoo to Frank Ocean, OKP has always gone for more "groove-based" music. You can sit back & groove to it, but it's usually not anything that will jump out & grab you & create a euphoric atmosphere. At least to me.

I've just come to terms that I don't get it... I want music that has a face and a personality more than stuff that lies in the background and creates a "vibe."

*looks at The Weeknd*

>Yeah, I think OKP tends towards "soundscapes"... Music that is
>more about texture than melody and harmony, where the
>background functions as the foreground.

witness all the love for stone rollin'.

i really disagree with anyone who thinks riot doesnt have songs though. the mood is so strong that it just makes it seem like thats all that album has.

it's just that they're looser and less focused.

And they're also overwhelmed by the production, which puts it right up our alley.

serious question.

i gained a new understanding of Riot once i was able to relate it to my own personal experiences w/certain substances.

'I feel so good inside myself I don't want to move'
'I feel so good I cannot move'
'I feel so good inside myself I don't need to move'
'As I grow up, I'm goin down/And when I'm lost, I know I'll still be found'

'Must be a rush for you to see a lazy/A brain he meant to be/Cop out?/He's crazy!'

'Hangin loose, cuz you ain't used to seein' me turnin on!'

...and on and on.

throughout the album, Sly speaks directly to the hardcore drug experience. the sort of thoughts that run through one's mind when really fucked up on the hard shit. the paranoia, both inward and outward. noticing ppl's reactions to the drug stupor and caring...but not caring. the indecisiveness (cannot move/want to move/don't need to move). the outright pleasure of it all.

it's intense. he nailed it.

it made me love the album more. i've not heard another that came so close to getting it right.

if you ever get fucked up on some hardcore shit, put Riot on a day or 2 after you've come down and see if you don't hear Sly singing about your experience, or at least several pieces of it.

That probably explains a lot of things.

...but not in the horisontal sense but rather in the vertical way and in a layered fashion that's more about shifting soundfields than section A followed by section B etc. However, with the exception of "Thank you", and maybe something else, it never felt static to me. It's actually a bit similar4 to electric Miles (who I *don't* like very much) but just done better and with more focus...

all 9 songs on Stand! have 5 stars.

of the 12 songs on Riot, 10 have 5 stars. the title track (LOL) and 'Time' have 4 stars.

but i still rate the Riot album higher.

when they did the remasters?

i cant be the only one.

so i appreciate having a copy that sounds a bit cleaner b/c i'd always wanted to hear the album that way. and they didn't clean up the thing entirely. that'd be impossible.

lol

when i want to hear the album in its originally low-lo-fi version i reach for the 1971 vinyl copy.

the cd is more convenient but i like the old lp best

but that album is not meant to be cleaned up

its meant to be murky

and w/the bass turned way the hell up.

I had more of a feeling, derived from others as much as myself, that those two were on par in terms of quality but flip sides of the same coin - sly's peak in the early sound, then a profound but equally moving reinvention. If anything, more significant to me that certain other albums tend to be overlooked in favor of those two, e.g. Life and Small Talk, though it's surely debatable which Sly albums are actually the most underrated.

small talk

and fresh

(ive not heard anything much came after that, apart from the duet with jesse johnson)

fresh is usually rated after riot, like sly was trying to show he was happy again after riot but still used that same sort of setup

small talk is basically fresh pt 2, but with lots of strings and almost countrified horn parts

i always wrote small talk off but i was wrong - the strings actually give slys sound something new i think - i would have loved to have heard him do more in that direction, something more acoustic, more new orleans-influenced maybe

whole new thing is actually better than stand btw

underdog could be the best lyric sly ever wrote in fact

and let me hear it from you is just immense - osmium wouldnt exist without whole new thing (and sly did playful/weird without being over quirky like george sometimes did)

I used to view Riot as "the end" and everything (apart from "If You Want Me to Stay" "Let Me Have It All" and a few other cuts) as a less insignificant epilogue.

But they are both very great albums... just out of step with their times in some way.

it's cool, but not on the same level as Riot and Stand!

i agree, Fresh sounds like Sly was trying to lighten up a bit after Riot, but that darkness still peeks through. oh, and i think 'In Time' is the funkiest song i've ever heard. bar none.

no way is Whole New Thing better than Stand. Stand has 'Everyday Ppl' and WNT doesn't. lol that alone is enough.

It's often viewed as the tentative blueprint to "Stand!" but it's just SO fun and rocking with one short e4nergetic song after the next. Also, "Into my own thing" "invented" Funkadelic's early style IMO.

"A whole new thing" is really underrated too IMO and so is "Small Talk"; "Fresh" usually gets props IMO.

Anyway, I love all those records with the exception of "Dance to the music" where they leaned a bit too heavy on the title-track and put too many soundalikes on it. Still, some bangers on that one too ("Are you ready", "Donä't burn baby")...

And I never understood why people don't rate it equal to Riot. When you see Best Of.....lists. Riot always appears higher than Stand although Stand is the tighter album of the two and definitely is one of those albums that doesn't sound like it could be sequenced any way different from the album.

Also, Riot's greatness relies partly on the sound Sly and the Fam had perfected by the time they created Stand. You can tell just by listening to Stand that a lot of that optimism was truly genuine. Riot's murky and defeated tone couldn't even exist without Sly falling off that horse of idealism and optimism.

What Riot has in its favor that everyone seems to love is that it never feels like a collection of songs but rather a complete statement on post-hippie, Vietnam Era America. Add to that, the influence of drugs on the band's creative process feels like an actual member of the band.....almost as if whatever good conscience Sly had circa-Stand was muffled by his bad side. Again, a lot of that comes through only because there was so much positivity in the music that came before it.

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>over all of them.