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.