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.

---------------------------------------


---------------------------------------