SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE

SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE
THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON (1971)
REMASTER
320 KBPS

The hazy hints of dystopia from Sly and the Family Stone's fabulously successful 1969 hit album Stand! turned full-force on its follow-up, There's a Riot Goin' On. By 1971, Sly had his Hollywood mansion and legions of droppers-by laying down parts of Riot, many of them later overdubbed by Sly himself. The resulting album is entrancing, backed often by an austere, early drum machine and featuring dope-glazed vocals, paranoid shadows and, of course, a stewing funk groove. Horns are here, thinned out so they jab harder, and the keyboards gleam and shimmer and icily coat the beats, which sound in today's parlance simply lo-fi. And the beats, they've slowed menacingly, with voices dropping in, dropping out. Drugs were flowing freely by this point, complicating Sly's sound, inadvertently making an album that indelibly matches its maker's psyche-in-time.

1. Luv N' Haight
2. Just Like a Baby
3. Poet
4. Family Affair
5. Africa Talks to You "The Asphalt Jungle"
6. There's a Riot Goin' On
7. Brave & Strong
8. (You Caught Me) Smilin'
9. Time
10. Spaced Cowboy
11. Runnin' Away
12. Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa
Bonus Tracks
13. Runnin' Away [Single Version]
14. My Gorilla Is My Butler [Instrumental]
15. Do You Know What? [Instrumental]
16. That's Pretty Clean [Instrumental]