Artist – Album: Sly & the Family Stone – Stand!
Released: 3rd
May 1969
Sounds Like: What’chu talkin’ ‘bout, Sly?
Having grown up in England in the 90’s/00’s, there’s a whole
raft of cheesy American family-orientated sitcoms that I know next to nothing
about. Sure, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air continued the legacy of blatantly obvious
jokes and riotous canned laughter, woops and uh-ohs right up to the end of the millennium
(should that be willennium?), and unfortunately I couldn’t avoid the repeats of
Married With Children that my Dad enjoyed inflicting upon us, but these were
just the tip of the cosy and mostly unfunny iceberg.
One of the best loved was Diff’rent Strokes, the show that
made a star out of Gary Coleman and was apparently quite funny (or so I’m told
by countdowns like Channel 4’s Greatest Comedies Ever and E! Entertainments Greatest
Child Stars – Where Are They Now?). Anyway, the point of this totally overly
lengthy introduction is that that show has connections with this album – the
brilliantly harmonious pop of ‘Everyday
People’ introduced the phrase “different strokes for different folks” to
the world at large. Throughout the album the group tackles issues such as
racism and prejudice (notably in the aforementioned ‘Everyday People’, the title track ‘Stand!’ and on the no holds barred ‘Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey’) with the same basic but incontestable
logic of one of the shows ‘very special episodes’. Finally, in the stirring
funk of ‘I Want to Take You Higher’ the
high pitched contributions from the band remind me of little Arnold and Willis –
of “What’chu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis” fame.
Funky and uplifting, this album is a great introduction to
Sly & the Family Stone’s sound before delving deeper into their more
rewarding but dark and paranoid later works. ‘Sex Machine’ is a pointless long jam, and to be honest, ‘Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey’ is
rubbish, but the rest – those that I’ve mentioned plus ‘Sing a Simple Song’ and ‘You
Can Make It If You Try’ – are absolute gems.
Albumaday... rating: 7/10
1. Stand!
– 3:08
2. Don’t
Call Me Nigger, Whitey – 5:58
3. I
Want to Take You Higher – 5:22
4. Somebody’s
Watching You – 3:20
5. Sing
a Simple Song – 3:56
6. Everyday
People – 2:21
7. Sex
Machine – 13:45
8. You
Can Make It If You Try – 3:37
Listen to ‘I Want to
Take You Higher’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDjnB_61k58
Also released on the 3rd May:
2005: The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday
|
Also released on the 3rd May:
2011: Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
|
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