Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Funk Classic, 9 Jun 2007
What you are getting here is an absolute classic FUNK album. While Sly had been embraced by the Rock mainstream earlier on in his career, with Riot, Sly dipped into the reality of the experience of Black America, and told it like it was.
And it wasn't easy listening - this was and is an album that you may not get first time around. This is a fuzzy, sleazy, chunk of Funk, with none of the optimism of, say, "Dance To The Music", but it captures the drug fuelled spirit of the times.
"Family Affair" is probably Slys' finest, with its ambiguous lyric, but there are others here which stand comparison such as "Just Like a Baby" "Running Away" and "Brave & Strong". It is as a whole that this album desrves to be heard however, and it is as a whole that it claims its place as one of the best Funk albums of all
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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thank Ya Sly (Fallentin Me Hear That Fonky Music Agin), 29 Mar 2007
In 1969, Sly & the Family Stone finally received the kind of huge commercial success that their talent richly deserved. The innovative "Stand!" LP made the US # 13. That year, they also enjoyed three big single hits whilst their show stopping performance at Woodstock was a highlight on the subsequent 3-LP set and movie releases.
After this, Sly Stone relocated to Los Angeles and - for whatever reasons - fell into serious substance abuse, becoming a virtual recluse in the process. He finally emerged out of two years worth of marathon recording sessions to deliver "There's a Riot Goin' On."
This new album is so different from "Stand!" that it sounds like the former is the dark side to the latter.
This time around, Sly Stone handles more of the lead vocals, uses more of his own overdubs and uses the help of uncredited guests such as Bobby Womack and, reportedly, Billy Preston.
While the album retains many of the Family Stone musical trademarks, there are now only flashes - rather than whole tracks - of great melody. The album is mainly anchored on pure, often slow, and skeletal but essential grooves. "Just Like a Baby" is the only track where the melody dominates. "A Family Affair", also a # 1 pop hit single, features gritty vocals from Sly, only sweetened by Rosie Stone's plaintive background vocals.
At first listening, Sly Stone's fractured, foggy and desultory vocals on most of the tracks come as a shock. At its extreme, on the dirge-like "Thank You For Talkin' To Me Africa", a half tempo, bluesier, rougher remake of the "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" hit single, the music gets downright frightening.
The sombre, decidedly "downer" feel that pervades the lyrics is another departure from the past. Sly's words come across to me as autobiographical, providing a glimpse of his concerns at the time. I cannot help feeling that the riot and all its accompanying turmoil actually happened mostly in Sly's head.
Any way I look at them, Sly's perspectives looked bleak indeed. The main sentiments evoked being of isolation ("Feel so good inside/Don't need to move"), alienation ("You can't leave, 'cause / Your heart is here / But you can't stay, 'cause / You been somewhere else"), pain ("You caught me smilin' - again, / In my pain, I'll be the same / To take your hand") and "Making blues / Of day and night", fear "("Know where you're walking / Know who you're talking to"), paranoia ("Lookin' at the devil / Grinning at his gun / Fingers start shakin' / I begin to run.") "Running away" gives the impression that Sly Stone was well aware of his mental (and physical) condition ("Look at you fooling you! / Another day / You're farther away") but was unable - or unwilling - to change it.
The album itself made the top of the LP pop charts in November 1971. This was very fortunate for a record sounding so radically different from what went on before.
I recall that, after the LP came out, it took me quite a while to really get to grips with all of the tracks. However, this album was a grower if ever there was one. With hindsight, it has proved so influential on the course of post 60's music that it simply seems impossible to imagine that this work of genius might actually never have been finished nor released in the first place.
On high-resolution equipment, the remastered sound is an audible improvement over that of the old European CD release, offering greater resolution (although, in all fairness, "audiophile values" were obviously not a major concern during the recording process.)
The mandatory "bonus" tracks are there but I could dispense with them. An alternate version of "There's a Riot Goin' on" (at the same running time of 0:00) would have been more in line with Sly Stone's 1971 ironic stance.)
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You'll come to love this masterpiece...., 19 Sep 2007
...but like any work of original art, you need to put time in to learn to appreciate it. Once you've accustomed yourself to the very different approach Sly and Co are taking here, you'll be in for a treat. 'Family Affair' may be the best known and most commercial track on here, but everything will repay your attention. Some of the most compelling grooves ever laid down on tape....before too long, you'll find yourself surrendering to them.
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~ Sly & The Family Stone
~ Sly & The Family Stone
~ Sly & The Family Stone
~ Sly & The Family Stone
~ Sly & The Family Stone
![There's a Riot Goin' On [VINYL]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OTFUxufxL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
