There's a Riot Goin' On
There's a Riot Goin' On | ||||
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The Record Plant (Sausalito) | ||||
Genre | ||||
Length | 47:33 | |||
Label | Epic | |||
Producer | Sly Stone | |||
Sly and the Family Stone chronology | ||||
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Alternative cover | ||||
Singles from There's a Riot Goin' On | ||||
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There's a Riot Goin' On is the fifth
With the album, Sly and the Family Stone departed from the optimistic sound of their previous music and explored a darker, more challenging sound featuring edgy
A commercial success, There's a Riot Goin' On topped the
In 1999, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[14]
Background
Having achieved great success with their 1969 album
Epic executives requested more product from the band,
By 1970, Stone had become erratic and moody, missing nearly a third of the band's concert dates.[22][23] He hired streetwise friends Hamp "Bubba" Banks and J.B. Brown as his personal managers, and they enlisted gangsters Edward "Eddie Chin" Elliott and Mafioso J.R. Valtrano as his bodyguards. Stone assigned these individuals to handle his business dealings, find drugs and protect him from those he considered enemies, among them his own bandmates and staff.[24] A rift developed between Sly and the rest of the band, which led to drummer Gregg Errico's departure in early 1971.[25] Speculation arose as to the release of new studio material. In a December 24, 1970 article for Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Jon Landau wrote:
The man from Epic tells me that Sly hasn't recorded much lately. His last album of new material was released well over a year ago and even 'Thank You', his last single, is old by now. Greatest Hits was released only as a last resort in order to get something salable into the record stores. It was a necessary release and stands as the final record of the first chapter in Sly & the Family Stone's career. Whatever the reasons for his recording abstinence, I hope it ends soon so that he can get back to making new music and we can get back to listening to it.[26]
Stone's intention of a darker, more conceptual work was influenced by drug use and the events that writer Miles Marshall Lewis called "the death of the Sixties"; political assassinations, police brutality, the decline of the civil rights movement and social disillusionment.[27] According to The Austin Chronicle, "slowed down, [Sly's] quest for post-stardom identity mirrored black America's quest for post-Sixties purpose."[28]
Recording and production
Sly Stone mostly worked on There's a Riot Goin' On alone in a studio that he had built for himself at
Other band members contributed by overdubbing alone with Sly instead of playing together as before. For "Family Affair" and some other tracks Stone enlisted several other musicians including Billy Preston, Ike Turner, and Bobby Womack instead of his bandmates, and several female vocalists mostly omitted from the final mix. The album's muddy, gritty sound was due in part to this overdubbing and erasing and mixing techniques nearly drowned out undubbed sounds. Miles Marshall Lewis stated, "Never before on a Sly and the Family Stone album were songs open to so much interpretation, and even more so, dripping with cynicism. On the other hand you can hardly hear what he's saying for most of the album. Like Radiohead's Kid A (2000) or even the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. (1972) more recent to the time, a murkiness in the mix of the record inhibits complete comprehension of the words."[29]
In the fall of 1971 Stone delivered the final mixes to the CBS Records offices, relieving the worried Davis.[31] CBS issued "Family Affair" as the first single, the band's first in nearly two years.[31] A somber, electric piano-based record sung by Sly (in a low, relaxed tone) and sister Rose Stone, it became their fourth and final number-one pop hit.[32] It is one of the earliest hit recordings to use a drum machine – a slightly earlier Sly Stone production, Little Sister's "Somebody's Watching You", was also among the first.[29]
Music and lyrics
The album departs from the optimistic psychedelic soul sound of the group's 1960s records, instead embracing a darker sound featuring filtered drum-machine tracks.[33][34] Songs such as "Luv 'n Haight", "Thank You for Talking to Me Africa", and "Spaced Cowboy" are characterized by edgier, unrelenting grooves with rhythmic sounds resembling murmuring noises.[35] Conceptually, Riot embraces apathy as a source for deriving rhythmic and emotional energy, departing from the more welcoming sentiments of songs like "Dance to the Music" (1968).[3] As The New York Times writer Jon Pareles explains, it was "about turning away from the post-1960s turbulence of the Nixon presidency and withdrawing into music as a hazy refuge", exemplified in the opening track "Luv n' Haight" and its declaration of "Feel so good inside myself, don't want to move".[36]
"Luv n' Haight" is satirically titled as a reference to the Haight-Ashbury scene, while the music and lyrics express disillusionment with the 1960s counterculture.[37][38] BBC Music's Stevie Chick cites the track, with its "desperate call-and-response set to fiercely combative lick", as an example of Riot's "dark" and "troubled" funk.[35] "Africa Talks to You" is a nine-minute funk jam written in response to the backlash Sly Stone received from estranged fans and friends, record industry associates, and the media.[39] According to biographer Eddie Santiago, the lyrics cynically portray "fame and its cold retrogression into perceived insanity", with a chorus that reflects "Sly's feelings on being cut down in his prime like a tree in the forest."[39]
The album's title track is silent and listed as zero minutes and zero seconds long. For many years it was speculated that this cryptic track listing and the title of the album referred to a July 27, 1970, riot in Chicago for which Sly & the Family Stone had been blamed. The band was to play a free show in Grant Park but the crowd became restless before the band began and started rioting. Over a hundred people were injured, including several police officers, and the reason given to the press was that the band was late and/or refused to perform.[40] The original LP jacket featured a photo collage with a picture of the band-shell in Grant Park overlaid with a photo of a police car. However, in 1997 Sly Stone said that the "There's a Riot Goin' On" track had no running time simply because "I felt there should be no riots."[41]
The closing track "Thank You for Talking to Me Africa" is a slow reworking of Sly and the Family Stone's 1969 "Thank You" single. The result is described by AllMusic's Matthew Greenwald as a blues- and gospel-influenced examination of urban tension and the end of the 1960s. He goes on to say it is "perhaps the most frightening recording from the dawn of the 1970s, capturing all of the drama, ennui, and hedonism of the decade to come with almost a clairvoyant feel."[42]
Artwork
The original cover art for Riot featured a red, white, and black
In an interview with Jonathan Dakss, Stone explained the album cover's concept, stating "I wanted the flag to truly represent people of all colors. I wanted the color black because it is the absence of color. I wanted the color white because it is the combination of all colors. And I wanted the color red because it represents the one thing that all people have in common: blood. I wanted suns instead of stars because stars to me imply searching, like you search for your star. And there are already too many stars in this world. But the sun, that's something that is always there, looking right at you. Betsy Ross did the best she could with what she had. I thought I could do better."[29]
The outer album sleeve features a
Reception and legacy
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Q | [48] |
Rolling Stone | [49] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [50] |
Stylus Magazine | A[51] |
Uncut | [52] |
There's a Riot Goin' On was met with a divided response from professional critics and general listeners, who found its production and lyrical content particularly challenging. Reviewing in November 1971 for the
There's a Riot Goin' On was included on several music publications' "End of the Year" lists and critics' polls,[
[It] sank their previously burgeoning idealism at a time when social disillusionment was all the rage. Sly had found something else to take him higher and, as a result, Riot is a record very much informed by drugs, paranoia, and a sort of halfhearted malcontent ... listening to it isn't exactly a pleasurable experience. It's significant in the annals of pop and soul because it is blunt and unflinching, because it reflects personal and cultural crises in a manner unbecoming for pop records at the time. Riot can be classified as avant-soul only after being recognized as a soul nightmare—the 'nightmare', so to speak, being a reflection of an unfortunate and uncompromised reality, not a glossed-over pop-music approximation of reality.[3]
There's a Riot Goin' On has been considered one of the first instances of the funk music later popularized by
In 1994 There's a Riot Going On was ranked number 14 in
Riot's songs have been extensively covered and
Track listing
All tracks written, produced and arranged by Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart for Stone Flower Productions.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Luv n' Haight" | 4:01 |
2. | "Just Like a Baby" | 5:12 |
3. | "Poet" | 3:01 |
4. | "Family Affair" | 3:06 |
5. | "Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle'" | 8:45 |
6. | "There's a Riot Goin' On" (timed at 0:04 on compact disc) | 0:00 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Brave & Strong" | 3:28 |
2. | "(You Caught Me) Smilin'" | 2:53 |
3. | "Time" | 3:03 |
4. | "Spaced Cowboy" | 3:57 |
5. | "Runnin' Away" | 2:51 |
6. | "Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa" | 7:14 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
13. | "Runnin' Away" (mono mix single version) | 2:44 |
14. | "My Gorilla Is My Butler" (instrumental) | 3:11 |
15. | "Do You Know What?" (instrumental) | 7:16 |
16. | "That's Pretty Clean" (instrumental) | 4:12 |
Personnel
Musicians
- Rose Stone – vocals, keyboards
- Billy Preston – keyboards
- Jerry Martini – tenor saxophone
- Cynthia Robinson – trumpet
- Freddie Stone – guitar
- Ike Turner – guitar
- Bobby Womack – guitar
- backing vocals
- Greg Errico – drums
- Gerry Gibson – drums
- Little Sister – backing vocals
Production
- Sly Stone – producer
- Engineers
- Chris Hinshaw
- Jack Ashkinazy
- James Conniff
- James Greene
- Robert Gratts
- Willie Greer
- Rich Tilles
- Artwork (collage, cover design)
- Lynn Ames
- John Berg
- Photography (reissue)
- Debbie King
- Don Hunstein
- Fred Lombardi
- Howard R. Cohen
- Joey Franklin
- Linda Tyler
- Lynn Ames
- Ray Gaspard
- Steve Paley
- Sylvester Stewart
Charts
Weekly charts
Chart (1971–72) | Peak positions[9] |
---|---|
U.S. Billboard 200 | 1 |
U.S. Billboard Top Soul Albums | 1 |
Canadian RPM Albums Chart | 4 |
UK Albums Chart[69] | 31 |
Year-end charts
Chart (1972) | Peak positions |
---|---|
U.S. Billboard 200[70] | 45 |
U.S. Billboard Top Soul Albums[71] | 9 |
Singles
Year | Name | US[72] | US
R&B[73] |
UK[69] |
---|---|---|---|---|
1971 | Family Affair | 1 | 1 | 14 |
1972 | Runnin' Away | 23 | 15 | 17 |
(You Caught Me) Smilin' | 42 | 21 | - |
See also
References
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- ^ Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
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- ^ Selvin 1998, pp. 94–98, 122.
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- ^ Aswad, Jem (2006-02-10). "Who, Exactly, Is Sly Stone? (That Weird Guy With The Mohawk At The Grammys)". MTV.com. Retrieved 2006-02-11.
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- ^ a b Chick, Stevie (2009). "Review of Sly & the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On". BBC Music. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
- ^ Pareles, Jon (March 14, 2018). "Music Is a Sanctuary From Chaos on Yo La Tengo's 'There's a Riot Going On'". The New York Times. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
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- ^ ISBN 978-1435709874. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
- ^ Lewis 2006, pp. 60–64.
- ^ Dakss, Jonathan (1997). "My Weekend with Sly Stone". Sly-and-the-family-stone.com.
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- ^ Lewis 2006, p. 70.
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Bibliography
- Kaliss, Jeff (2008). I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone. New York, New York: Hal Leonard/Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-87930-934-3.
- ISBN 0-8264-1744-2.
- ISBN 0-380-79377-6.