Five Star Album: Reading, Writing & Arithmetic by The Sundays

 In 1990 I was going to UK and working on a farm in Lexington.  My roommate had a Commodore 64 and an old TV that we spent way too much time on.  I believe he also bought a desktop computer that year.  He also had a really nice turntable and used to listen to Concert: The Cure Live all the time.  

In one of my more creative moments I figured out a way to hook up the old TV to the stereo and began recording the MTV show 120 Minutes onto cassette.  I'd then listen to the cassette when I was working out at the farm and it was on one of these cassettes that I first heard "Where the Story Ends" and immediately went out to buy the album.  Sadly the album hadn't made it to Lexington yet, but I was able to buy the single they had put out the year before "Can't Be Sure."  As soon as I got the album, a few weeks later, if I recall, I immediately made a tape of it and would listen to it over and over again while working at the farm.  

Now we are 32 years since the album came out and I can still listen to it from beginning to end and enjoy every minute of it.  Maybe that's because Harriet Wheeler and David Gavurin found some kind of magic.  I'm not sure, but when you read about the band and how they got started it seems like they stumbled onto something really special almost by accident.  The band formed up in 1988 and went out and played a gig and by their next gig they had record labels wanting to sign them.

I don't want to seem insensitive to the other band members, Patrick Hannan and Paul Brindley, but Wheeler and Gavurin were the heart of the band.  They co-wrote all the music and are a couple.  They met in college at Bristol and put together a band after moving to London.  Then they fell into success almost immediately.  

Both Gavurin and Wheeler were 27 when Reading, Writing & Arithmetic came out and that is older by first record standards, but it feels so incredibly youthful.  Not only the music but the lyrics.  Gavurin has talked about the fact that he and Wheeler wrote the songs, literally by going back and forth with lyrics.  He'd write a line, then she'd write a line.  At times the songs do feel very free form, but then at times the lyrics work well.  The key of course is the music he put around the songs and Wheeler's vocals.  

Wheeler is an exceptional vocalist and this is at the heart of this album being so good.  Gavurin, musically isn't creating anything groundbreaking.  He was taking heavy influences from people like The Smiths and the Cocteau Twins and others at the time and creating this sound around Wheeler, but she is the heart.  To me the best example would be 10,000 Maniacs where you have Robert Buck creating the sound that wraps around all the work Natalie Merchant is doing both lyrically and vocally.  

There are a lot of bands that popped up that were heavily influenced by The Smiths.  But by 1990 that sound had been replaced with something different and the alternative sound was heading in a different path.  It made The Sundays album at the time really stand out.  It was such a throwback to The Smiths, but it was done in a way that had so much positivity to it.  There is something about the energy to the album that is infectious and really says a lot about the talent of both Gavurin and Wheeler.  

OK so let's take a look at the tracks.  

Skin & Bones

Audibly it's an interesting opening track.  It would seem to be a song that would appear deeper in the album but by opening with it, it sets an interesting tone, especially lyrically.  We have the great line

It's not quite my style

work and vanity

wasted my time inside

Talk about sounding very Smiths.  But then lyrically it turns to something that has a totally none Smith's vibe.  Rather than taking those feelings and rooting them into some kind of negative feelings, they are turned to a deeper thought, which is that ". . . we're just skin and bones."

This lyrical tone will carry through the album.  The thoughts of a 20 something person looking at their life and the world around and not being angry or depressed but being thoughtful about what it all means.  The funny thing about The Sundays is that they had the potential to be big stars, but they chose to remain small and target smaller audiences and disappear after three albums.  I guess because at the end of it all we're just skin and bones.  

Five Star Album: My Guilty Pleasure by Sally Shapiro

This is by far the best album of the last 20 years for me and even after more than a decade of listening to this album I never get tired of it.  That's what I would qualify as a five star album.  

I turned 12 in 1980 and the sound of the 80's with it's odd blend of punk and disco have always been at the core of so much music I've loved over the last 40 years.  I know nothing of Italo Disco which was a music genre out of Italy and Europe in the 80's but apparently that is the style that singer, Sally Shapiro, and producer,  Johan Agebjörn, were tapping into with their debut album Disco Romance in 2006.  

Much like Murmur is considered the quintessential R.E.M. album by many, because it was the first, Disco Romance is so considered for Sally Shapiro.  But for me I always found that the leap R.E.M. made after Murmur lead to much better music that had a tighter structure, more pop orientation, more confidence.  I feel this way about My Guilty Pleasure from Sally Shapiro.  Yes Disco Romance set the template, but My Guilty Pleasure is the much more brought to life vision of what they were trying to do with Disco Romance.  

I'm talking about this because I think it is important and I've always thought it was important to see the progression of work with music groups that grow and develop over time to see how they get better.  The roots of what Sally Shapiro was doing with Disco Romance are important in that they allow us to see the place we ended up with My Guilty Pleasure.  On their next album Sally Shapiro would move on in a slightly different path and I think that is in part because you couldn't have done better than what they did with My Guilty Pleasure.  

So what is it that makes this album so great?  I'm going to focus on two really basic things here.  One is the production work by Agebjörn.  He is able to set a tone that carries from the first note of the first song through the entire album.  We have these driving beats throughout, these driving Euro beats, but they are layered with music that is both sad and whimsical at the same time.  I'm not sure how he pulled this off, but every song has this vibe to it that feels both sad and happy and so depending on your mood you can go either way and it works.  This also fits in with the second thing which is Shapiro's vocal performance.  She too is sad and happy on every song.  When I first heard this album it immediately made me think of Weekend and lead singer Alison Statton.  Statton had this ability to be dreamy and sad and joyful all at the same time and Shapiro has that as well.

In my mind we were now marrying two things I really love.  Early 80's post punk, jazz influenced music from a band like Weekend with electro pop that was finding influencing from trip-hop and 80's Italo disco.  It's a wonderful combination that falls perfectly into place on this 9 track album.  The first track is a short musical number, "Swimming Through the Blue Lagoon" to set us up for the vibe and feel of what's to come and never once disappoints.  

Swimming Through the Blue Lagoon

OK so you may be wondering well you talked a lot about the sound but what about the lyrics.  Surely for a 5 star album it has to have good lyrics right?  In many ways it is much like early R.E.M. or Cocteau Twins for me in that the sound is really what matters most, but on this album the lyrics are good enough to fall perfectly in with this tone that is set by both the vocals and the music.  On the first track with vocals we get "Looking At the Stars" and it has a wonderful lyric which just nails the sound perfectly.  Here is the chorus as best as I can understand it and from looking up online lyrics sites.  

I'm looking at the stars tonight

and only thinking of you.

I'm looking at the stars tonight

and you can see that I am too.

I wish that you could feel my love 

and I wish that I always can.

And I love you so much much more

than I think I ever said

The lyrics aren't abstract but like much electronic music they are spare, but they set the tone, give us a little story to go with the great music and vocals and off we go.  

Looking at the Stars

The rest of the album has very similar lyrics.  They only made a few videos and one of them was for the next song on the album "Love in July."

Love in July

Another thing I want to add about the lyrics that I really like is there is a certain sense of innocence to these songs.  They are youthful and hopeful and sad all at the same time.  But they aren't angry and I think that really helps to make this album work for all moods.  If you are angry you feel the sadness but the songs help to calm you down.  If you are happy you latch onto the youthfulness and hopefulness.  

All that being said the next song "My Fantasy" perfectly incapsulates all of this.  It's my favorite track on the album.  Here is a great line from the song that gets at what I'm talking about.  

I call you up for a rendezvous.

Another night with just me and you. 

I feel so warm when I meet your eyes. 

I'm flying high somewhere in the skies.  

You lay those lyrics with her wispy vocals and almost sad sounding electro beat and you get just a magical song.  

My Fantasy

We continue on from "My Fantasy" with "Let It Show" in this kind of down beat.  

Let It Show

Then we transition out of the dreariness of the last two songs onto a much more up tempo beat.  The good thing about the music on this album his how subdued it is.  Even on this track and the next "Save Your Love" where we have a pretty solid dance beat there is a subtleness to it.  

Moonlight Dance

Sally Shapiro is a duo out of Sweden and this song more than any other makes me think of Scandinavian influences from the 80's.  Especially a band like A-Ha.  

Save Your Love

I have to say the song "Dying in Africa" has a lyric that I've always found really interesting.  

I never knew someone could make me cry like this.

And I, I won't get over you

even if they're dying in Africa.

And I, I can't get over you

even if they're crying in Africa.  

Dying in Africa

Finally we get to their other music video from this album.  I really like this video.  Maybe it's because I find this to be an exceptional album to listen to on headphones and the characters in this video always have on headphones.  

Miracle

That's it, that's the album.  If you find yourself on a walk some night and your in a funky mood, put on this album with some headphones and just escape into it.  It can go either happy or sad depending on the direction you want to go and time will slip by as though you fell into a time machine.  

Downton Abbey

I just want to say a few quick things about this show, which I love. 

I've just started the sixth and final season. And as previously mentioned, I love it, which surprises me because I tend to struggle with shows heavy on British accents. I remember once, when we were in high school, being a real pill one night when we all got together and rented and watched A Room With a View. I really tried to ruin the experience for everyone. I threw a tantrum in the video store because I wanted to instead rent some sports thing, and I tried to make it all about you guys not being masculine enough. The real problem was that I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up, but I felt stupid to admit that. That actually wouldn't've been stupid; what was stupid was how I acted. Sorry. 

Also, I'm the only person our age who never got into the Monty Python stuff. Same issue--I never really know or understand what they're saying.

But, again, I love Downton Abbey, and I'm sorry to see that I'm coming to the end of the series. I know about the movies--I'm glad there's a 2019 thing to watch when I'm done with the TV show, and I'm glad they're coming out with Downton Abbey 2 next March, and I hope they make 50 more after this one. But I prefer TV to movies, and, so, what I really want is about 100 more seasons of the TV series.

What I also want, and here's what I really wanted to say this morning, is for sweet Mrs. Patmore and sweet Mr. Mason to fall in love and have a beautiful and fun marriage growing old together right there at Downton and for Daisy to care for them and for everyone to end up superhappy.

I accept that the smart people who make TV shows have to inject conflict and problems into a series to keep viewers like me interested over the long haul, and I respect that a person who goes to the unimaginably massive effort of writing something as huge and great as Downton Abbey (5 stars, highly recommended) is going to want to get into the pulpit and make whatever statements (however hard) about the human condition and our relationship to God that he or she feels called to make.

But I also think it is not too much to ask, after investing in the lives of these fake people and falling in love with them over however many hours, that I get to see them all get to be happy in the end. I've always appreciated the people who made Friends for giving our friends happy endings, and I'm very much hoping for the same payoff with all of the people on Downton. 

Because I really do love them all. Even mean, ol' Thomas.

Album Review: Watertown by Frank Sinatra

I'm getting ahead of my 1970 self here--this record's not going to be released until March 1970--but I didn't want to risk my or the Internet's collapsing and wait any longer to say this about Frank Sintra's Watertown: Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

This album is stunning.

On a variety of fronts, things reportedly weren't going so hot for 53-year-old Frank Sinatra when he was making his part of this record. And, reportedly, Watertown didn't exactly turn that frown upside-down. Wikipedia:

... it sold a mere 30,000 copies that year and reached a peak chart position of 101. He left Caesars Palace in September that year after an incident where executive Sanford Waterman pulled a gun on him. He performed several charity concerts with Count Basie at the Royal Festival Hall in London. On November 2, 1970, Sinatra recorded the last songs for Reprise Records before his self-imposed retirement, announced the following June at a concert in Hollywood to raise money for the Motion Picture and TV Relief Fund. He finished the concert with a "rousing" performance of "That's Life", and stated "Excuse me while I disappear" as he left the stage. He told LIFE journalist Thomas Thompson that "I've got things to do, like the first thing is not to do anything at all for eight months ... maybe a year ...

Well, out of this reported (and I keep using that word, because, really, who freaking knows?) valley in Frank Sinatra's amazing, riding-high-in-April/shot-down-in-May life emerged a simply terrific album. It's definitely a 5-star in my mind, but I didn't want to water down Matthew's work by using the "5-Star Review" label. I like everything about Watertown--the story, Jake Holmes's spartan poetry (John Henry came to cut the lawn/Again he asked me where you'd gone/Can't tell you all the times he's been told/But he's so old), the orchestra, the cover ... but blahblahblah ... come on ... it's Frank Sinatra, stupid. Of course, it's Frank Sinatra.

Album Review: Live at the Regal by B.B. King

With the passing of B.B. King, Sound Opnions did an episode devoted to King and specifically focusing on the Live at the Regal album.

Listening to that show got me to thinking about the album and the fact that we haven't mentioned it here on the blog. If someone were to come to me and say I need a list of 10 albums that I must have to understand popular American music, this album would have to be on the list. Everything about this album is pretty much perfect. King and his band are at the peak of their powers. The audience is simply wonderful and so you are left with a real treat of a listening experience. Even if you don't think of yourself as a blues fan it is hard not to like this album.

There are only a few live albums that I really love and this is one of them. Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.

Album Review: At Town Hall by Nina Simone

I'm not the biggest fan of live albums but when they are good they can be very good and this album recorded in 1959 of Nina Simone is exceptional.

If you want to build a record collection, it seems to me there are certain artists you must have in your collection. Nina Simone I would argue is one of those artists because she was so influential on so many pop artists from Pete Townshend to Kate Bush and onward. And if you are going to own any Nina Simone I would argue that you need to own At Town Hall. This was recorded very early in her career and is really Nina Simone fully focused on performing her music, and honestly the best Nina Simone is always captured live. She was one of those performers who seemed to get energy and emotion from her audience that is simply missing from recorded sessions. Problem is in so many live recordings of Simone she's wandering in and out of her music and thoughts and so it's rare to find her fully focused on nothing but the performance of the songs. There are 10 songs on this album and each one is exceptional. It's also good because you get to hear Nina as a pianist, something which very quickly got pushed back in her performances. There are two instrumental tracks on here.

Of course the problem with getting this album is that you'll want more Nina Simone and the good thing is there are a lot of albums to explore.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.

The Church Rummage Sale (first of some parts)

My church is having a rummage sale 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. both Dec. 1 and 2, and everyone should come and buy everything. See you there.

In advance of the big event, folks have been cleaning out nooks and crannies of the church for leftover stuff that might've been tucked away after past rummage sales. A closet at the back of the library turned out to be a bonanza of outdated technology and media that completely flipped my lid--but was not of much interest to the rummage-sale organizers, who say that this stuff tends to rarely sell.

Much to my wife's dismay, I brought home a goodly assortment of the goods in exchange for a donation to the rummage-sale coffers, and I will be writing about them starting now.

Records

OK, I'm pretty strict with myself when it comes to records. There was a time that I was well on my way to being one of those albums guys like John Cusack's character in High Fidelity (integral, 5 Stars, highly recommended), with the shelves and shelves of records up and down pretty much all wall space. But at some point, after so many moves from apartment to apartment in my protracted and wandering bachelorhood, I decided I would limit myself to only those records that I could fit into this piece of schoolboy-wood-shop furniture, which I purchased from a Cary, N.C., Salvation Army store for $5:


At this point, I officially declared myself (in my own mind, anyway) not a record collector but a record enjoyer. And, as such, the first time I am nonplussed by a record experience, I make myself give away that record. I have one of those turntables with the USB link, so I can create MP3s of whatever I want to salvage before discarding (though, in fact, I rarely do this). Also, this approach keeps space in the shelf for me to add records that I pick up here and there.

Well, on Sunday afternoon, in the church purge, I snatched up about two-dozen records, and I've been listening to them this week to determine if any of them will actually qualify for the shelf. Only one so far has: Ray Conniff's Harmony. This is not an ironic act; I enjoy Ray Conniff's chipper and glossy arrangements of (formerly) contemporary hits and his Singers' Partridge Family-esque vocals, and I think this 1973 effort might be my favorite of his releases that I've heard.

"From the very beginning, HARMONY seemed like a perfect song for Ray Conniff and The Singers," go Jack Gold's liner notes. "The opening of the lyric 'the time has come, let us begin with all our voices joining in' sounds a call to a musically cooperative effort that represents the way Ray Conniff albums are born. The songs are chosen with attention to melodic value, story line and care is taken that good taste be ever present with entertainment values the key factor."

Also, there's a picture on the back of Ray Conniff with his wife (Vera), baby daughter (eventual Music and Entertainment Expert Tamara Allegra) and dogs (Lucky and Prince).


I think they look happy.

The covers of this album and several others among those that I picked up from the church have been marked up by someone (the same someone almost certainly, given the consistency in handwriting) with a code that suggests to me that they belonged to a radio station. Songs are rated as "great," "good," "OK" or "no." All but the "nos" additionally receive an "M" or "MB." Not sure what those might mean.

Anyway, here are the ratings of the cuts on Ray Conniff's Harmony:

-- "Harmony," good, M;
-- "Playground In My Mind," OK, MB;
-- "The Morning After," good, M;
-- "Young Love," great, M;
-- "Live And Let Die," no;
-- "How Can I Tell Her," OK, M;
-- "Say Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose," good, MB;
-- "Yesterday Once More," good, M;
-- "Delta Dawn," no;
-- "Touch Me In The Morning," good, M, and
-- "Here Today And Gone Tomorrow," good, M.

The only other "nos" I found among the other records that I gathered from the church were a Conniff sendup of "Loves Me Like a Rock" and a Richard Hayman arrangement of "Tubular Bells" (the theme from The Exorcist), though Frank Chacksfield and His Orchestra's take on the Dragnet theme got a "heavy" warning in addition to its "good."

Now, it's easy to imagine that we might understand the rater's thinking here: Avoid anything that might offend. Protect our provincial Madisonville listeners from Paul McCartney's life-minimizing "Live And Let Die" lyric, Paul Simon's belief-lampooning "Loves Me Like a Rock" and Larry Collins and Alex Harvey's sordid "Delta Dawn," and don't touch anything connected to The Exorcist with a 10-foot pole.

But such a black-and-white analysis doesn't leave much gray space for, for example, "Touch Me In The Morning," a heartbreaking song by Diana Ross that I absolutely love ("romantics from the Jackson Purchase," represent!). It's sexually charged as all get-out, but maybe the song rater inferred from the lyric the ruins of a covenantal relationship that are absent from, for example, "Delta Dawn," about a poor woman who apparently just gets duped by some shyster. Who knows?

I would enjoy talking with the person who marked up these records about his purposes and parameters for judgment (and it is a "his;" you can tell by the handwriting). I'll have to ask my parents-in-law if they know whose records these might've been.

In any event, I'm discarding my legacy copy of Two Hours with Thelonious (Monk) from the shelf to in exchange for Ray Conniff's rousing Harmony. And I think Robert Goulet's Bridge Over Troubled Water might make it, too.


I like his boots.

Best of the 80's: Avalon by Roxy Music

I'm not the biggest Roxy Music fan by any means.  Their art rock doesn't do a lot for me, but they finished out their run with their most mainstream album in 1982, Avalon, and created a brilliant piece of art. 

My memories of this album begin six years after its release in 1988.  A friend made a copy for me and I put that tape in one night after work at Wendy's.  It was a rainy dreary night and I was feeling a bit wired.  I drove the rain drenched streets of Lexington with this album playing behind me and moved through the 10 tracks as in a dream.  That is the power of this album.  It pulls you into its world from the opening track and never lets go.

There is something about the production that labels this as an early 80's album, but it has aged extremely well. There really isn't a bad spot anywhere on the album and it's the best set of songs Bryan Ferry ever put together.  Ferry is joked about as being the mature yuppy make out music king, well Avalon kicked that whole label off.


Great for late night drives or for setting a mood after the kids have gone to bed.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.  Currently this album sits at number 53 on the Best of the 80's list. 

Best of the 70's: Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan

The second 1975 release to be in the top 10 this one comes in at number 9 on the Best of the 70's list. 

Why is this the best Bob Dylan album?  Well first it's pretty stripped down musically, so if you like the acoustic Dylan you should like this one.  Second it still has the musical complexity of the stuff he had been doing since going electric.  Yes it's mostly acoustic, but the songs are layered and structured in ways much more complex than anything he was doing before going electric.  Third this is the most personal album Dylan ever made.  Written in the wake of his divorce it's still smart and cynical, but it also has an emotional attachment that is sometimes missing with Dylan's work, even his best work.  Fourth, and most important, this is the best set of songs Dylan ever wrote for an album. 

I've never been a big Dylan fan, but this is easily one of the best albums ever made and if you don't own any Dylan or want to get a sense of what makes Dylan so great, then I would recommend buying this album. 

Like most albums of this caliber, there really isn't a bad time to listen to it, though it's emotional draw can sometimes get you a bit down. 

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.

Best of the 70's: Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

It's hard to believe we are in the top ten on the Best of the 70's list, but we are and we enter it with this 1975 release from Springsteen, his third album on the list.

This album to me is all about being 16 years old. I use to go to bed at night with my Walkman and listen to a tape as I went to sleep. The first time I ever listened to this album was one of those nights and that is one of those experiences in your life you never forget. It is the greatest musical experience of my life. Now 27 years later I sit here listening to this album again and try to understand why it had that effect on me, and why over the years it has had that effect on so many others.

Lyrically the album is brilliant. All the abstractions of Springsteen's first two albums are gone and we are at the heart of what makes Springsteen a great songwriter. Vocally, I don't think he's ever done anything to match this. The desperation and energy of the lyrics are in every sound he utters and he's able to bring to life the emotions he's so well crafted in words. The music, like is voice, is somehow able to capture that same desperate, energy of the songs and holds everything together for the fast eight tracks that make up this album.

This is one of the greatest albums of all time, and is probably the greatest emotional album ever made. It is such a gutty album and so captures all the swirling emotions that hits a person at age 16, but especially someone in their mid twenties, which is where Springsteen was at the time he wrote this.

As great as this album is, it is not an album for all occasions in part because it is so full of emotion. If you are wanting to relax and read a book this album is not going to let you do that. It's an album you have to be ready to give in to and enjoy from start to finish.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.

Best of the 70's: What's Going On by Marvin Gaye

This 1971 release coming in at number 16 on the Best of the 70's list is, in my opinion, the greatest album ever made. 

Lyrically it's brilliant, musically it's flawless, and if you don't know anything about Marvin Gaye, you'll learn very quickly listening to this album that he is one of the best singers in pop music history. 

Ultimately this album has an overall message that I find to be the most compelling of any album I've ever heard, and I think that message is best understood by listening to the song "God Is Love."  Essentially the essence of this album comes down to two lines in this song.

"He made this world for us to live in, and gave us everything
And all he asks of us is we give each other love."

It really is that simple and yet we make it so complicated.  

There is never a bad time to play this album. 

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.

Best of the 80's: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by The Cure

Coming in at number 99 on the Best of the 80's list is this classic double album from The Cure.  Robert Smith's most ambitious album the full 17 tracks floats through the joy and despair of love and relationships.  It's heavy on instrumentation to set the mood of the album which carries from the opening of "The Kiss" through to the final "Fight" and once you are caught in the mood he never lets you out. 

Even with a pop gem like "Just Like Heaven" he never lets go of the layered, rhythmic sounds which drive this entire work.  The Cure would never again be so raw and powerful and Smith would never again be so lyrically naked as he is in these 17 tracks.

This rates as one of my favorite albums of all time and though it does not have the same drive for me at age 42 that it had at age 19 I still admire what Smith was able to construct.  No one has ever captured the feelings of being a confused, lustful, angry, and joyous young man like Smith does on this album.

I only ever listen to this album in full and it's usually because I'm at a point in my life where I need to vent some frustrations.  This album is like a roller coaster ride when you balance songs like "The Kiss" with songs like "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep" and by the end of the ride I'm usually exhausted and empty of all the pent up emotions I had going in to the album. 

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.

Best of the 70's: Quadrophenia by The Who

Musically I believe this is the greatest album ever made.  You have three of the best rock musicians all teamed up in one group and on this album they put everything they had into it.  You also have one of the best songwriters of all time who managed on this album to create two LPs worth of solid melodies and hooks.  Of course all of this is topped by one of the best rock voices of all time.  It makes all these prog rockers I've listened to seem like such a joke. 

This is the best album I've ever found for taking naps to.  This album is also good as background music when home alone and your cleaning the house before the ladies get home from a trip.  Just crank it up and enjoy.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great.

Best of the 70's: There's a Riot Goin' On by Sly & the Family Stone

Back in 1989 I chose to give away my record collection, which was quite substantial, save for a few records, couldn't part with the Saga stuff. One of the first albums I bought in rebuilding my collection was There's a Riot Goin' On. Probably the best funk album ever made Riot explores the darker side of funk and of life.

From the opening sounds you know this is a different album than Stand! which proceeded it. The music is slower, heavier on bass, infused with noise, and very complex. On top of that the lyrics are darker, angrier and sung in an almost slurred manner. Maybe it's true that the album has this feel because Sly was completely falling apart under his drug addiction, but I don't believe someone that far gone could put together this complex sound and make it work the way he does here. On top of songs like the opener "Luv N' Haight" which are musical explorations into new territory, you get fantastic moments like "Family Affair" where it all comes together for three minutes of tightly woven song.

If you are in a dark mood, nothing sounds better than this album. It feeds all those dark feelings in a way that very few albums can, and can take you deeper into the darkness than I believe any album can.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 5 out of 5 stars for Great. Because this album is so dark it is not one I want to hear all the time and in fact there are times when I would purposely avoid it, but that does not mean this isn't a brilliant album. At the time this is being posted this album ranks 97th on the best of the 70's list at Best Ever Albums.