Stand!, Sly & the Family Stone, 1969, :41
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
A psychedelic-funk-soul powerhouse with elements of gospel and acid rock. Powerful, energetic, and provocative. There's some catchy stuff here that grabs you by the ears, but a couple of the jams are perhaps better regarded as snapshots of the era. "Sex Machine" is a skippable 14 minutes of funk noodling. And "Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey," a title that has intrigued me for many years, turns out to be lacking the hard-hitting lyrics that I always imagined; instead the title, repeated and distorted, serves as the vocals. Favorite tracks: "Stand," "Everyday People" (though it's sadly short at 2:22), "You Can Make It If You Try," "Somebody's Watching You."
