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| When it comes to Sly albums, MustHear.com opinion is torn between Stand! and Fresh. Sure, Fresh's grooves show the band at its tightest and most mature while epitomizing the glorious "free your mind and your ass will follow" spirit of '70's funk. But, Stand!, which draws its foundations from the disparate musical styles of the '60s while paving the way for that funk revolution, is, for my money, the more inventive album. Released in 1969, it makes the closing statement on the music of one decade and the opening remarks on the music of another. The album opens with "Stand!," a booty-shakin' number that embodies the energy and confidence of 1960's individual, social, and political self-expression. The soulful James Brown–inflected rhythms energize the song's optimistic lyrics. When Sly belts out "there's a midget standing tall/and a giant beside him about to fall," his socially charged message is a potent one—particularly in the context of America's cultural landscape at the time. While "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey," a mostly instrumental track, takes the album on a more funkadelic turn, the densely layered "I Want To Take You Higher" has seething, soul-grabbing rhythm with an explosive chorus of horns that burn like a house on fire. (I danced so hard I fell down a flight of stairs the first time I heard this song.) The anti-bigotry manifesto "Everyday People," in spite of having been appropriated for Toyota's latest ad campaign, has a message that's as relevant today as ever. Like James Brown, Sly is regularly credited with bringing funk into the mainstream, and Stand! is an enduring testament to his efforts. --Bryan Yates (email)
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