Sly & The Family Stone: There's a Riot Goin' On VMP Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This Vinyl Me, Please edition is cut all-analogue from the tapes by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound, in a tip-on gatefold with an obi, booklet and art print. The album topped both the Billboard pop and soul album charts, and "Family Affair" went to No. 1.

This edition

180g vinyl
Red & white vinyl
All-analogue lacquers cut by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound
Tip-on gatefold jacket
Obi strip
8-page booklet
Art print
Remastered
Stereo mix

About the album

After Stand! and a star turn at Woodstock, everyone expected Sly Stone to hand in another bright, singalong party record. What he delivered, after an 18-month wait, was something murkier, groovier and far stranger, mostly built by Sly himself at the Record Plant in Sausalito and in his home studio in Bel Air.

He leaned on an early drum machine, stacked overdub on overdub and mixed it all thick and close, so the funk sounds like it's coming through the wall from the party next door. "Family Affair" is hushed and hypnotic, "Runnin' Away" is breezy, "(You Caught Me) Smilin'" struts, "Luv N' Haight" kicks things off with a jolt, and "Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa" stretches an old hit into a long, slow-motion jam. The album's working title was Africa Talks to You, changed after Marvin Gaye's What's Going On arrived six months earlier.

It joined the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and you can hear its fingerprints all over hip hop and jazz-funk. The title track famously runs zero minutes and zero seconds, making it the easiest song on the record to learn and the hardest to hum.

Also at Kops: more Sly & The Family Stone on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up