Misery Match: 'There's a Riot Goin' On' vs. 'The Holy Bible'

"Out and down, ain't got a friend, you don't know who turned you in" - Sly Stone = Axl Rose + talent & intelligence?

Sly was great and all -- but I have to be honest and go with what I listen to more often...

This is like comparing Jackie Robinson to Johnny Wockenfuss, or navratan koorma to a microwave burrito, or napalm to cool whip. The obvious answer is There's a Riot Goin' On.

I can't say it better than andy did, but i'm sure many people are gonna try further down.

polled at any random time during the week, "riot" has a good chance of being called my favorite album. top 3 or 4 anyway.

I now have a mental image of Sly, Axl and whatshisname from the Manic Panic Preachers sharing an apartment in Miami, playing a little shuffleboard in the afternoons.

The Holy Bible speaks a truth.

Riot = stupendously overrated stoned jam session.

Riot speaks a truth: Sly Stone finding out all his dreams were false. Plus it's only like about 10 years ahead of its time musically.

Dunno what the connection with Axl is supposed to be but, uh, no.

If Riot was only 10 years ahead of its time then surely now its 20 years out of date!

Ripped off Bitches' Brew (Miles even played on the sessions) so strictly speaking about two years behind the times when it came out. "Finding out all his dreams were false" - do me favour, Stone was stoned. Read the excellent piece in Mojo last autumn (September issue I think).

Marcello and I in Manics-agreement shocker! Or something. No, seriously, There's a Riot Goin' On is no more or less a record (as opposed to holy writ) than Sgt. Peppers or Blood on the Tracks -- or Loveless ;-) -- and should be judged on its own merits according to the listener. I think I've listened to Sly once in the last five years, maybe more. But I listen to The Holy Bible at least once every couple of months, and there are some moments on it -- the first build up to the chorus in "Revol," the aggro start to "Faster," the collapsing slide of "She is Suffering," the way Mr. Bradfield barks the chorus on "Die in the Summertime," that whole unnerving start to "The Intense Humming of Evil" -- that I'll happily list as some of my favorite musical moments ever, that leap to mind as unbidden and gripping as anything Sly does for all y'all. :-)

More so, I'd say, because I can at least connect, even tangentially, with what the Manics (i.e. Richey) are saying on the HB, whereas, whatever its historical importance, I can't listen to Riot and envisage anything more than a bunch of stoned guys jamming around in a boombox 30 years ago. That might be sad, but I don't get the same feeling from On The Corner, let alone What's Going On.

It doesn't hurt that I'm also listening to Generation Terrorists right now. "You are pure, you are snow...we are the useless sluts that they mou-ou-ou-ould, ooo-ah-ooo..."

Gee, Stone was stoned when he made Riot? What a shocker. If that's a disqualifer, I guess we should count out, I dunno, Exile on Main Street and Tonight's the Night too, just for starters.

Ripped off Bitches Brew? Please. More like the other way around: Miles himself said plenty of times that Sly was a major influence on his fusion sound.

Hold on though, wasnt Bitches Brew released first?

Weirdly when I was ill in '97, Stand! and THB functioned as musical uppers and downers in my attempts to mood-regulate. So I can intuit some kind of connection.

Well I'm listening to 'Riot...' as I'm typing and I don't think I've ever disagreed w/ Marcello more. The idea of 'Riot...' as this 'dark' confessional alb is WAY overplayed, and obscures the fact that, much more importantly, its just a really brilliant collection of only slightly askew pop songs - c'mon 'Running Away', '(You Caught Me) Smilin' and the sublime 'Family Affair' are wonderful tunes, hit records, just recorded in a slightly muddy/wonky way. Sly may be a bit woozy, but god, some of his singing on this rec is downright luvverly, and no more extreme than Ray Charles at his most 'bluesy'/boozy. All the fuzzy effects on the tape (whatever) only add to Sly's really unique, smoky grain of the voice, and I 'connect' w/ the pain, disillusionment, stoned paranoia/etc. in that voice just as much as others seem to connect with the MSP's angsty lyrics. And underneath the murk there's the bassline on 'Thank You For Talkin' To Me Africa' - don't tell me that ain't funky! - and silly hippy sentiments and 'tough' black power concepts and a great sleeve and MORE!

I don't hear it as a knock-off of 'Bitches Brew' at all - and if BB isn't a (great) stoned jam I don't know what is! - and besides, the traffic between Miles and Sly was surely two-way (y'know, the old Stockhausen + James Brown formula...)'Riot...' is a very human rec, flawed like the person who made it, whereas I find all the shouting and ugliness on 'The Holy Bible' too damm UNPRETTY. And I know that's the point - I've got the point, thanks, now let's dance to 'Spaced Cowboy'!

Ben is correct; in his autobiography Miles says many times how he tried to incorporate Sly-like sounds into his music.

It took me reading half this thread to surmise that "The Holy Bible" was a Manic Street Preachers record. Most of my friends are music freaks, and (not counting ILM'ers) I don't know anyone that's ever heard them.

Cliched historical import aside, things that make Riot timeless:

The rubber funk. Noone before or since has quite gotten the same kind of glutinous textures on their basslines. P-Funk had more booty; Prince had more zip; Sly sounds like he's shaping the rhythms out of stickly liquid.

The drum machines. So he was the first to use them: big deal (I listened to the album for years before realizing). More importantly, they don't sound like drum machines--shiny, perfect, always on time. They sound broke-down, tired-ass, discombobulated--yet perfectly in (ie out) of sync with the bass.

The ghosts. The way chickenscratch guitars--the epitome of funkiness-- get turned into hallucinatory echoes. The way voices fade in and out of the mix. The way those voices formally mimic the ecstatic chants Sly made his name on, but invert that celebratory vibe: listen to the way the band sings "TIM-ber, all fall down; TIM-ber, to the ground" on "Africa Talks to You The Asphalt Jungle."

The bitterness. The way Sly plays on all the themes of his 60s work, calls them out, basically. Yeah, it's too easy to talk about the symbolism of this album, but that's because its there. Most obviously on the remake of "Thank You Fah Lettin' Me Be Myself Again," which aside from being a killer dub groove almost before there was dub, also flips the lyrics of the original rather brilliantly. (Griel Marcus might be pretty annoying those days, but his take on that one tune in "Mystery Train" is still pretty brilliant.)

Family Affair. Seconding Andrew L's excellent comments, out of all this murk, Sly managed to make a perfect pop song that still sounds great on the radio today.

Bitches Brew was released first. But Sly did plenty of stuff before Riot. He didn't really do anything formally that he hadn't done before on that record, he just took it in a different direction. Anyway, they don't sound all that alike to me: the main similarity is in the production, the use of textures. At the end of the day, BB is still jazz and Riot is funk.

I now have a mental image of Sly, Axl and whatshisname from the Manic Panic Preachers sharing an apartment in Miami, playing a little shuffleboard in the afternoons.

That is the funniest shit in the history of shit like ever. Jesus Christ. Shuffleboard and margaritas, wearing Hawaiian print shirts and white shorts - plus gold chains and sun hats. SANDALS! Thank you for that.

Anyhow, I think people already know what my answer would be being as The Holy Bible is my favorite album all time. Sean, you are a slouch not knowing it, email me if you want a copy, I'll burn it since it's a bitch to find half the time.

There was no riot going on when the Manics made their album, but that was their point. I prefer THB, because the claustrophobia gives it a real sort of isolated intensity.

In all honesty, 'Riot' is a record I respect a lot more than I like. I worship Sly's earlier stuff, though, and his cover of 'Que Sera Sera' is amazing.

The Holy Bible, on the other hand, is just the best goddamned album of the Nineties. Lyric-wise, anyway. Better than Nirvana, Primal Scream, Radiohead (ESPECIALLY better than Radiohead), Oasis, Blur, or any of those other critical darlings. They don't even deserve to be in the same room - well, maybe Primal Scream can stand in the doorway, but otherwise...

Ever since reading that Mojo retrospective on Richey, I've been sorta trying to find MP3s of the Manics' masterworks (i.e. the stuff they did when Richie was around), and it's been a bitch & 3/4ths to find any (which I haven't). Dunno if I want to, though - given the reverential tones many MSP fannies use to describe said tunes, I don't think I want to hear 'em - the sounds I have in my head from reading such praise is probably a bazillion times better than what's on the records. (Said head sounds are akin, though not quite like, the loud bits of _Laughing Stock_ with brilliant lyrics and lots of righteous seething - I might've made a left turn @ Pismo Beach.)

I could say the same thing about _Riot_, too, unfortunately. Except I have an idea of what Sly's doing / did / could do, so the sounds in my head are a bit more concrete in this case. (Y'know - Sly, but ANGRY.)

The stuff the MSPs did when Richey was around sounds glammy primitive punk then like a dodgy xerox of Guns N Roses then like a dodgy xerox of...well, Joy Division gets cited, and Wire and PIL, but it's early Joy Division and mid-period PIL if at all - kind of a dodgy xerox of a generic post-punk band if such a thing had actually existed.

That isn't to say it's not good - from those unpromising ingredients the band managed to pull together something pretty unique in atmosphere if not in sound. The Holy Bible is also interesting in that it's a record whose fans seem to adore it for its lyrics but whose vocals are almost completely incomprehensible.

I never found them to be incomprehensible, except for the chorus of fucking ARchives of Pain, which just carries on like a goddamned laundry list of impossible to pronounce names. But then again I spent the better part of like 2 years listening to nothing but THB so maybe that helps.

Christ, this is an easy one, '...Riot...' it is cos I find the Manics utterly embarrassing now and regret ever buying a single one of their shitty "Ooh we've been to uni and read the SCUM manifesto aren't we clever?" albums.

But the music, DG.

The people they ripped off are better.

wow, I had the exact same reaction to that Mojo profile as you, David R. I'm curious about that early Preachers stuff (which I have never heard), but part of me is thinking it would be better to keep mythic. Tom's description has rekindled this dilemma.

"There's a Riot Going On" has greatness but it's a tough record to feel affectionate toward. Kind of alien and distant - just like the other Stoned Classics mentioned above (Tonight's The Night, Exile ). Fresh, the record that followed in '73, is much kinder.

I fear Justyn and I would make ill-suited uhm, listening partners. THB and XTRMNTR are lying right at the very bottom of my CD pile, waiting to be sold. For what it's worth, I far prefer THB to XTRMTR. I just downloaded "It's a Family Affair" and I like it.

where did you download it? can't find anything on audiogalaxy. havin been a huge manics fan and having not heard there's a riot goin on... i'll say holy bible. its a killer of an album, theres so much to enjoy/depress you i reckon.. if it makes you feel something then its good...

if it makes you feel something then its good...

Dead babies.

See, it doesn't always work like that.

What's the song on 'The Holy Bible' that has the sound of a Martin Hannett produced bass? It's the sound everyone attributes to Peter Hook, but Hannett created it... I can't remember which song it is right now. Anyway, I'm a massive fan of New Order and Joy Division. 'The Holy Bible' has that sort of desperate end-of-the- world Joy Division feel, with the addition of a mountain of punk bile and all sorts of bulimic imagery. Sly and the Family Stone, on the other hand, don't remind me of my precious New Order or Joy Division, and they're responsible for blather like "Dance to the Music" and "Hot Fun in the Summertime" - In other words, my vote goes to 'The Holy Bible.' No contest.

Blather? I wouldn't go *that* far. ;-)

Dead babies.

See, it doesn't always work like that.

Nonsense, Clarke. That just makes me think of Alice Cooper, and that's a good thing.

Ned, okay. Maybe not "blather," but at least frivolous aural gobbledygook. I could see how I'd enjoy Sly and his fun family of partying gallivanters, but I'd have to be in an exceedingly good mood and under the influence of a large serving of shiraz (of which I'm not prone to be that often) before I'd sing along or shake a leg. Not that I'd sing along that often with "PCP," but I'd do some humming to "Die in the Summertime." Hey, that might be some sort of winning ticket there. Sly's got that "Hot Fun in the Summertime" song (albeit not on 'There's a Riot Goin' On') but 'The Holy Bible' houses "Die in the Summertime." I'd say that dying in the summertime is a far bit more miserable than partaking in Sly's so-called hot fun.

Well, I'd tend to think death any time rather kills the mood, see. ;-)

Unless it's a 'long hot summer' 'fun', dig?

Dying in the Summertime is also optimistic - you're going to die anyway, might as well be while the weather's nice. There are few bits of blather more conseqential than the songs on Stand! anyway.

I always thought of "Stand!" (the song) as a condescending put-down of drug users ("Don't you know that you are free/ Well, at least in your mind, if you want to be" - it's the 'at least' that gives it away), and the fact that Sly liked the chemicals emphasises his characteristic vague, weary bitterness even more.

...as is the fact that the line is probably ostensibly directed at the Haight flower children that Sly (in his capacity as Tom Donahue's SF radio protegee and Bay Area producer-mastermind) helped create?

Definitely. I wouldn't call it condescending tho (given the inanities of the time). More ambivalent. Sly was good at that.

Condescending is Sly on the Dick Cavett show.

revive!

two years later, i find that i can't really choose.