LP Review: A Whole New Thing
Next LP: Dance to the Music (B+)
Released: 1967
LP Charts: nada
The most routine R&B album of Sly & the Family Stone’s career, A Whole New Thing is still a weirdo. Yeah, the album has way more love songs than future albums, but it’s still got the off-kilter doo wop influenced vocals that would only amp up in the future. Plus there are plenty of other musical influences tossed into the brew.
The opening “Underdog” is funky R&B that gets a bit too cute with lyrics about forced conformity and being counted out in society. The song also appropriates the melody of French nursery rhyme “Frère Jacques” for its horn line. Sure, why not. “If This Room Could Talk” hews closer to standard R&B of the period and it’s very enjoyable.
“Run, Run, Run” is sparkling psychedelic soul. You won’t find any fuzz guitars, but the texture, whimsical vocals, and what sounds like a chiming vibraphone put your mind in the psychedelic space. I really dig it.
There’s a perfectly average Otis Redding knock off in “Turn Me Loose” whose horn line and whole ethos is clearly patterned after Otis’s “Can’t Turn You Loose”. Anyways, that wild and ragged number is a stepping stone toward the excellent “Dance to the Music” on their next album.
“Let Me Hear It from You” isn’t a good song, but it is a good thing that Larry Graham has the lead vocals. Thus far Sly Stone has had the lead mic. Graham’s bass vocals are a delight in spite of the slow, standard R&B ballad it’s slapped upon. A much better Graham feature is “Bad Risk”. Still a typical R&B track, but it packs more bite.
Sly’s brother, Freddie Stone, even gets a lead vocal on “That Kind of Person”, which is more “standard” R&B of the period. I guess Sly was saving all the trippy and experimental stuff for himself.
“Advice” is the best example yet of the Family Stone’s contribution to establishing funk music. The drumming and bass work are exquisitely made for future DJs searching for breakbeats. Another breakbeat classic is “Trip to Your Heart”, which was sampled to massive success by LL Cool J for “Mama Said Knock You Out”. Meanwhile, “I Cannot Make It” is still very much R&B, but it’s also the clearest example of British rock influencing the band as they parody some of the psychedelic rock coming over to American shores.
ALBUM GRADE: B-
This album often simmers, but never quite boils over into greatness. I tell you this though: they already sounded distinctive, even if they aren’t fully formed yet. You can easily hear the band’s influences, but you’re usually hearing them in transmogrified ways.
This may have been too much for American audiences since nothing on this album did well commercially. Oh well. The next album would more than make up for that.
Song Scores
Underdog: 7/10
If This Room Could Talk: 7/10
Run, Run, Run: 7.5/10
Turn Me Loose: 5/10
Let Me Hear It from You: 5/10
Advice: 7/10
I Cannot Make It: 6.5/10
Trip to Your Heart: 6/10
I Hate To Love Her: 6/10
Bad Risk: 7/10
That Kind of Person: 6/10
Dog: 6.5/10
Next LP: Dance to the Music (B+)