Sly & the Family Stone

One of the great debuts in funk history, A Whole New Thing lives up to its title, mingling elements from James Brown's syncopated proto-funk, Hendrix's hard-driving rock and the social upheaval brewing in the Bay Area at the time. The focus is on the bottom-end, and many of the tracks ("If This Room Could Talk" and "I Hate to Love Her") seem skeletal and rudimentary compared with their later work. But there's still the hint of euphoria in "Turn Me Loose" and "Underdog" that characterized the Family's best '60s work. This reissue has been remastered and includes the previously unreleased instrumental version of "You Better Help Yourself."

Prophetic in their rhythms, racial philosophy, and ostensible gender relations, Sly & the Family Stone scored a string of '60s hits that crystallized a vision of freedom--as Greil Marcus summarized, its complexity, coherence, wild anarchy, and endless affirmation. Unfortunatey, that vision is present only in embryo on this much-sampled debut, which doesn't generate a single song any ordinary fan need remember. (Grade - **1/2)