There's a Riot Goin' On

33⅓ Main Series #32

by Miles Marshall Lewis

Sly Stone began recording "There's a Riot Goin' On" in late 1970 as a follow-up to the commercially successful "Stand!" In this brisk, inventive book, Miles Marshall Lewis chronicle Sly's descent into a haze of drug addiction and delirium as he rejects the successful formula - "Dance to the Medley, dance to the shmedley" - and creates one of the most powerful and haunting albums to inspire the hiphop movement.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

142 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2006

About the author

Miles Marshall Lewis is a pop culture critic, essayist, fiction writer and director. His latest book, Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar (St. Martin's Press), comes in May 2021. He is the author of There’s a Riot Goin’ On (Bloomsbury), his book on the making of a classic Sly and the Family Stone album, as well as Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don’t Have Bruises (Akashic Books), his debut essay collection on coming of age in the Bronx during the 1970s-80s.

Over the past 20 years, his celebrity profiles and arts criticism have been published by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, GQ, The Washington Post, NPR, The Nation, Essence, Salon and many others.

Reviews

[Ethan Sleeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought a bunch of the 33 1/3 books the other day and am working through them. As with all long-form criticism, your mileage WILL vary based on your interest in the original material, and your tolerance for indulgence. Mine happens to be high in both cases. This entry is a solid if not especially exceptional piece of criticism, in my opinion. It was engaging, and I learned a good bit about the making of the album and the personnel, etc: all the typical “behind the album” stuff is well covered and there are some fun tidbits. The strongest points for me were the more big picture conversations about how the record is a microcosm for the social arc of the late 60’s, and in how it played an outsize part in guiding funk, soul, and hip hop in the transition to the 70’s. If you really love the record or you really love funk/soul and are interested in the long tail the album had, worth checking out. But not essential.

[Andrew Guthrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The evolution of the 33 1/3 series says a lot about the current position of pop music within society as a whole. Started by an academic publisher, the series became a market place "hit" attracting so many wannabe writer/fans that part of their savvy promotion strategy is to solicit proposals for the continuing series.

I have noted that in other Goodread's reviews of this and other books from this series that reviewers often complain about #1: the poor writing style of any given author and/or #2: the tangental self indulgence of any given author. I can be quite sensitive to those types of complaints in a work of fiction (or poetry), but find myself more often than not putting aside the issues of prose styling when I am gobbling up the information offered in any work of non-fiction.

Having said that, I completely understand how certain readers were irked by the beginning of "There's a Riot Goin' On" when Mr. Lewis recounts a rather self-indulgent and not exactly engaging personal episode between his father and himself. Nevertheless, as I indicated above I gleaned much vital information from this book. This album very much has a place in my own personal history (I will thankfully spare you those details) so it was important to me to receive the full back story, the elements of the album's history that I naively passed over (or under) when I was a teenager and simply thought "that's funky! (aka "great!").

Pertinent details include Sly's well known dissolution at this time, the incessant tinkering with the product (until the background hiss of over-used tapes became part of "the sound"), the participation of Bobby Womack on various tracks and Miles Davis' visit to Sly's 24 hour party during this time. And so . . . this book still sits on my shelf and finds itself worthy of a 4 star rating . . .

[Louis Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed it. The band's social impact is fascinating. Well researched and well layed out. Lewis' writing style is light and informed. Nothing gratuitous or too biased about it. The starting chapter, the conversation with his dad, was fantastic! The stuff about Woodstock was really cool too.

I only wish more was known about Sly's actual production on this album. I guess we'll never know, on account of all the coke and pcp. What we do know is Sly recorded marathon (24-40hr) sessions, mostly doing drugs and banging audition vocalists. All the overdubbing wore out the tapes, hence the muddy vocal production. He played most of the instruments himself to a drum machine. It might as well be his solo album, save for a few exceptions. Both impressive and unglamorous.

I didn't realise how tragic Sly was until this book gave me both barrels. So now I can't listen to the album without hearing the melancholy. Maybe I recognized it all along? Maybe it's what drew me in in the first place. Major (but informed) bummer nonetheless.

My only criticism is the book did end bleak and abruptly. Such is life. I only hope Sly is doing better now.

Recommended read for anyone after a cautionary tale.

[Gerrod Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miles Marshall Lewis does a fantastic job of exploring the road Sly and The Family Stone would travel in the years leading up to the titular album. In doing so, he speaks to the creativity and influence the group would have while further exploring the cultural landscape that serves as the context for There's A Riot Going On. While necessary for properly understanding the record, it would have been great to see the same level of analysis into the importance of Riot in an effort to speak to Sly's most polarizing work as the social and cultural optimism of the '60s faded away into a darker decade.

[Ted Gurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 33 1/3 series is a great intro to music I normally wouldn’t listen to. There’s a Riot Going On is one of those records. Lewis brings a perspective of the times and a history of Sly Stone that fills in gaps and gives the album context in the history of rock, hip-hop, and popular music.

[Joshua Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given the dearth of Sly Stone info out there, this is fine, but I was left wanting to know even more.

[Sheehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great short book of insights on artist and album(s) from 33 1/3 series.

[Nigel Carroll · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected the album to be covered more here, but didn't arrive until over halfway through the book. Susan Fasts Dangerous book went into ridiculous detail, so I expected similar treatment here.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rising tides roll back
this illusion of decades,
Promises unkept

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

[Marc Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you read this skip right to page 69. I should have just bought a used sly biography while I was at the Strand but I wanted to try out one of these 33 1/3 things. Basically it starts with some stupid hypothetical discussion between a dad and his son that bored the crap out of me, which is followed by a history of sly and the band up until riot that was a waste of my time.

The song by song analysis in the "what's going on?" section was actually a fun read along with listening to the album. There was just about enough information for every song that you could read the few pages and the lyrics while listening down to the album.

All in all fun, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it. You can have my copy if you want.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting for awhile, but I guess I just couldn't really relate to the subject matter as a whole since I'm not a huge Sly fan. There's some interesting work in the book though, particularly the first 16 pages, although they don't seem to tie in, ultimately. Not a bad book, just not my favorite.

[Jeremy Hermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfect blend of musical critique and biography. Pop culture critic and music journalist Miles Marshall Lewis goes into detail about the story behind the making of the album that signaled the descent of Sylvester Sly Stone Stewart into a haze of drug addiction and paranoia, along with how the album was a heavy influence on what lead to the birth of hip-hop sampling.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good look of one of Sly's major works. I was a little surprised at the proportion of space dedicated to career overview vs. this one album, but it was still a compelling read, esp. since I had never gone into that much detail for the group's bio/recording history.

[Jon]

I could have done without the Prince comparisons (in fact, I could do without Prince) but this is an above-average entry in this series, even including the lyrics so you can find out what Sly was really saying.

[Jamison Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great 33 1/3. This one tells the story of the records leading up too this one, then dissects this one track by track. There's a lot of attention paid to how Sly Stone fits into the larger picture of jazz and hip hop and rock.

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

full of a lot of fun information, but the facts are disjointed at best and fail to form any sort of narrative.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this one a bit boring