Greatest Hits (Sly and the Family Stone album)

History

Released in the midst of an eighteen-month stretch from late 1969 to late 1971, during which Sly & the Family Stone released no new material, Greatest Hits was designed by Epic Records to appease consumer demand and keep the band's name and music in the public's eye. Greatest Hits peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200, and was the band's most successful album sales-wise.

The songs from this album were remixed into Quadraphonic format in 1970 - Once as a test mix, and then again for proper release. Both the Test mixes and released mixes contain different running times and alternate or missing vocals/instrumentation to the original versions. Sly Stone and his engineers never got around to making standard stereo mixes of the three non-album singles. Epic had to resort to taking the mono versions and making simulated stereo versions by electronically rechannelling the mono mixes' frequencies for the stereo LP. For years, the Quadraphonic LP of this album was the only way to find stereo mixes of "Hot Fun in the Summertime", "Everybody is a Star" and "Thank You". True stereo mixes of these three songs were finally done when the Sly & the Family Stone catalog was digitally remastered in the 1990s. The album was properly reissued by Epic/Legacy in 2007 and the Quadraphonic mix was reissued on SACD by Audio Fidelity in 2015.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, music critic Jon Landau said that Sly Stone's style is "so infinite and revolves around so many crucial aspects that it has only come together perfectly on a handful of his singles", the best of which are compiled on Greatest Hits. Although he found occasionally "trite" music and lyrics, Landau felt that most of the songs "alone stand as a tribute to one of the most original and creative rock musicians." Music journalist Robert Christgau said that, although he has "doubts" about the band's studio albums, Greatest Hits is "among the greatest rock and roll LPs of all time", with "only one cut ('Fun')" wherein the lyrics are "merely competent". He said that Stone's political songs are "uplifting but never simplistic or sentimental", and found the rhythms particularly exceptional, calling them "inspirational, good-humored, and trenchant throughout". Christgau asserted that the music's flashy stereo separations, vocal sounds, and register alterations made Greatest Hits "the toughest commercial experiments in rock and roll history".

In a review upon the album's reissue in 2007, Andrew Gilstrap from PopMatters said that, although it is not comprehensive, the "slapped-together feel" may be "part of what makes Greatest Hits work so well, as if it was put together with the same freewheeling spirit that characterized the band." AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that the album is "one of the greatest party records of all time", with music that is "rarely as vivacious, vigorous, and vibrant as this", and claimed that greatest hits albums "don't come better than this — in fact, music rarely does."

Track listing

All songs written by Sylvester Stewart, and produced and arranged by Sly Stone for Stone Flower Productions. Superscripts denote original album sources, referenced below.

Personnel