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Cision Canada
21 hours ago
- Business
- Cision Canada
NETWORK MEDIA GROUP ANNOUNCES 2025 SECOND QUARTER RESULTS
VANCOUVER, BC, July 30, 2025 /CNW/ - Network Media Group Inc. (TSXV: NTE) (OTC: NETWF) ("Network" or "the Company") today reported financial results for the second quarter ended May 31, 2025 ("Q2 2025"), including three-month revenues of $1,022,575 (Q2 2024 - $3,006,969), a net loss of $772,209 (Q2 2024 – a net loss of $754,773) and Adjusted EBITDA 1 loss of $513,439 (Q2 2024 – Adjusted EBITDA loss of $344,957), and contracted future revenues ("backlog" 2) of $8.5M. On a per-share basis, the Company reports a loss of $0.04 per share (Q2 2024 – loss of $0.04) and an Adjusted EBITDA loss per share of $0.03 (Q2 2024 – Adj. EBITDA loss of $0.02). The financial statements and related Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A") can be viewed on SEDAR+ at Network President Curtis White stated, "This quarter's financial results reflect a greater focus on creating and delivering independently financed proprietary content backed by strategic partners. We are encouraged by the support of our expanding network of partners and grateful for the critical acclaim and award recognition we are receiving in the marketplace, most recently with this month's Emmy nomination for our Sly and the Family Stone feature documentary, Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)." Key metrics for Network's six months ended Q2 2025 include the following highlights: Backlog of $8.5M with $5.9M to be recorded in the next six months and $2.6M beyond seven months; Revenues of $2,517,033 (Q2 2024 - $5,135,785); Net loss of $478,500 - $0.03 per share (Q2 2024 Net loss of $1,360,744 - $0.08 per share); and Adjusted EBITDA loss of $37,476 - $0.01 per share (Q2 2024 Adjusted EBITDA loss of $699,925 - $0.04 per share). Operational highlights for the quarter include: Continued production on four feature-length documentaries and a five-episode documentary series. Our Brats feature documentary, directed by original Brat Pack member Andrew McCarthy, in partnership with NEON and ABC News, received significant recognition at the 2025 Webby Awards, winning in two categories: Webby Winner – Video & Film: Documentary People's Voice Winner – Video & Film: Documentary Strategic distribution announcement with Elevation Pictures for the Canadian distribution of our I Am feature documentaries, commencing with three new highly anticipated titles, I Am Luke Perry, I Am Raquel Welch and I Am Joe Frazier, which premiered on Crave on June 9 th, June 16 th, and June 23 rd, respectively. 1"Adjusted EBITDA" is calculated based on EBITDA (known as earnings/loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) plus share-based payments expense, finance costs (income), foreign exchange gain (loss), and losses and other items of an unusual nature that do not reflect ongoing operations. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are commonly reported and widely used by investors and lenders as an indicator of a company's operating performance and ability to incur and service debt, and as a valuation metric. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are not an earnings measures recognized by IFRS and therefore do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Therefore, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. 2 The Company uses the non-IFRS measure "backlog", which is defined as the undiscounted value of signed agreements for production services for work that has not yet been performed, but which the Company expects to recognize revenue in future periods. The extent of eventual revenue recognized in future periods may be materially higher or lower than this amount, depending upon assumptions and expectations that include, but are not limited to the following: the terms of the contracts will not be altered; delivery of the Company's products will occur as scheduled; the purchasing party will make payment as and when due under the contract, and will comply with all payment terms; the US-Canadian currency exchange rates remain stable (assumed to be 1.35 USD-CDN for the purposes of the estimates made herein); no unforeseen event interrupts business in the ordinary course; and the purchasing party will pay, or has paid, Network on a pro-rata to percent completed for a film or episode that is in progress. Should conditions change, the revenue estimates may not be met and actual results may differ, perhaps materially. About Network Media Group / Network Entertainment Network Media Group is the parent company of Network Entertainment Inc. Network Entertainment is a creatively driven, boutique film, television, and digital content production company that creates, finances and produces award-winning programming for television, digital platforms, and movie audiences around the world. The Network premium brand of content delivers world-class casts and features visually cinematic, richly crafted storytelling. The Company's productions are consistently embraced by both audiences and critics alike, garnering awards, record ratings, and unparalleled media coverage for Network and its partners. For additional information on Network Entertainment Inc., visit Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Statement on Non-IFRS Financial Measures and Forward-looking Information In addition to results reported in accordance with IFRS, this news release refers to certain non-IFRS financial measures as supplemental indicators of the Company's financial and operating performance. These non-IFRS financial measures include EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Future Contracted Production Revenue (commonly referred to as backlog). The Company believes these supplemental financial measures reflect the Company's ongoing business in a manner that assist the reader's meaningful period-to-period comparisons and analysis of trends in its business. Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are necessarily based upon management's perceptions, beliefs, assumptions and expectations, as well as a number of specific factors and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management of the Company as of the date of such statements are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies that could result in the forward-looking information ultimately, perhaps materially, being incorrect. All forward-looking information in this news release involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are beyond the control of the Company and may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Except as required pursuant to applicable securities laws, the Company will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.
Hamilton Spectator
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
The Latest: ‘Severance' and ‘The Studio' lead Emmy nominations
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nominations for the Emmy Awards were revealed Tuesday in Los Angeles. Two categories were announced early on 'CBS Mornings' —the nominees for talk series and reality competition series. Actors Harvey Guillen and Brenda Song later announced other nominees. 'Severance'' leads the nominees with 27, while 'The Studio'' tops the comedy nominations with 23. CBS will air the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 14. Nate Bargatze is slated to host. The Latest: Kendrick Lamar and 'SNL' earn Emmy nominations Both Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show and the 50th anniversary 'Saturday Night Live' concert earned nominations in the variety special (live) category. They're joined by Netflix's Beyoncé Bowl and rounded out by less musical events: the Oscars and 'SNL50: The Anniversary Special.' Some music documentaries miss Emmy nominations. Questlove's 'Sly Lives!' gets nod It could've been a big year for Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles and the singular composer John Williams in the documentary or nonfiction categories, but they just missed the mark. Though those giants of genre didn't grab nods this year, Questlove's 'Sly Lives! (Aka The Burden Of Black Genius)' documentary did. 'Severance' leads the field with 27 Emmy nominations. 'The Studio' tops comedy with 23 'Severance' leads the field with 27 Emmy nominations , while 'The Studio' tops comedy nominees with 23 in a dominant year for Apple TV+. Need to catch up? Seasons 1 and 2 of 'Severance'' stream on Apple TV+ and would take a total of 15 hours and 29 minutes. 'The Studio' on Apple TV+ has 10 episodes and would take 5 hours and 15 minutes to watch them all. Ashley Walters is a rapper, actor and Emmy nominee Supporting actor in a limited series nominee Ashley Walters first made his name in the U.K. as a rapper in the vast So Solid Crew under the name Asher D — and featured on their iconic hit '21 Seconds' in 2001. But the 'Adolescence' star had been acting since way before that and he's had two long-running roles on either side of the law — as drug dealer Dushane in 'Top Boy' and a police officer in British procedural 'Bulletproof.' Where's 'The White Lotus' ensemble? Don't go looking for the ensemble of 'The White Lotus' in the lead acting categories at the Emmys — they're hanging out in the supporting categories. Carrie Coon, Parker Posey, Natasha Rothwell and Aimee Lou Wood all get a nod as do Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs and Sam 'monologue' Rockwell. Even Scott Glenn is in the running in the guest category for playing Jim Hollinger. But what happened to BLACKPINK's Lisa, Tayme Thapthimthong or the Ratliff kids — Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sarah Catherine Hook and Sam Nivola? No love either for Coon's on-screen frenemies, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb, Rockwell's real-life partner. 'Bridget Jones' is a TV movie? In the U.S., yes. While 'Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy' was distributed theatrically abroad, the latest installment of the Renée Zellweger-starring franchise was directly released on Peacock stateside, making it eligible for the Emmys. How this year's nominees stack up against record holders 'Severance' leads all nominees with 27, but 'Game of Thrones' still holds the record for most nominations for one show in a season — 32, in 2019. The show did break a record for Apple TV+ — previously, 'Ted Lasso' was the streamer's most nominated show for one season, with 21 nominations in 2023. 'The Studio,' though has tied 'The Bear's' 2024 record for comedy series, with 23. Noah Wyle and Adam Scott compete for Emmy No. 1 Noah Wyle and Adam Scott are TV veterans who've never won an Emmy. They're now considered close co-favorites for best actor in a drama after getting nominations — Wyle for 'The Pitt' and Scott for 'Severance.' It's Wyle's sixth nomination. He was up for Emmys five times for playing Dr. John Carter in 'ER' but never won. Now he can get one for playing a very similar character later in life. Scott spent five seasons as a regular on 'Parks and Recreation' but didn't get his first nomination until his starring role on 'Severance.' Does Kathy Bates have a lock on best drama actress? Kathy Bates is considered the runaway front-runner for best actress in a drama. It would be a weird one if she goes on to win for CBS' 'Matlock.' She's the first to be nominated in the category from a network show since 2019, when Viola Davis was nominated for ABC's 'How To Get Away With Murder.' She would be the first woman from a network show to win best actress in a drama since 2015, when Davis won, and the first actor in any drama category to win since 2017, when Sterling K. Brown won for NBC's 'This Is Us.' It's the 15th time Bates has been nominated. She's won twice before. Nominees for talk and reality competition series are released early Two categories were announced early on 'CBS Mornings.' The nominees for talk series are 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,' 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' and 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.' The nominees for reality competition series are: 'The Amazing Race'; RuPaul's Drag Race'; 'Survivor'; 'Top Chef' and 'The Traitors.'
Black America Web
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Black America Web
Sly Stone's Music Formed The Backdrop To Several Hip-Hop Classics
Sly Stone, a legendary musician who helped propel funk to its elevated heights in the realm of Black music, has died. Hip-Hop artists of various eras have sampled Sly Stone's work over the years, and we've got a playlist highlighting some of those audio classics. As Hip-Hop Wired reported earlier, Sly Stone, born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, passed away Monday (June 9) at the age of 82. After establishing his roots in the Bay Area as a musical prodigy, Stone ventured into becoming a front-facing artist with his Sly and The Stones in the 1960s with the late Cynthia Robinson, the trumpeter who was a founding member of Sly and the Family Stone, the band that catapulted Stone into the annals of music history. Alongside fun pioneers such asJames Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic, Stone and his band enjoyed a successful run of album releases extending into the late 1970s. Stone's life was captured in the 2023 biography, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), written with Ben Greenman, featuring a foreword from Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson. Thompson also produced the stirring 2025 documentary centered on Stone's life and legacy, Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) . Hip-Hop artists such as LL Cool J, Queen Latifah, The Jungle Brothers, Public Enemy, and scores more dug into the crates to grab bits of Stone's music to form the backdrop of their works. Below, we've got a handful of those songs featured in the playlist below. Long live Sly Stone. May he rest powerfully in peace. — Photo: Michael Putland / Getty Sly Stone's Music Formed The Backdrop To Several Hip-Hop Classics was originally published on Samples 'Trip To Your Heart.' Samples 'Dance to the Music.' Samples 'You Can Make It If You Try.' Samples 'Sing A Simple Song.' Samples 'Everyday People.' Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Hear Sly and the Family Stone Rock a Small Club in 1967 With Funky ‘I Gotta Go Now'
The funky farewell number from a rare concert recording of Sly and the Family Stone, from 1967, shows how playful the group was in their early days. The medley, 'I Gotta Go Now (Up on the Floor)/Funky Broadway,' opens with climbing organ and horn lines and a funky drumbeat as the group sings, 'I gotta go now,' and it just gets funkier from there. It ends with a riotous 'baahye,' and the audience laughing and clapping. The song features on the album, The First Family: Live at Winchester Cathedral 1967, which previously came out for Record Store Day but is now getting a wide release on July 18. The album features the earliest known live recording of the band, captured at Redwood City, California's Winchester Cathedral, where they played about an hour's worth of Joe Tex, Ben E. King, and Otis Redding covers. It will be available digitally, as well as on vinyl and CD; the CD edition includes a bonus track, a cover of Otis Redding's 'Try a Little Tenderness.' The liner notes to the physical editions contain exclusive interviews with Sly Stone and all of the other original members of the Family Stone, along with never-before-published photos. More from Rolling Stone Sly Stone, Family Stone Architect Who Fused Funk, Rock, and Soul, Dead at 82 'Sly Lives!' Producer Reveals Why Sly Stone Wasn't Interviewed for Documentary Andre 3000 Talks Sly Stone's 'Stankonia' Influence in 'Sly Lives!' Doc Clip 'The Winchester Cathedral recordings showcase a one-of-kind outfit that was already at the peak of its powers, long before it became internationally famous,' the set's producer, Alec Palao, said in a statement. 'Sly is fully in command, while the unique arrangements and tighter-than-tight ensemble playing point clearly to the road ahead, and the enduring influence of Sly & The Family Stone's music.' The concert on the album took place on March 26, 1967, toward the end of the group's Winchester Cathedral residency, when they served as house band from December 1966 through the end of April 1967. The group's manager, Rich Romanello, recorded the gig. Romanello shelved the tapes after the band signed to Epic; Dutch twins and Family Stone enthusiasts Edwin and Arno Konings rediscovered them in 2002. The band's debut album, A Whole New Thing, came out in October 1967. None of the songs from the concert recording, which include many covers, featured on the record. The only original composition, 'I Ain't Got Nobody (For Real),' would later appear on 1968's Dance to the Music. track list: 1. I Ain't Got Nobody (For Real)2. Skate Now3. Show Me4. What Is Soul?5. I Can't Turn You Loose6. Try A Little Tenderness *7. Baby I Need Your Loving8. Pucker Up Buttercup9. Saint James Infirmary10. I Gotta Go Now (Up on the Floor)/Funky Broadway *CD Only Bonus Track Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs
In a famed 1970 Rolling Stone profile by Ben Fong-Torres, Sly Stone (né Sylvester Stewart) explained the concept behind he and the Family Stone: 'If there was anything to be happy about, then everybody'd be happy about it. If there were a lot of songs to sing, then everybody got to sing. If we have something to suffer or a cross to bear – we bear it together.' Those words — a rare, lucid moment for Stone in that era — encapsulated the group's arc up until that point: from the rosy optimism of their Summer of Love debut through their hit song era and into the cynicism of that early Seventies moment. The band would bear it together, until they couldn't anymore. More from Rolling Stone Sly Stone, Family Stone Architect Who Fused Funk, Rock, and Soul, Dead at 82 Hear Sly and the Family Stone Rock a Small Club in 1967 With Funky 'I Gotta Go Now' 'Sly Lives!' Producer Reveals Why Sly Stone Wasn't Interviewed for Documentary Sly and the Family Stone became the poster children for a particularly San Francisco sensibility of the late Sixties: integrated, progressive, indomitably idealistic. Their music, a combustible mix of psychedelic rock, funky soul and sunshine pop, placed them at a nexus of convergent cultural movements, and in turn, they collected a string of chart-topping hits. Just as they seemed on the cusp of even greater success, Stone made a social and psychological retreat, only to reemerge in 1971 with the sonic equivalent of a repudiation: dark, brilliant and bracing. The band wouldn't survive intact much longer, but in that short span, they redefined the possibilities of pop music. Was Sly and the Family Stone one of the great American funk bands? Rock bands? Pop bands? All of the Stone's first taste of national notoriety began at the tender age of 19 when he produced the moody pop single, "Laugh, Laugh," for the San Mateo folk-rock band the Beau Brummels. As a teen guitarist, Stone's various gigs around San Francisco lead him to cross paths with Autumn Records' Tom Donahue, who gave the budding talent a shot at producing. "Laugh, Laugh" was one of Sly's first efforts and by early 1965, it had climbed into the Top 20. As Ben Fong-Torres said of the single in 1970: "Sly had produced the very first rock & roll hits out of… a city then known for little more than Johnny Mathis and Vince Guaraldi." The "San Francisco Sound" would soon be in full bloom, but here Sly was planting the seeds early Stone's brief stint at Autumn Records, he made use of their studios to mess around with his own compositions, including this funky, chattering instrumental, likely concocted in 1965. Stone self-taught himself how to play an array of instruments, including the organ that can be heard wheezing away on this track. "Rock Dirge" and similar experiments from this era eventually surfaced on a 1975 compilation of Stone's early work and the song was subsequently pressed onto a seven-inch that's become popular amongst breakbeat-crazed proceeds earned from Autumn, Stone set himself and his family up in Daly City, just outside of San Francisco. This is where the Family Stone band began to cohere in the mid 1960s and their first official release came on this single for the local Loadstone label. With its snappy, uptempo backbeat and layered vocal harmonies, the song now sounds like a prescient first draft for a style that would take full form on the group's later hits. "I Ain't Got Nobody" only made noise locally but it helped put the group on the radar of Epic Records who signed Sly and the Family Stone that same the first single and first song on the group's first album, A Whole New Thing, "Underdog" introduced Sly and the Family Stone in as raucous a way possible. It opens, oddly enough, with saxophonist Jerry Martini sleepily riffing on the children's song "Frère Jacques" before giving way to a full acid rock jam of driving horns, dramatic choral yells and a defiant social message about underdogs who have to prove themselves to be "twice as good." George Clinton told official Family Stone biographer Jeff Kaliss that, in listening to the song, "you felt like they were speaking directly to you personally." The song and its album were the group's creative magnum opus… just not a commercial one. They failed to break the Family Stone out nationally, but that moment would come soon Sly Stone song most likely to be heard on a 1980s "as advertised on TV" compilation, "Dance to the Music," netted the group their first Top 10 hit by the spring of 1968. Recorded under the insistent direction of Clive Davis, the single's ebullient, infectious energy helped cover for the fact that, lyrically, it's little more than the band narrating what instruments they're about to fold into the groove: drums, then guitar, bass, etc. Within the group, the song and same-titled album was met with mixed emotions. Saxophonist Jerry Martini, speaking to oral historian Joel Selvin, insisted, "It was so unhip to us. The beats were glorified Motown. We did the formula thing." However, engineer Don Pulese, quoted by journalist Miles Marshall Lewis, claims that Sly himself once said of the single, "that's the best bass and drum sounds I've ever got."Life was a middle child album, shortchanged between the breakout success of "Dance to the Music" and the transcendent accomplishment of Stand! Yet, for all its commercial shortcomings, the album made an impact with critics, especially Rolling Stone's Barret Hansen (a.k.a. the future Dr. Demento) who declared it "the most radical soul album ever issued." Hansen was particularly taken by the group's "element of surprise": Songs like the psych-fringed "Dynamite" or the carnival-esque title track make quixotic shifts in arrangement, with sudden sonic pockets opening up and closing while the Family's singers play tag on lead vocals. As trumpeter Cynthia Robinson told Ebony last summer (before she passed in November), "We were free to adlib things. Sly would cut things off in a different way than the real recordings; he'd just stop it and go into something else.""The things that were happening across the country changed us as people," said Freddy Stone in a 2013 interview with Wax Poetics. "We would begin having conversations amongst ourselves, and Sly being the genius that he is, he was putting these thoughts into songs." The album that came out of that moment, Stand!, absorbed the furious energies of the era's political and musical revolutions and spit back an LP so potent that more than half of its songs would end up being reissued just a year later on the group's Greatest Hits. "Everyday People" remains the group's pinnacle of that era, a flamboyantly utopian anthem about forging unity through difference. All that and Scooby Dooby Doo, ya'll."Everyday People," was an undeniably feel-good pop hit, but for the best-selling single's B-side, the Family Stone unleashed this blistering blast of funk. As rollicking and aggressive as anything James Brown and his crew were pumping out, the song also found Sly playing with studio techniques, including stereo panning to split instruments into separate channels. Greg Errico – whose crackling drum work on the song would be liberally sampled decades later – told interviewer Eric Sandler in 2013: "The track was laid so down to the bone and we all knew it was. You could feel it."Elsewhere on Stand!, the Family Stone may have painted their social commentary in varying metaphoric shades but with "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey," they left little room for reinterpretation. Clocking in at nearly six minutes, the song is almost all hook (save for a short Rose Stone verse) and its stark, defiant tone stands in sharp contrast to the album's more optimistic vibes. The song is also striking for its spaced-out vocoder effects and distorted instrumentation, predating and predicting the launch of the P-Funk Mothership half a decade only fitting that this song – now considered one of Woodstock's most legendary performances – took form at another seminal Family Stone concert: the 1968 Fillmore East show. The original "Higher," a jerky album cut off Dance to the Music, was part of their set and during the performance, the group began to improvise with it, adding the crucial line, "I wanna take you higher." By Stand!, the song had evolved into a lumbering, aggressive tune that promised to drag you to a higher plane whether you were ready to tag along or rushed to capitalize on the group's incandescent Woodstock performance by releasing "Hot Fun in the Summertime" as a standalone single in August of 1969. Compared to the social messaging on Stand!, "Hot Fun" delivered what its title promised: a fun summer anthem awash in some gentle streams of nostalgia and a rare instance of Stone using a string section. Critics generally treated it as a pleasant trifle – Rolling Stone's Jon Landau compared it to "a hard version of the Lettermen" – but years later, George Clinton would laud it as "proof that funk could be a pop standard.""Thank You" would have been memorable enough thanks to Sly's strange, phonetic title but the song's enduring legacy rests mostly with the thumb of bassist Larry Graham. His "thunkin' and pluckin'" technique revolutionized the role of the bass as a lead instrument in R&B, leading music writer and scholar Ricky Vincent to opine, "perhaps more than any other record, 'Thank You' introduced the Decade of Funk."It says much about the Family Stone's power and popularity in 1970 that a compilation ostensibly made to collect their past hits would end up creating three entirely new ones. "Hot Fun" and "Thank You" were huge successes in their own right but perhaps the most timeless was "Everybody Is a Star." Even more than "Everyday People," "Star" was Sly and the Family Stone at their self-affirming best — a happy, hippy-er version of the "black is beautiful" slogan of the era. Of course, if the song was a high point, by extension, what came next meant that Sly and the Family Stone were about to get and the Family Stone were supposed to follow the Greatest Hits anthology with a new studio album in 1970. Instead, Stone decided to postpone that recording while moving his base of operations to Los Angeles, the first of many decisions that began to fray relationships within the band. For the next year or so, Sly stayed in seclusion, frustrating bandmates, label reps and fans. Drugs and gnawing paranoia didn't help, but this "lost" period was also a fertile creative time for Stone as he tinkered with new toys, especially emergent drum machine technology. Beatboxes were still a novelty item then, nothing a serious musician would consider using as a studio instrument. But through Sly's own Stone Flower imprint, he began to explore its musical potential on the lone single by vocal group 6ix. In a rare contemporary interview for the liner notes of I'm Just Like You, a Stone Flower anthology, Sly told Alec Palao, "All instruments are real. Anything that can express your heart, it's an instrument, man." By 1971, those ideas would come into fuller fruition on the group's epochal There's a Riot Goin' Marcus famously wrote that There's a Riot Goin' On! "was no fun. It was slow, hard to hear, and it isn't celebrating anything." In short, "It was not groovy." These were all meant as compliments since the album's dark tones – literal and figurative – felt like an unflinchingly honest expression of both the Family Stone's internal turmoil and the state of America waking up from its late Sixties high and facing the early Seventies' bleak hangover. The group's last Number One single, "Family Affair," was a sobering retreat from the sunny positivity of "Everybody Is a Star," replacing it with a meditation on human strife and weakness, cleverly masked within the mesmerizing burbling of its drum machine rhythms. In a 1971 Rolling Stone interview, Sly insisted, "I don't feel being torn apart," but many around him wondered more than "Family Affair," "Running Away" felt like a song at odds with itself. The message was unambiguous – "running away/to get away … you're wearing out your shoes" – and the "ha-ha, hee-hee" laughter feels mocking in every stanza. But in contrast, the music feels light and luminous with a jaunty guitar and bright brass section that would have been at home with Earth, Wind & Fire. Cynicism never sounded so the time Sly had disappeared into his L.A. studio, he was experimenting with playing every instrument he could lay his hands on. Riot still featured the Family players, but in many instances it was all Sly, overdubbing himself playing the various parts. With each new layer, the sound quality would gradually deteriorate into the hazy, opioid sound heard on "Time," "Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa," "Luv N' Haight," and other songs: all slurred and half-dreamed. The affect was as alluring as it was foreboding – a journey into the heart of funk's Family Stone came undone in the Riot era, amid a string of near-mythologically disastrous concerts. To work on his next album, Fresh, Sly headed back to the Bay, but began replacing several of the key players who had been with him since at least the "Dance to the Music" days. Despite the change in personnel, Fresh was a compelling sequel to Riot's funk explorations, albeit not nearly as dark or pathos-laden. "If You Want Me to Stay," the album's modest hit, still saw Sly keeping his audience at arm's length. As the singer explained on a radio interview, "That's exactly what I meant, what I wrote. If you want me to stay, let me know. Otherwise, sayonara."The most damning-with-faint-praise for Small Talk, Sly and the Family Stone's final group album of the 1970s, may have come in Billboard's July 1974 review where an uncredited critic offers "not really much new in the way of presentation… but… there really is no need for a successful star to have to come up with something new on each LP." They weren't wrong: Small Talk mostly retread the same stylings, but the formula still had legs, especially on the tightly wound "Can't Strain My Brain," one of many Sly songs of the era where he hinted at his gradually loosening grip on the last great Sly Stone song, "Remember Who You Are" wasn't a full-fledged return to the original Family Stone. Sly had jettisoned the band several years earlier, recording under his own name, including on 1976's Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, perhaps one of the worst on-the-nose album titles in history. Back on the Right Track, in 1979, sounds like a concession to the mistakes of the past and, at least for "Remember Who You Are," he reunited siblings Freddie and Rose Stone to share vocals, recapturing some of that old Family Stone magic. { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 1, }, pmcCnx: { singleAutoPlay: 'auto' } } }, playerId: "d762a038-c1a2-4e6c-969e-b2f1c9ec6f8a", mediaId: "e4dc3aa6-3781-4d73-8332-8e311e2c5c59", }).render("connatix_player_e4dc3aa6-3781-4d73-8332-8e311e2c5c59_1"); }); Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
