Stand!

This article is about the Sly & the Family Stone album. For other uses, see Stand (disambiguation).
Stand!
Studio album by
Sly and the Family Stone
ReleasedApril 1969[1]
Recorded1968–1969
StudioPacific High (San Francisco)
Genre
Length41:27
LabelEpic
ProducerSly Stone
Sly and the Family Stone chronology
Life
(1968) 		Stand!
(1969) 		Greatest Hits
(1970)
Singles from Stand!
  1. "Everyday People" / "Sing a Simple Song"
    Released: November 1968
  2. "Stand!" / "I Want to Take You Higher"
    Released: March 1969

Stand! is the fourth album by soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone, released in April 1969. Written and produced by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, Stand! is considered an artistic high-point of the band's career. Released by Epic Records, just before the group's celebrated performance at the Woodstock festival, it became the band's most commercially successful album to date.[7] It includes several well-known songs, among them hit singles, such as "Sing a Simple Song", "I Want to Take You Higher", "Stand!", and "Everyday People". The album was reissued in 1990 on compact disc and vinyl, and again in 2007 as a remastered numbered edition digipack CD with bonus tracks and, in the UK, as only a CD with bonus tracks.

The album sold 500,000 copies in 1969 and was certified gold in sales by the RIAA on December 4 of that year. It peaked at number 13 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for nearly two years.[8] By 1986 it had sold well over 1 million copies and was certified platinum in sales by the RIAA on November 21 of that same year.[9] It then went on to sell over three million copies, becoming one of the most successful albums of the 1960s.[10] In 2003, the album was ranked number 118 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,[11] 121 in a 2012 revised list,[12] and number 119 in a 2020 reboot of the list.[13] In 2015, the album was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for inclusion in the National Recording Registry.[14]

  1. ^ Billboard April 12, 1969
  2. ^ Abdurraqib, Hanif; Bossenger, A.T.; Pearson, Paul; Terich, Jeff (16 April 2015). "10 Essential Psychedelic Soul Albums". Treble. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  3. ^ Deriso, Nick (3 May 2019). "50 Years Ago: How Sly and the Family Stone Defined an Era With 'Stand'". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  4. ^ Patrin, Nate (29 August 2013). "Sly and the Family Stone: Higher! Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  5. ^ Himes, Geoffrey (May 16, 1990). "Records". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 26, 2021.
  6. ^ Hanson, Michael Stephen (2004). People Get Ready: Race, Place and Political Identity in Post-civil Rights Black Popular Music, 1965-1975. UC Berkeley. p. 124.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Allmusic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Billboard". 27 March 1971.
  9. ^ "Stand! - Gold & Platinum". RIAA. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  10. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Sly & the Family Stone | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 January 2007.
  11. ^ Levy, Joe; Steven Van Zandt (2006) [2005]. "Stand! - Sly and the Family Stone". Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (3rd ed.). London: Turnaround. ISBN 1-932958-61-4. OCLC 70672814. Retrieved 16 August 2008.
  12. ^ "500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time". Rolling Stone. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  13. ^ "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 22 September 2020. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  14. ^ "National Recording Registry To "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive"". Library of Congress.