The year is 1968. The air is thick with discord, revolution, and the promise of something entirely new—a world where the lines drawn by genre, race, and gender would blur until they vanished. You’re in a dimly lit studio, maybe in Los Angeles or San Francisco, where the tape is rolling, and the man at the controls is a prodigious polymath named Sylvester Stewart, better known as Sly Stone. He’s already produced hits, spun records on the radio, and led a band so diverse it defied the era’s segregationist norms. Yet, his first album, A Whole New Thing (1967), was considered too raw, too uncompromising for the massive audience his label, Epic/CBS, desperately wanted.
The executive pressure was simple: give us a hit. Give us something pop.
The result was the single that would become the title track of their second long-player, released in 1968: “Dance To The Music.” It is not merely a song; it is a declaration of purpose, a meticulously constructed blueprint for the next decade of funk, soul, and pop. It is, perhaps, the ultimate meta-statement in music: a piece of music about the act of making music, and the sheer joy of dancing to it.
The track crashes in with a startling, percussive energy. It’s an exercise in dynamic assembly, a sound so immediate it feels less like a recorded performance and more like a spontaneous house party captured on tape. The opening salvo is Greg Errico’s drums—crisp, punchy, laying down a simple, insistent four-on-the-floor beat that grounds the entire arrangement. This is instantly recognizable as the foundational rhythm for a new kind of social movement.
Sly’s genius as an arranger shines through as he introduces each element in turn, almost narrating the instrumentation as it enters the mix. The lyric is wonderfully self-referential: “All we need is a drummer / For people who only need a beat.”
Then comes the bass. Larry Graham’s line is a masterpiece of kinetic propulsion. It’s the first hint of the slap technique he’s often credited with pioneering—a thumb-fired rhythmic burst that gives the bottom end a sharp, attacking quality, making the bass not just harmonic filler, but a lead percussive voice. This low-end drive is the emotional anchor, the element that truly elevates the track beyond conventional soul.
“I’m gonna add a little guitar,” Sly promises in his distinctive, high voice, and Freddie Stone delivers. The guitar part is lean and wiry, a series of clipped, rhythmic jabs. It’s not a melodic lead, but a textural contribution—a psychedelic counter-rhythm woven tightly into the drums and bass. It’s electric funk before electric funk was truly a thing, relying on groove over flash.
But the defining texture is the organ. Sly’s Hammond B-3 piano playing is pure church fire, a gospel-infused blast of sustained chords that provides the emotional lift. It’s the sound of the sanctuary moved to the dance floor, providing the crucial, soulful warmth that stops the track from becoming purely mechanical. The Hammond’s deep, swirling timbre fills the room, its sustain contrasting beautifully with the dry, clipped attack of the rhythm section.
The band’s famous communal, integrated vocal attack is deployed to maximum effect. The call-and-response is traded seamlessly among the band’s singers—Sly, his brother Freddie, his sister Rose, and Larry Graham. This constant shifting of lead vocal duties mirrored the group’s revolutionary integrated lineup (Black and white, male and female), presenting a utopian vision of harmony right there in the sound waves.
And then there are the horns. Cynthia Robinson’s trumpet and Jerry Martini’s saxophone don’t offer complex jazz solos; they provide bright, shouting punctuation marks, driving the energy upward. Cynthia’s famous vocal ad-libs—”Get on up and dance to the music!”—serve as pure, unadulterated hype, breaking the fourth wall between the artist and the listener. The recording feels close, slightly compressed, with a generous but not overwhelming reverb tail that gives the track a unified, celebratory feel, tailor-made for transistor radios and powerful home audio systems alike.
The track’s structure itself is a marvel of simplicity. It doesn’t rely on verses, choruses, or traditional bridges. It’s built on a singular, hypnotic, repetitive groove that just builds. This repetition, this circularity, is key to its psychedelic appeal—a trance-like insistence that never loses its celebratory focus. It was a risk, avoiding the typical pop architecture, but it paid off handsomely, soaring into the top ten on both the Pop and R&B charts.
“It’s a testament to the band’s intrinsic chemistry that they could take a commercial imperative and transform it into a piece of art that redefined a decade.”
This piece of music was the hinge. It was the moment Sly Stone realized how to package his revolutionary psychedelic soul for a mass audience without sacrificing its political and musical integrity. Without this song, the subsequent perfection of Stand! (1969) and the dark genius of There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971) would likely not have reached the same massive platform. It’s the Trojan horse of funk, sneaking complex rhythms and an integrated message into the heart of mainstream America. It set a new standard for arrangements—a sonic palette that future artists would use to build new worlds. If you are learning an instrument today, say taking guitar lessons, the rhythms laid down by Freddie Stone in this period are a required study in minimalist funk economy.
Today, listening to this track offers a kind of necessary reset. It’s a sonic pallet cleanser, a reminder that the most profound shifts in culture often arrive disguised as simple party records. It strips away the cynicism and complexity, leaving only the essential instruction: get on up and dance. The song is the antidote to stasis, the ultimate instruction manual for collective joy. It’s why it still works its magic in a sudden club moment or as the perfect sonic backdrop to a road trip that needs a jolt of pure, unadulterated energy. The groove remains eternal.
Listening Recommendations (4-6 songs)
- The Isley Brothers – “It’s Your Thing” (1969): An immediate spiritual successor, adopting a similar hard-driving, dry funk rhythm that moved beyond traditional soul.
- James Brown – “Mother Popcorn (You Got to Have a Mother for Me)” (1969): For the hyper-syncopated, percussive emphasis and the shouted, call-and-response vocal delivery.
- Funkadelic – “I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody’s Got a Thing” (1970): Shares the communal, repetitive, and psychedelic-tinged group vocal approach over a tight, hypnotic groove.
- The Temptations – “Cloud Nine” (1968): Norman Whitfield’s explicit foray into the “psychedelic soul” sound directly influenced by the success and textures of Sly & The Family Stone.
- Booker T. & the M.G.’s – “Soul Limbo” (1968): Captures the era’s tight, organ-driven instrumental funk feel, prioritizing groove and texture over vocal melody.