Top 100 Albums of the 1970s - #71 - James Brown - The Payback (1973)

First of all, an apology for abandoning this project for so long. National Novel Writing Month, followed by the December holidays got in my way and I'm only now regaining my momentum. Nevertheless, I'm resolved to complete this project sooner or later, so onward and upward!

To be honest, I never thought I would like James Brown. He just didn't seem like my thing. But then I had the chance to see him live in concert shortly before his death, and it remains one of the best shows I've ever seen. The man knew how to put on a show, and his band is one of the tightest in the business.

But this review is about his 1971 album, The Payback, not the performance I saw in the early 2000s. So how does it stack up? In general, I'd say this record lacks some of the dynamism and energy of the live performance. I know it's regarded as one of his finest, but it lacks immediate crowd pleasers like Living in America or Sex Machine. The tracks here are generally slower in tempo, simpler in their composition, and lacking the melodic hooks that made the aforementioned songs so great.

There's a curious stasis to this kind of music. A funk groove, usually of not more than two bars, repeats over and over again, while James shouts, hollers, screams, grunts, and emotes over the top. Sometimes there's a brief solo or a horn section sting, but that's pretty much it. It almost reminds me of minimalist music in the vein of Philip Glass in that it uses motion to create a sense of stillness. It's weird to think of those two styles of music as related, but focus on groove and repetition is certainly common in both.

Lyrically, the songs lack much of substance. James makes it very clear that he wants revenge on somebody for something, any other details or funny. Elsewhere he apologetically admits that he is just a man, but that he's doing the best he can, in a rre moment of soul vulnerability. 

Towards the end of the album, the songs get longer and the jams get spacier. I'll venture another unlikely comparison in that these tracks start to resemble similarly groove-oriented efforts by Krautrock and space rock artists. Of course, the horns, wah-wah guitars and general funk atmosphere lend the music a totally different feel, but mechanically, a jam is a jam, and the album's closer, Mind Power, is a particularly great one.

The Payback is a double album, which seems a little unnecessary, given that most of the songs contain a small amount of material stretched out into seven, eight, or even twelve minutes. James Brown is certainly a charismatic and talented performer, but I can't help but feel like his abilities are better showcased elsewhere.