ALBUM REVIEW: Gil Scott-Heron - Pieces of a Man

    The voice of a revolution - Gil Scott-Heron was a powerful, angry poet whose resonant verses spoke to an increasingly angry and discriminated black minority in the United States. Scott-Heron was also an aspiring musician as it turns out, and he met musician Brian Jackson while attending Lincoln University. Eventually, the two would form a working relationship, allowing Scott-Heron a new outlet for his passionate, bold poetry. His debut outing, Pieces of a Man, in many ways plays like an angrier, more political counterpart to the already outspoken What's Going On from earlier that year - it's powerful stuff, too, so much so that it still resonates to this day. From someone who didn't have a whole lot of a musical background prior, Scott-Heron's debut is practically a grand slam.

    No other track could prepare you for this album quite like "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," a poem written by Scott-Heron a year prior. The song is an angry call to action to the oppressed black minority of the United States filled with clever pop culture references and a pure passion in his performance that burns within him - it has a rich feeling of being fed up with shit. Of course, it's a standout track. The rest of the album lyrically follows along very similar lines; anger, protest, and an impassioned love of black culture. "Lady Day and John Coltrane" is the finest example of the latter, a celebration of the power that the music of Billie Holiday and John Coltrane can instill within one. The powerful "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" showcases Gil's storytelling ability, as he walks the listener through the troubled life of the ghetto. These dismal, often disillusioned phases accompany the rest of the album, from greed ("The Needle's Eye") to the negative depictions and stereotypes that have been wrongfully libeled onto black people ("Pieces of a Man"). Lyrically, it's one of the angriest albums of the era, and it speaks to its power.

    Musically, however, we get a decent mix of styles and sounds. While Pieces of a Man leans pretty heavily into the soul market, especially with Scott's surprisingly good singing voice, elements of funk and jazz find ways to worm themselves into the album. "When You Are Who You Are" is the strongest example of this, and it makes an excellent funk track - one of the few purely upbeat moments on the album, encouraging individuality and honesty over a driving rhythm and smooth guitar. Some of the slower, more soulful moments generally lie on the album's back-half (which I generally find to be a bit weaker than the first half, but that's neither here nor there), such as the excellent "A Sign of the Ages." The opener "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is probably one of the most unique sounding songs of the time, and in many ways it falls far closer to rap than either funk or soul, even though those genres are still deeply infused within the song's DNA.

    Gil Scott-Heron almost immediately established himself as a powerful, angry, passionate musician on his debut studio album. It's an aggressive way to begin a career, but it's equal parts moving, intriguing, and compelling all at once, proving Heron to be far more than an excellent poet - he can make one hell of a soul album, too. In many ways, it's up there with the likes of Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone of the same year, and it may be the most provoking of the three. 

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Pieces of a Man.