The Flag 1986 Album

Rick James

After a few albums of unabashed celebration of the hedonistic Hollywood lifestyle, James took a different tack, trying to hook into the burgeoning anger of hip-hop along with some of the radical funk of George Clinton. Well, at least he tried that for the album cover. The music within is a different story. It's a lot of the same disposable dance beats from Glow with more political content thrown in. And the content is questionable. "Funk in America / Silly Little Man" is Rick's rambling, overloaded take on Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Actually, this is really the only song on the record which is expressly political, but this is 1986 Rick James badly ripping off spoken word artists, and the effect is bizarre on so many levels. Any other political comments are sprinkled in bit lines around the record. Part of me wants to like this record because it's Rick James in denial over his obvious freefall mode and trying such a defiant move to boost his career, but there's no music here that's just fun to listen to, either, unlike past records.