There was a little cardboard box at the back of the studio at WCCX, the ten watt college radio station for which I did a Sunday night show from '91 to '96. It was the giveaway box, where occasionally one - if one was lucky enough to get there first - might find 12" x 12" poster flats advertising new albums by the likes of the Chainsaw Kittens or, y'know, the Loud Family, or some other such band you probably hadn't yet heard of, but hey, if the graphic was cool, you might take it anyway for something to hang on those brutal, off-white-painted cinderblock dorm room walls (made more off-white by years of abuse and neglect). And if you were really, really, super lucky, you might actually find a CD or two in there, usually a promo single of some sort, but occasionally we'd get full length CDs. But those were always quickly snatched up. This, then, is what initially sparked my curiosity in Moon in Scorpio, the 1991 album by the R&B trio of multi-instrumentalist-producers V. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord and vocalist Sandra St. Victor, collectively known as The Family Stand: it was the first time I'd ever seen a full length CD sit unclaimed in that little cardboard box for two weeks straight. No one wanted it, even for free.

Part of that may have had to do with its vague cover art, a large circle of inscrutable, unidentifiable imagery set against a flat mahogany background, and a retro typeface suggesting the dog days of the sunny California pop scene of the 60s. The group's name evoked Sly Stone (no stranger to sunny California psychedelia), while the album's title evoked Dionne Warwick - not her music, of course, but her alter ego hawking the services of psychics. No doubt, of course, many of us simply knew we wouldn't like it based on the warped wide-lens band portrait gracing the back of the booklet (but Living Colour should have changed all that, right?). But, in our defense - we were, after all, only a bunch of pasty-faced teenagers from the farming and factory communities of the rural and almost-rural Midwest - there was plenty going on in rock just then. This poor, forlorn disc was competing with the likes of Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend, Pearl Jam's Ten, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, and, of course, Nirvana's Nevermind, all of which had been released that fall, and all of which are now considered among the greatest rock albums of all time. So sue us if yet another masterpiece went unnoticed under our sniffly, alterna-snob, 120 Minutes-watching noses. What's sad, of course, is that almost two decades later, Moon in Scorpio and The Family Stand, who remain, perhaps, best known for having written Paula Abdul's "Promise of a New Day", have never gotten the attention they most assuredly deserve.

I can say that it was with no noble purpose in mind that I picked up the copy of Moon in Scorpio out of the WCCX giveaway box. I was young, and I needed money. I didn't have any to buy the copies of Loveless or Girlfriend or Nevermind I so coveted, and I was desperate for a new CD, even if it was one I'd never heard of, and one that looked as vague and unpromising as this. In the worst case, I could give it a brief, dismissive listen, and then take it the used CD store and maybe get a buck or two for it. (Hey, that would be enough for two Mountain Dews!) But I never did take it to the used CD store, and I dare say, my copy of Moon In Scorpio has gotten more mileage in my stereo since the fall of '91 than all of my Nirvana, Matthew Sweet, Pearl Jam, and My Bloody Valentine CDs combined. It is, in my opinion, one of the great, unsung masterpieces of R&B. But then, to label either the band or the music within a single genre is a gross oversimplification of The Family Stand's singular, visionary accomplishment.

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The trio immediately set themselves to earning that Sly Stone reference in their name with the album's opening track "New World Order". Witness the urgent, not-a-moment-to-lose vocal interchanges that fuel the song's fierce verses; the tight, volcanic horn charts and hot, jazzy sax solos; the earth-splitting decisiveness of the beats; the searing, metal-inspired guitar riff. This ain't a song: it's a seismic event! Peter Lord even sounds a little like Sly on it. And The Family Stand keep it all at a steady, fearsome boil for the raging rocker "Shades of Blue" and "You'll Never Be", a biting tell-off to the wannabes of the world, with cheeky lyrics directed to "Sister Saccharine" and "Mr. Parkay" - you see the problem is you think you're butter, but you're not! - and one of the album's most addictive choruses.

The band evoke Prince and Hendix too, at times rocking as hard and bluesy as Led Zeppelin, but there's smooth, sophisticated jazz here too. Behold "Free Spirit", a five minute straight-up jazz instrumental that goes impossibly easy on the ears, but also manages to be exciting and imaginative where so much of smooth jazz sounds sleepy and blah. The song thrills to giant sax harmonies, a sweetly hummable melody, and a couple of fabulous solos that confirm the band's chops without sounding self-indulgent. Almost every imaginable genre of music is represented, often simultaneously, on this impeccably (and often relentlessly) paced album, from the tambourine-laced house beats and end-times atmosphere of "Sky is Falling" and the desperately yearning, Soul II Soul-ish "Winter In My Heart" to the monumental soul balladry of "Shelter" and the voluptuous Eastern-flavored slink of "Chakra Love".

These songs are witty, intelligent, poignant, moving, and soulful, equally conducive to both hands-in-the-air-like-you-just-don't-care nights at the disco, and fabulously geeky air guitar tournaments down in your buddy's basement. St. Victor's vocals and vocal arrangements evoke both the soul-sister attitude of Aretha '68 and the chanteusey extravagance of Anita '86. The sound is dynamic and raucous one moment, intense and restrained the next, full of emotionally charged nuance, the lyrics offering incisive social, political and musical observation, with (pop) cultural references that acknowledge the current events of the time (they namedrop Milli Vanilli and Martha Wash in "Plantation Radio") but also betray the fact that these folks were, like, y'know, paying attention in their high school history classes (Woodrow Wilson shows up in the title track. He was a President), and probably devoted a couple of their electives to creative writing as well. The sprawling title track starts off with a murder scene before launching into verses which alternate between the frantic punk-rock angularity of Bad Brains and lighter-waving Purple Rain style arena rock; and a lyric that relates a single nightmare incident to bigger, more abstract themes and political comment. Bouts with insanity are good for the soul. It kills the facade of being in control. New world orders get seen for what they are: the same old folks trying to hold on to power.

"Where Does Mommy Live?" is a fiery a capella gospel mini-opera about a woman's search for identity - a recurring theme in a record devoted to finding and separating the real from the facade - be it musical (the bitterly tongue-in-cheek and indomitably funky "Plantation Radio"), political ("New World Order"), social, familial or racial. But the record's greatest triumph is the 7-minute "The Education of Jamie", a heartbreaking and furious cautionary tale about an ambitious girl from the inner city who sets out to make it in that "upper-middle-middle-upper-upper class life" for herself, only to find herself thwarted by the insidious, unspoken, racist, sexist hate of her new high society. Here, Sandra St. Victor sings the verses to a younger girl whose face and ambition remind Sandra of her friend Jamie, warning her that she "can find out the hard way or the easy way", but the truth is that you need to remember, above all, who you are and where you came from, because "they never really see you."

It's an awful truth that the record's fate only seems to confirm. In the most just world, Moon In Scorpio would be regarded as one of the pivotal records of its time, if, for nothing else than its apparently effortless fusion of widely disparate musical genres, and the way that musical fusion relates so directly to the themes of identity and realness it supports. Let it also be known that despite the record's obvious musical and lyrical importance, it's also just a screaming good time to listen to. It's the kind of CD that can occupy my car stereo for uninterrupted weeks at a time and not get old. Despite all of the influences in play, Moon In Scorpio works as a unified whole: a shocking, awesome, operatic State of the Union, State of the Music, State of the Times address which has at least as much to say about and to show to the here and now as it did then and there - and which, regrettably, is no more likely to find an audience in 2008 than it was in 1991. It's easily the equal of any of the rock masterpieces in whose company it emerged, and in whose shadows it withered. But it's certainly not the kind of CD Rhino's going to be doing a deluxe edition reissue of anytime soon, and that's a pity. But there is an upside to this: You can get your own copy of this lost classic pretty easy for the price of a 20 oz. Diet Coke. And Moon In Scorpio is much better for your health too.

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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:

"Moon In Scorpio" by The Family Stand
EastWest Records
Released 1991

Produced by V. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord
75 min.

SONGS: New World Order - Shades of Blue - You'll Never Be - Plantation Radio - Sky Is Falling - Shelter - Winter In My Heart - Free Spirit - Moon in Scorpio - Quiet Desperation - Chakra Love - In the Midst of Revolution - The Education of Jamie - Where Does Mommy Live? - Say Love - Boom Shock

Recommended: Yes