Stand!

Stand! followed Life, a commercially unsuccessful album, and none of the band's first three records had climbed above 100 on the Billboard 200. This one reached number 13 and number 3 on the US R&B albums chart, and stayed on the chart for nearly two years. It sold 500,000 copies in 1969 and was certified gold that December, and more than three million copies in the end. All of it was written, produced and arranged by Sly Stone. Much of it was recorded at Pacific High in San Francisco.

The A&R director and photographer Stephen Paley remembered how together Sly was during the sessions, with Walter Piston's Orchestration textbook always to hand. The title track ends in a gospel break of forty-nine seconds. Most of the Family Stone could not make the session where it was recorded, so Sly, Errico, Robinson and Martini were joined by session players. Errico recalled that people often asked why that section was not the whole song. "Everyday People" had already reached number one by the time the album came out. "Sex Machine" is a thirteen-minute jam in which each member takes a solo, and the band can be heard laughing at the end.

In Rolling Stone in July 1969, Alec Dubro heard a "very evident sense of moral purpose". Robert Christgau wrote, reviewing the 2007 reissues, that Stand! revealed the magnificence the band was capable of. Uncut's Peter Shapiro called it "the group's true breakthrough". The Library of Congress describes the record as one of the most heavily sampled of all time.