Graham Central Station: Graham Central Station Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Graham Central Station: Graham Central Station Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 13, 2024

Graham Central Station never really made much of an impact on American charts or airplay, but they have a fascinating pedigree, and younger listeners in particular may be drawn to the band courtesy of the fact that frontman Larry Graham is the uncle of Drake. While the band's connection to Sly and the Family Stone is undeniable, since Graham left that aggregation shortly before joining this band (giving it its name in the process), online reports of a connection to the criminally underappreciated band Azteca seem (to me, anyway) more questionable, since as a longtime fan of Azteca, I can't find any strong connections between the two groups in either membership or (especially) sound. All of that aside, this debut album offers some energetic funk suffused tunes, including the band's kinda sorta hit, Can You Handle It?.

The album's track list can be seen in the screenshots of the disc menu I've uploaded to accompany this review. For those wondering, Hair is not the title tune from the MacDermot - Ragni - Rado musical.

Graham Central Station: Graham Central Station Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Once again, Rhino continues to slightly confound with its authoring choices on its audio Blu-rays, but thankfully this is one of the releases with my preferred authoring approach, offering the listener the ability to toggle between audio codecs courtesy of the colored buttons on the remote.

Graham Central Station: Graham Central Station Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Graham Central Station features DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. The quadraphonic mix announces its immersive capabilities right off the bat with the energetic a cappella opening tune, which features the massed voices clearly surrounding the listener from all four channels. And in fact this entire album seems to like constant output from all four speakers rather than some of the more intermittent rear channel engagement that I've mentioned in at least some other Quadio reviews. Voices in particular are positioned recurrently in all four speakers, and the driving instrumentation also is nicely splayed around the soundstage, though drums tend to be more noticeable toward the rear. Graham's "slap happy" bass work gives the low end considerable drive.

Graham Central Station: Graham Central Station Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no on disc supplements. The insert booklet reprints the original album's lyric sheet, and also includes the Quadio standard feature of a photograph of the box containing the master tape, along with Rhino's typical setup verbiage.

Graham Central Station: Graham Central Station Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Graham Central Station is a hugely energetic album with some great arrangements (including some especially punchy horns) and fantastic vocals. It's actually kind of surprising this band didn't have more chart success, but lovers of four channel recordings will find a lot to enjoy here, especially if they're fans of Sly. Recommended.