The Payback is the 37th
studio album by American musician
James Brown. The album was released in December 1973, by
Polydor Records. It was originally scheduled to become the
soundtrack for the
blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem, but was rejected by the film's producers, who dismissed it as "the same old James Brown stuff." A widely repeated story—including by Brown himself—that director
Larry Cohen rejected the music as "not funky enough" is denied by Cohen.[5] On the DVD commentary track for Black Caesar (to which Hell Up in Harlem is a sequel), Cohen states that executives at
American International Pictures were already unhappy with Brown for delivering songs much longer than expected on Black Caesar and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off and opted for a deal with
Motown Records instead. Cohen said the absence of Brown's music from Harlem still "breaks [his] heart."[6]
It went to #1 on the Soul Albums chart for two weeks and cracked the Pop Albums chart in the Top 40. It was Brown's only studio album to be
certified gold.[7]
The Payback is considered a high point in Brown's recording career, and is now regarded by critics as a landmark
funk album. Its
revenge-themed
title track, a #1 R&B hit, is one of his most famous songs and an especially prolific source of
samples for
record producers. Musically the album is largely cyclic grooves and jamming, but it also features departures into a softer
soul-based sound on tracks like "Doing the Best I Can" and "Forever Suffering".
The album was
reissued on single CD in 1992 with liner notes by
Alan Leeds.
Track listing
All tracks are written by James Brown,
Fred Wesley and Charles Bobbit; except where noted:
[1]
