The Payback

The 37th studio album by American musician James Brown was released in December 1973 and was originally scheduled to become the soundtrack for the film Hell Up in Harlem, but it was rejected by the film's producers and directors, who dismissed it as "the same old James Brown stuff, and not funky enough". However, the album went to Number 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. The Payback is considered a high point in Brown's recording career and is now regarded by critics as a landmark funk album. 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".