After a thorough listen to the "Sly and the Family Stone: Higher" box set, you'll quickly realize they've made a lot of funky music, but not all of it is worth a second listen.

For every heart-warming "Everyday People," there is "Luv 'n Haight," replete with corny horn work and a lackluster approach to funk. For each "I Want to Take You Higher," and its soul-lifting spirit, there is "I Just Learned How To Swim," which is Sly Stewart's funk-tinged surf song that is fun. Maybe once.

That's what you have in this reasonably comprehensive, four-CD collection that includes 17 previously (perhaps thankfully) unreleased tracks: a band bristling with talent and experimentation, which occasionally struck gold, and sometimes not.

Songs like "What's That Got To Do With Me," about a love gone wrong, is epic in scope, with sweeping horn-driven crescendo interspersed with bits of dramatic pause and odd vocal insertions. If you like odd, this collection with be full of gems for you. Most Family Stone fans, however, will likely be content with a single disc of greatest hits by the funk super group, forgoing the filler.