My Artist Of The Month Exploration Of Red Hot Chili Peppers Ends (Mostly) High With Greatest Hits!

The Good: Good vocals, Decent instrumental accompaniment, Duration (more or less)
The Bad: Not all radio hits are even present, There's a better version on the market
The Basics: Musically wonderful, Greatest Hits is a great collection of recognizable Red Hot Chili Pepper songs, but there is a better version (with videos) for real fans.


As I close the book on my Artist Of The Month, Red Hot Chili Peppers, I find myself ironically ending where I began. I was always into the radio hits of Red Hot Chili Peppers and after a month of immersion in their music, I find myself generally considering the band successful based on the radio-played hits with few non-single tracks that truly rock. Or rather, on the albums most of the songs that were not radio hits tend to be harder rock songs and sound nothing like what the more familiar songs sound like. So, if anything, I arrive at the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Greatest Hits bias toward it.

Why, then, am I ultimately not recommending Greatest Hits, even if I rate it so highly? Quite simply, there is a better version on the market. Greatest Hits And Videos (reviewed here!) is the same collection of music alongside a DVD of the Red Hot Chili Peppers music videos. For a few dollars more, fans get the creative and innovative musical videos by Red Hot Chili Peppers and the added value makes that the must-own compilation for fans of Red Hot Chili Peppers. This one-disc version is mediocre by comparison.

With sixteen songs occupying 66:37, Greatest Hits is the best compilation for those who enjoy what they hear from Red Hot Chili Peppers on the radio. The songs are largely the creations of Red Hot Chili Peppers; they wrote all but "Higher Ground" and there are two new songs added to this compilation. Outside "Fortune Faded" and "Save The Population," the songs are all generally the memorable tracks by Red Hot Chili Peppers. All of the songs feature the vocals of Anthony Kiedis and the members of the band play all of the primary instruments. As well, the songs are (all but "Higher Ground") produced by longtime producer Rick Rubin. Considering the long relationship the band has with Rubin, it is hard to deny that this is anything but the album the Red Hot Chili Peppers wanted to release.

And what Greatest Hits is is a generally inoffensive collection of pop-rock songs that define Red Hot Chili Peppers as one of the premiere rock bands of the 1990s (and a little beyond). Released before Stadium Arcadium, Greatest Hits includes all of the radio-played singles from Californication (as well as a few other songs from the album not released as popular singles in the U.S.). In addition to the rock songs that came off By The Way (like "Universally Speaking" and the single "By The Way"), there are the more pop sounding songs like "Californication."

In addition to the songs that revitalized Red Hot Chili Peppers after the shake-up of John Frusciante, Greatest Hits includes the singles "Soul To Squeeze" and "My Friends." Obviously the first chart hit, "Under The Bridge" is included and while rock ballads arguably made Red Hot Chili Peppers a household name, their more regular up-tempo rock and roll tracks are included to keep fans of the original Red Hot Chili Peppers happy. Of course, songs like "Suck My Kiss" illustrate the fundamental divide between fans of the radio-friendly (and played) Chili Peppers and the original band. Crass, laden with funk-guitar drawls and angry-sounding, "Suck My Kiss" is what gets Greatest Hits the Parental Advisory.

What is consistent throughout Greatest Hits is the quality of the instrumental accompaniment. Red Hot Chili Peppers is a very steady (at least with this compilation) band composed of guitar, bass and drums and throughout the rock and pop-flavored tracks, Red Hot Chili Peppers give each of their members a real "voice" in the sound of the band. John Frusicante's guitars memorably create the melody to "Under The Bridge" and now "Fortune Faded." Flea's bass is noticeable on every track and on songs like "Soul To Squeeze" and "My Friends," it is his instrument which dominates to create the melody. And Chad Smith's drumming is consistently energetic. Songs like "Californication" would not resonate with the punch that they have if it weren't for the pounding of the drums that Smith nails them with. The trio who play the instruments work together amazingly.

And they are led by the vocals of Anthony Kiedis. Kiedis has a smooth tenor voice on songs like "Otherside" and "Save The Population" and what is most surprising is how articulate he is. Unlike earlier songs like "Give It Away" and "Suck My Kiss," where Kiedis essentially leers through his songs, the more well-known songs like "Under The Bridge" and "Scar Tissue" feature vocals that are astonishingly clear. Kiedis sings the lyrics of Red Hot Chili Peppers with the intent that they be heard and as a result, Greatest Hits stands as a testament to the themes of the band, most notably surviving pain and finding a connection with others. Kiedis makes it all sound clear and easy with his vocals.

And while loneliness and loss dominate the songs of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greatest Hits is eminently listenable. Songs like "Scar Tissue" and "Otherside" portray a surprisingly mature view of the haunting nature of surviving adversities. When Kiedis sings "Scar tissue that I wish you saw / Sarcastic mister know-it-all . . . With the birds I share a lonely view" ("Otherside") it is emotive and poetic. One need not have the backstory of the band to know that Kiedis has survived rough times; the lyrics say it all.

Similarly, the new song "Fortune Faded" is poetic and interesting. The lines "You took a town by storm the mess you made was nominated. / Oh, my! do you? / Now put away your welcome soon you'll find you've overstayed it. / Hey now, every time I lose / Attitude / So divine / Hell of an Elevator / All the while my fortune faded / Never mind, the consequences of the crime this time my fortune faded" ("Fortune Faded") are uncommon in rock and roll music. Singing about consequence and the changes of fate makes for a good song and Red Hot Chili Peppers present it well on that song.

Not all of the rhymes are fabulous, though. For example, "Give It Away" often seems like a string of random words strewn together. When Kiedis sings "Realize I don't want to be a miser / Confide with sly you'll be the wiser / Young blood is the lovin' upriser / How come everybody wanna keep it like the kaiser" ("Give It Away") he guts the strong socialist message of not being tied to material things with the utterly lame rhymes. Sadly, some of the other songs - like "Suck My Kiss" - are similarly lackluster on the rhyming front.

But largely, Greatest Hits is just that. The album is a strong collection of pop-rock songs that satisfy. And those who will like this - though they might well miss "Aeroplane" and wonder why it was not included, but "Parallel Universe" was - will enjoy the music videos and that collection is an even better way to buy.

The best song is "Otherside," the low point is the vulgar "Suck My Kiss."

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
"Taste The Pain" (single)
"Give It Away" (single)
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
What Hits!?
Out In L.A.
"Soul To Squeeze" (single)
One Hot Minute
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

7.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here to see an organized listing of all of the music reviews!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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With A Downbeat, Red Hot Chili Peppers Collapse Out In L.A.

The Good: Some more instrumentally creative versions of songs
The Bad: Short, Some lame lyrics, Monotonous overall sound, Nothing especially intriguing with the vocals.
The Basics: Remixed early songs by Red Hot Chili Peppers are arguably not better than the original versions as Out In L.A. adequately proves.


Early Red Hot Chili Peppers, like the early works of many bands, is a take-it or leave-it thing. In the case of Red Hot Chili Peppers, the earliest works were done by a band that was half different from the band today. Originally, the quartet was Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons. Slovak overdosed and Irons left the band and the pair were replaced with John Frusciante and Chad Smith. The early incarnation of Red Hot Chili Peppers was more funk-rock and punk flavored than what the band became after it was recast. Still, many recordings from the early years still exist and are periodically released. Out In L.A. is one of them.

EMI, which owned the rights to the early works of Red Hot Chili Peppers released Out In L.A., an album of remixes and live tracks after Red Hot Chili Peppers were already signed and actively producing music over at Warner Bros. Records. Like the compilation The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers (reviewed here!), this is reasonably seen as something of an obvious cashgrab on the part of EMI by most listeners to Red Hot Chili Peppers. Outside the letters that are part of the liner notes, surviving members Flea and Kiedis had very limited involvement with the release of Out In L.A. The result is a mediocre album and a listening experience that has novelty for the first few spins, but fades quickly, especially for fans of the radio hits of Red Hot Chili Peppers.

With nineteen songs occupying a total of 53:59, Out In L.A. is a work that is only marginally the work of Red Hot Chili Peppers. First, the men of the Chili Peppers only wrote or co-wrote twelve of the songs. While the band plays the instruments and Kiedis sings on the album, the album is not credited as a production of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Oddly, though twelve of the songs grant the Chili Peppers status as the producers, but more recognizable producers like George Clinton are credited on the more familiar Red Hot Chili Pepper tracks that have been remixed up front. So there is some argument to be made as to whether or not this group of remixes, demo tracks and live versions is truly what the band would want.

Out In L.A. is deceptive in its arrangement. Opening with an entirely different remix of "Higher Ground," the listener is put at ease. The remix is fresh, different and truly funky. Despite the inclusion of a rather ridiculous rap in the middle of the song, it sounds distinctly different from the album versions of the song, especially in the instrumental accompaniment. The song sounds almost as if it is keyboard-driven like the Stevie Wonder original and the drums on the song are produced to appear up front and they pound away beautifully.

But the album quickly turns to the mediocre and then narcoleptic as versions of "If You Want Me To Stay" and "Behind The Sun" are presented as semi-melodic chants with Kiedis heavily backed on the songs. The result is the songs sound like they are being sleep-sung by a choir and they have the effect of putting the listener to sleep, as opposed to energizing or stimulating the listener. The first dozen songs are largely familiar to fans of or listeners to the early works of Red Hot Chili Peppers, even though several are cover songs the band was known to do. Only the last seven songs are truly original and things like Red Hot Chili Peppers mucking their way through "Deck The Halls" is initially funny, but wears thin quickly on multiple listens.

Moreover, some of the songs are poor choices to begin with and remixes of them are hardly necessary. "Special Secret Song Inside" hardly needs to be made live with its chanted, hypnotic refrain of "I want to party on your pussy baby" repeated over and over again. This was never one of the best Red Hot Chili Peppers songs and Out In L.A. does no great service to the band by having it rereleased. Similarly, the singles Out In L.A. and "Nevermind" are utterly unmemorable, so why EMI thought listeners would love Demo versions of them is a mystery to me. Having spent September immersed in the music of Red Hot Chili Peppers, this is definitely a band that got better with age in its second incarnation.

Part of what makes the album so bad is that most of it is instrumentally blase. Outside the remix of "Higher Ground" and the more or less a cappella "Deck The Halls," the songs are very much the work of a guitar, bass and drums group. On Out In L.A. Red Hot Chili Peppers sounds like a garage band and one that needs a lot more practice than they have been getting. The guitarwork is generally simple (though the funky fingerwork on "Get Up And Jump" is not bad) and the bass is presented as an equally uninspired instrument. In fact, the primary difference in the way the songs on Out In L.A. are mixed is that the bass does not have its presence that it usually has on Red Hot Chili Peppers albums. Instead, it is frequently sublimated to the guitars and drums.

Anthony Kiedis, who can sing wonderfully in the tenor range similarly illustrates no real talent on the songs on Out In L.A. Instead, he chants amelodically on songs like "Get Up And Jump" and his production elements or backup singers overwhelm any sense of his natural voice on songs like "Behind The Sun." He is noisy and vocally crass on the song Out In L.A. (he sounds like he is yelling the song out a cab) and the less said about "Sex Rap," the better. There is no evidence of the vocal talents Kiedis displayed to make "Under The Bridge" the hit that it became. Instead, Out In L.A. has him spitting out his lyrics like he is sick of them or they are leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

To be fair, the listener frequently feels the same way. Early songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers were hardly groundbreaking rock and roll. There is little charm, for example, to "I like to make her come / To the rhythm of the drum" ("Sex Rap") when it is presented like a fraternity theme song. Similarly, the rhyme scheme on "Behind The Sun" is predictable and uses the most obvious rhymes. Moreover, the song does not have a bold, wonderful message that resonates. In fact, most of Out In L.A. is about hanging out, getting laid and living simply. While some Red Hot Chili Peppers music actually explores deeper emotions and issues, this album does not.

The result is a collection of familiar or disturbing and unmemorable new songs that only the most fanatical Red Hot Chili Peppers fans will want. For the rest of us, Out In L.A. is worth a single listen at most and then one may return to the steady diet of rock and roll Chili Peppers secure in the knowledge that the band has (fortunately) come quite a long way.

The best song is "Higher Ground," the low point might be "Nevermind," as it is entirely unmemorable.

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
"Taste The Pain" (single)
"Give It Away" (single)
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
What Hits!?
"Soul To Squeeze" (single)
One Hot Minute
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
Stadium Arcadium

3.5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my index page on the subject. There, you will find a comprehensive list of music-related reviews!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Funky, Noisy, And Unmemorable What Hits?! Chronicles Early Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The Good: One or two memorable songs
The Bad: Largely amelodic claptrap
The Basics: Disappointing and unrecognizable for who the Red Hot Chili Peppers became, What Hits?! is a dismal compilation.


Some bands have multiple lives. They begin as one thing and they become something else. When a fan comes in can often determine just how they enjoy or perceive a band. So, for example, Fleetwood Mac was almost two entirely different bands. When it began it is what is now referred to as "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac" and the group was more bluegrass and blues music. Then, in the late 1970s, the band - which had gone through several other transitions - became what an entirely new audience came to know as Fleetwood Mac with a fairly steady quintet making pop-rock music that was quite different from the original music of Fleetwood Mac. The band Red Hot Chili Peppers has a similar story: they began as a funk-rock college band sound, lost half their members and revitalized as a more traditional rock and roll band that actually created hit albums.

What Hits?! is an awkward collection of Red Hot Chili Peppers music as it was released after the band had its first taste of real commercial success with Blood Sugar Sex Magik (reviewed here!) but the compilation is largely the music of the band as it originally was. The title is supposed to be ironic as the songs, outside "Under The Bridge" - which is on the album - were not hit songs by any stretch of the imagination. What Hits?! is a sloppy compilation that fulfilled the EMI recording contract for Red Hot Chili Peppers after they had already moved to Warner Bros. As a result, they had little actual involvement in the compilation.

With eighteen songs clocking out just over an hour's worth of music, What Hits?! is a poor compilation of mediocre music from a band that was not producing a sound for the mainstream. While bassist Flea and primary vocalist Anthony Kiedis are generally constants on the album, guitars alternate between those of original guitarist Hillel Slovak and replacement John Frusicante. Similarly, the drums are not always performed by Chad Smith. What binds the album more than anything else is a generally frenetic sound and a repetitive delivery that grates on the listener quite severely.

Vocally, the songs on What Hits?! are almost universally unimaginative. "Under The Bridge" is the only song with a real dominant vocal melody and Anthony Kiedis illustrates his beautiful tenor voice on the song. Unfortunately, that truly is the exception on the album. On "Taste The Pain," he leers the lyrics, like some sort of psychotic singing clown tormenting a nursery full of children. On most of the songs, the lyrics are more chanted out than actually sung. On "Knock Me Down," "Fight Like A Brave" and "Fire," Kiedis chants out the lines with heavy supporting vocals and the songs barely carry a tune. Instead, the songs sound like . . . well, rowdy, drunken noise.

The songs on What Hits?! are not even definitively original to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Out of the eighteen songs, the Chili Peppers wrote or co-wrote fourteen. Considering how repetitive most of them are ("Catholic School Girls Rule" is essentially that line repeated for two minutes) this is not a great illustration of the creative talent of the members of the band. Outside a few of the songs, the tracks were not even produced by producers the Chili Peppers worked with again. In other words, this is a very juvenile compilation by a very young incarnation of Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Outside the singing which alternates between the noisy and the laughable (the rap on "Show Me Your Soul" for example) the album is problematic in ways that make it seem droll and repetitive. The instrumental accompaniment to the vocals is bland. While "Show Me Your Soul" has additional percussion which makes it sound funkier and danceable, most of the instrumental accompaniment on What Hits?! is simply loud thrashing on the guitars that is mosh-pit fodder. The songs are largely amelodic and loud, but not carrying any recognizable tunes. The drumwork is sloppy and they bang almost universally over each track, making for a monotonous overall sound of the album.

Outside the drums, the instrumental accompaniment is particularly unimaginative, though it is generally funky. The use of a trumpet on the opening of "If You Want Me To Stay" is somewhat innovative, though it actually keeps the song closer to the original than makes it a Red Hot Chili Peppers song. Largely, the songs are guitar, bass and drums combos and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have a funky sound to them. By that, I mean the bass is more important and the guitars tend to play in the higher ranges with repetitive riffs. The bass, though, is recognizable on virtually every song and it is produced to be heard, even when it is just acting as percussion alongside the drums, keeping a beat with little melodic progression.

What truly sinks the music of What Hits?! is the lyrics. For example, I have listened to the album a dozen times and "Get Up And Jump" quickly became repressed because the lyrics were so inane. Outside repeating the title of the song an inordinate amount of times, the song is hampered by the predictable rhymes "When you're just standing or sitting still / Think about the frogs gettin' a thrill / Take a little lesson from the kangaroos / Don't you know they're jumpin' fools, jump you" ("Get Up And Jump")! If this were a children's album that would be one thing, but on a funk-rock album this is just ridiculous.

Similarly, other virtually forgotten songs like "Jungle Man" have not held up over the years. How could it expect to when the Red Hot Chili Peppers now write songs like "Scar Tissue" and "Don't Forget Me?" After all, given the choice of dark, moody, and poetic lines and words strung together like "His soul shocking sounds / They make the mountains moan / This boy's become a man / It's time to take take take / Take the throne" ("Jungle Man")? Early Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics often sound like gibberish and listening to them is a lesson in disappointment for serious listeners.

Even "Behind The Sun," which was a previously-released song that was released as a single to promote What Hits?! is lyrically lackluster. While some of the poetics are not terrible, the ultimate lines "An island flying through the sky / One day your son might ask you why / And if you son should be a girl / She too might ask you of this world / The sun shines sweet upon your beach / And yes my dolphin loves to teach" ("Behind The Sun") are fairly dismal and do not hold a candle to later Red Hot Chili Pepper lines.

In other words, What Hits?! is aptly titled; it is the works of an unknown band and a rightly lame compilation of a band testing the waters. Fortunately for us all, Red Hot Chili Peppers got much, much better and the resulting compilations have been much more worthwhile.

The best track is "Under The Bridge," the low point is "Jungle Man."

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
"Taste The Pain" (single)
"Give It Away" (single)
"Soul To Squeeze" (single)
One Hot Minute
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Lame Red Hot Chili Pepper Singles, Vol. 2 - "Taste The Pain."

The Good: It doesn't set one's c.d. player on fire . . .
The Bad: Short, Better versions of the single exist, Singsong lyrics, Instrumentally/vocally simple
The Basics: Lyrically banal, "Taste The Pain" has a very simple theme and is not the best Red Hot Chili Peppers single; this one-track single is the worst way to get it.


In the realm of great music, the earlier works of Red Hot Chili Peppers seldom apply. For sure, there are loyal Red Hot Chili Peppers who absolutely love everything the band ever came out with, but objectively, there is a reason not every one of their songs was considered a hit song. Indeed, in the United States it would be surprising if most listeners in 1989 actually recall hearing the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Taste The Pain" on the radio. Never their most successful single, "Taste The Pain" was released in four known forms (that I could find). Of those, the listing for the one-track single is the worst one a fan or music lover could try to hunt down.

"Taste The Pain" was a song from Red Hot Chili Peppers from their album Mother's Milk, the first full album with what I call the "recognizable quartet" of Flea, Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante, and Chad Smith, though Smith did not (interestingly enough) perform the drums on "Taste The Pain." In stores, "Taste The Pain" was found as a limited edition, four-track single (otherwise known as the "Unbridled Funk And Rock 4 Your Soul" EP), the 1990 c.d. single, and the 12" record single. There was also this one-track version, which appears to only have been released to d.j.s for airplay; all of the commercially available versions of "Taste The Pain" have four tracks. So, even for those who like the song "Taste The Pain," there are vastly better ways to get this single. In fact, the only reason to get this version of the single is for completists who are obsessed with getting everything they can from Red Hot Chili Peppers.

With only the one song occupying 4:28 on c.d., "Taste The Pain" is a terrible use of the c.d. medium. Given the capacity of the compact disc, c.d. singles are generally a poor overall value, but one song singles like this are especially poor uses of the medium. That said, at least "Taste The Pain" is the work of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Written by the quartet, the lead vocals are provided by Anthony Kiedis, with backing vocals by Flea and Frusicante. The members of the band play their own instruments. The song was produced by Michael Beinhorn, who is not a staple of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' team, but he does fairly well with producing this song.

Still, "Taste The Pain" is a pretty annoying Red Hot Chili Peppers track. The song features heavy backing vocals that are repetitive with a "Woah-oh-oh!" and having listened to the single on heavy repeat to write this, it wears thin pretty quickly. This is probably because while "Taste The Pain" is straightforward rock and roll, it has a singsong rhyme scheme and musical progression. The result is a very simple song that grates on the listener.

The only real sense of creativity in the song comes in Flea hanging up his bass midway through the song in order to play the trumpet. Trumpet, guitar and drums is not at all a typical rock and roll combination and Red Hot Chili Peppers deserves some credit for experimenting in that way. It gives "Taste The Pain" more of a jazzy undertone and it does make listening to the song easier. Even so, the trumpet is distracted from soon after by the lame lyrics, overbearing vocals and the production elements - in this case, a loop of Kiedis singing the refrain played backward to open the song.

As for the vocals, these are exactly what one would expect from a song by Anthony Kiedis. Kiedis sings directly to the listener in his very comfortable tenor range with no real modulation or anything that screams originality. Instead, he essentially presents the five notes up and down of "Taste The Pain" in a way that sounds like a musical nursery rhyme. He only holds one note for a few seconds to illustrate he has capacity and the song even holds up poorly in the pantheon of Red Hot Chili Pepper singles as it is not performed with speed that is impressive or stretches Kiedis's vocal range.

This leaves us with the lyrics. "Taste The Pain" has unfortunately simple lyrics which also cause it to hold up poorly over multiple listens. The song, which is about either insomnia or a bad breakup (or both), has predictable rhymes and no real sense of imagery. Kiedis sings "Busted in two / Like a brittle stick / I can not drink / Because my throat constricts / Lovesick from you / That will never do / Open my mouth / I couldn't make a sound / I could not scream / I could not shout / It out to you / Nothing to do / Walk away and taste the pain / Come again some other day" and there is no real emotional resonance to the lines because the rhymes are so easy. The sense of diction lacks any real sophistication and the result is a song that is largely unmemorable.

Fans of rock and roll or the Red Hot Chili Peppers would do better to check out one of the albums that "Taste The Pain" is on or get one of the four-track single; they offer better value as they do not have just this underwhelming song on them.

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
"Give It Away" (single)
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
"Soul To Squeeze" (single)
One Hot Minute
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

0/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Mediocre Red Hot Chili Peppers Holds Up Poorly With One Hot Minute.

The Good: Moments of lyrics, Musically different than most other RHCP albums
The Bad: Annoying backing vocals, Largely unmemorable
The Basics: Entirely forgettable, One Hot Minute is a very average rock and roll album and fails to use the talents of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.


For those who do not follow my reviews, I never have a problem with posting a contrarian point of view. In fact, when it comes to music reviews, I am usually happy when my view differs from the mainstream and I have an opportunity to present a well-argued point from my own (usually unique) perspective. So when my wife informed me that One Hot Minute was a Red Hot Chili Peppers album she did not care one whiff about, I suspected that my not hating it might put me in the minority. So, I was generally surprised when one of the less-popular Red Hot Chili Peppers albums was rated so generally favorably online.

The truth is, One Hot Minute is, indeed, a lackluster Red Hot Chili Peppers album. It is, however, a very typical pop-rock album and while it sounds unlike any other Chili Peppers album, it sounds very much like any number of other mainstream pop-rock albums, especially those of the mid-1990s when it was originally released. At the time, pop was more synth and keyboard dominated, as well as having more of a feminine flavor to it and as a result, many post-grunge rock bands were delegated "alternative." Still, works like One Hot Minute seem very pedestrian and average when compared to the pantheon of rock albums before or since. If anything, the real problem with this album is not that it is bad, it is that One Hot Minute is not distinct in any memorable way, nor is it interesting to those who have broad tastes in rock and roll. To be fair to the band, this is a very different sounding (in some ways) album from the rest of Red Hot Chili Peppers' works, but sometimes creativity does not mean success.

With thirteen songs occupying just over an hour on compact disc, One Hot Minute is a strange album in the history of Red Hot Chili Peppers as guitarist John Frusciante had left the band at the time and was replaced by Dave Navarro (he's more than just an obscure Family Guy reference!). Navarro's only studio album with the Red Hot Chili Peppers was One Hot Minute and he played the primary guitars on the tracks as well as accompanying Flea on backing vocals. One Hot Minute actually affords Flea the opportunity to present lead vocals on the unmemorable song "Pea," but otherwise the usual mix applied. Even longtime producer Rick Rubin was involved in making One Hot Minute and given that the quartet wrote all of the songs on the album, this is indisputably the album the band wanted to make at the time.

Recognizable from One Hot Minute are the singles "My Friends" and "Aeroplane," but neither of these songs had the success of "Under The Bridge" from the prior album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. "My Friends," arguably, tries to retain the pop-rock ballad loving audience who had bought the prior album based on the strength of the single "Under The Bridge" and "Aeroplane" is a fairly light pop-rock tune that is danceable, generally inoffensive (as much as a song that used the word mother-f-er can be) and fun. The rest of the album is completely indistinct and unmemorable, though. Having listened to One Hot Minute on constant replay for the last two days (over a dozen times now) it is easy to assert that outside the recognizable singles, there is nothing distinctive or even interesting on the album.

That is not entirely true. Amid the loud guitar-rock songs there is the incongruent "Walkabout," which is a slower, weirder, strangely more articulate song than the rest of the songs on the album. This exception is just that, an exception to the guitar-driven rock and roll songs that dominate the rest of the piece. And "Walkabout" is singsong in its vocals, underwhelming in its lyrics and utterly unmemorable in its instrumental accompaniment. In fact, if this amelodic work has a tune, I cannot even recall what it sounds like and the only instrumentation that is memorable on the song is that the guitar warbles. Outside that, Kiedis may as well be speaking the lines and the song falls very flat.

One Hot Minute is the work of a very traditional guitar, bass and drums group and what separates this album from the other Red Hot Chili Peppers albums is that the guitars of Dave Navarro are louder than prior albums. The guitarwork is more repetitive and has a more electric sound to it, with more speedy strumming on a lot of the songs. While Red Hot Chili Peppers is known to have more funk-based guitarwork on a lot of their songs, One Hot Minute's guitars are more standard and they dominate the songs, whereas usually Flea's bass at least fights for the listener's ear. On these songs, though, the guitar dominates, but there are no distinctive melodies where the guitar creates an interesting song. The only exception to this is "My Friends" where the fingering is lighter and Navarro actually plucks off some of the notes, as opposed to strumming fast.

With Navarro's guitars creating background music and Flea's bass sublimated to that, it falls to drummer Chad Smith to keep the sound consistent or recognizable as a Red Hot Chili Peppers sound and either he fails or producer Rick Rubin does not produce the percussion so it has a prominent position in any of the songs. Problematically, Smith's percussion is virtually absent. This is one of the aspects of One Hot Minute that makes the album so different from other Red Hot Chili Pepper albums; usually Smith's drumming is noticeable and even prominent. None of the songs on this album have drumming that is in any way distinctive or audacious.

This leaves Anthony Kiedis to sell One Hot Minute on the strength of his vocals. Here, though, the album is a mixed bag of mediocrity and exactly what one expects from Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis is a tenor and he does not extend or test his range at all on One Hot Minute. Instead, this is very much the typical presentation of Red Hot Chili Pepper lyrics that one would expect. For sure, he is earnest and direct while singing "My Friends" and articulate on every other song, but the vocals are exactly what one expects; there are no surprises on the album.

In fact, the only real surprise is how inane some of the lyrics can be. Take, for example, "Coffee Shop," which is a pretty typical pop-rock song in its instrumentation, production and even vocal presentation. Not at all the natural successor to "Sir Psycho Sexy," the song has singsong rhymes and a pointlessly simple bit of sexual imagery. Indeed, it is hard to believe Anthony Kiedis is able to make it through the lines "Meet me at the coffee shop / We can dance like Iggy Pop / Another go in the parking lot / Frewak [I've no idea what that means] the cheek on your hotspot / Back and forth my body's jerking / Will to thrill will not stop working" ("Coffee Shop") with a straight face.

This is not to say all of the lines are completely lame, as radio-listeners to the Red Hot Chili Peppers know. The radio-played "My Friends" does a decent job of presenting the strong sense of loneliness and loss that many of the best Red Hot Chili Peppers songs convey. Despite being overplayed at the time, the poetry of "I love all of you / Hurt by the cold / So hard and lonely too / When you don't know yourself / My friends are so distressed / And standing on / The brink of emptiness / No words... I know of to express / This emptiness" ("My Friends") is memorable and insightful. "One Hot Minute" is preoccupied in many ways with loneliness and loss and "My Friends" captures that well.

Unfortunately, the similar song, "Transcending" is not so wonderful. "Transcending" has a similar sense of mood to "My Friends," but the sound is different and the lyrics do not pop the way the hit song does. It is utterly forgettable when Kiedis sings "Friends near death you gave respect / Sympathetic intellect / Choices are, for one and all / All we are is leaves that fall" ("Transcending") and the predictable rhyme scheme does not help sell the song any better. In all, though, that characterizes One Hot Minute well; forgettable and simple. Fans of Red Hot Chili Peppers deserve better than that.

The best song is "My Friends," though "Aeroplane" is fun and not found on the Greatest Hits album. The low point is the completely forgettable "One Big Mob."

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
"Give It Away" (single)
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
"Soul To Squeeze" (single)
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page.

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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"Give It Away:" Not The Best Red Hot Chili Peppers Song Nor Single.

The Good: Instrumental accompaniment is often interesting.
The Bad: Inane lyrics, Short, Poor use of medium/Better versions, Unremarkable vocals, Often annoying instrumentation.
The Basics: A lame song, "Give It Away," is made even worse by the fact that this particular version of the single has only one track, unlike all the others!


In the annals of great music, the band Red Hot Chili Peppers has some songs that might qualify for legendary status. And despite all of their great songs, there are some that are arguably just lemons. Indeed, I was surprised when their song "Give It Away" from Blood Sugar Sex Magik ended up on their Greatest Hits album. It was never one of their strongest singles and it preceded the popularity of the band as it was the single that was released before "Under The Bridge" came out. Even so, as buyers look for Red Hot Chili Peppers singles and debate which ones are worth buying and which ones are not, "Give It Away" is easy to not recommend, but this listing of the single is very much just for the die-hard collectors.

Indeed, there are at least seven known single releases of "Give It Away" from 1991 on c.d., 7" record and audio cassette and this one, which is the radio release c.d. is the least valuable one to most listeners. First, this single is recognizable to fans as the radio release compact disc single because it has only one track: "Give It Away." The other seven known single releases of "Give It Away" all have at least two-tracks, from the lesser valued 7" vinyl single which has the radio edit of the song on one side and a longer remix of the exact same song on the b-side, to the second c.d. single version which had four different mixes of "Give It Away" and the songs "Search And Destroy" and "Soul To Squeeze." Only the single intended for radio airplay had only the one track of "Give It Away." As such, those looking for more Red Hot Chili Peppers music will find this disappointing and only those searching for the track for the novelty of the type of single will want this version.

With a single song occupying 4:43 on compact disc, "Give It Away" is a real waste of the compact disc medium. All four members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers collaborated in the writing of the song (sadly) and the three who play instruments play their guitar, bass and drums on the song. Anthony Kiedis sings the song and longtime producer Rick Rubin is responsible for producing it, so it is hard to argue that this is not exactly what the Red Hot Chili Peppers wanted for the song at the time.

Unfortunately, this single is a mess and when it is ordered , it is repetitive beyond belief. "Give It Away" is a very traditional rock and roll song that sounds like exactly what it is: the work of a guitar, bass and drums combination. The guitars are higher and scratchier on this song, so it becomes very easy for the song to sound fast, cacophonic and sloppy. John Frusciante might be technically skilled to get the guitar fingerings for the song "Give It Away" sounding so consistent and energetic, but the result still sounds terrible. The melody to "Give It Away" is a singsong rhythm and melody that make very basic progressions and with the guitars made to sound scratchier, the song is sometimes painful to listen to.

Fleaís bass is not prominent in the song, but Chad Smith's drumming is competent and appropriately loud. Smith bangs on the drums and between the drums and the guitars, "Give It Away" is a hellish song for those who have a headache.

At least as bad as the instrumental accompaniment to the song are the vocals by Anthony Kiedis. Kiedis, who has the ability to sing, does not so much on "Give It Away." Instead, he leers out the song in a way that makes it sound like he is moaning it unpleasantly, as if a part of his anatomy is being tugged on as he tries to sing the lines. So, for example, when he gets out the lines "Realize I don't want to be a miser / Confide with sly you'll be the wiser / Young blood is the lovin' upriser / How come everybody wanna keep it like the Kaiser" he sounds as if his vocal chords are rubber bands and he is sneering. To Kiedis's credit, when he goes the banal refrain of "Give it away give it away give it away now" he sings it fast and articulately enough to be understood.

The thing is, while under most circumstances having comprehensible vocalizations of the lyrics would be a plus, with "Give It Away," it is not at all a key selling point. This song, about rejecting capitalism and ownership of material things, has some of the most inane lyrics of any rock single. The rhymes are absolutely lame (it could easily have been written by a second grader or while any member of the band was high) and arguably the only way to present it is like some manic nursery rhyme. It is hard to consider that the band that came up with "Scar Tissue" and "Don't Forget Me" also wrote the pathetic verses "Greedy little people in a sea of distress / Keep your more to receive your less / Unimpressed by material excess / Love is free love me say hell yes / I'm a low brow but I rock a little know how / No time for the piggies or the hoosegow / Get smart get down with the pow wow / Never been a better time than right now."

As I listen to more Red Hot Chili Peppers albums and singles, I am finding quite a bit that is laudable or enjoyable. However, "Give It Away"
 is neither. And for those who might disagree with my analysis of the song, this single is still a poor way to go as EVERY other version of it offers the listener greater value.

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
"Soul To Squeeze" (single)
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

1/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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Back When Alternative Was Alternative (Sort Of) And Red Hot Chili Peppers Broke Out: Blood Sugar Sex Magik!

The Good: Some interesting lyrics, Moments of composition, Duration
The Bad: A LOT of noisy, unmemorable songs
The Basics: Rock at a time when pop was lighter, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is much less impressive in retrospect.


I almost never look at other reviews of an album or product before I review it; it tends to leave me most focused on my own perceptions of a work, as opposed to simply glomming onto other opinions or views. Honestly, though, it surprised me quite a bit to see such universal praise for the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (sic, they spell "Magik" this way, not me!). So, it might seem like I am being deliberately contrarian when I write a review that pans the album, especially as Red Hot Chili Peppers were my Artist Of The Month, but the truths are: 1. I did not like this album anywhere near as much as anyone else I know and 2. The few songs on it worth hearing are on their compilation albums, most notably their Greatest Hits album.

My wife wanted me to mention right off the bat that despite my willingness to objectively review albums by David Bowie and my general feeling of being underwhelmed by one of her favorite songs, "Sir Psycho Sexy" on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, she will not be leaving me (so keep those comments to yourself!). Blood Sugar Sex Magik was released when I was in high school and it was one of many albums I never heard when it was new (I still haven't heard a single full Nirvana album!) and my only memory at the time was that I remember being cheesed that "Under The Bridge" kept Sophie B. Hawkins's song "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" from ascending higher on the charts. So, now that I've listened to Blood Sugar Sex Magik thirteen times, I find myself even less impressed by the breakout of the Red Hot Chili Peppers into the mainstream (I could have waited for Californication myself). "Under The Bridge" may have made the band a household name, but objectively, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is not the best album ever and despite its duration, there is a sense of monotony to it.

With seventeen songs occupying 73:50 on c.d., Blood Sugar Sex Magik is very much the work of Red Hot Chili Peppers. The now-recognizable quartet of Flea, Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante and Chad Smith wrote all but the final song and they play all of the major instruments on the album. Producer Rick Rubin began his successful collaboration with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on this album and has stuck with them for many of their most successful endeavors. Given how Rubin is credited as being creatively open-minded, it is hard not to argue that Blood Sugar Sex Magik is very much the intended work of the band.

The problem is, especially in retrospect, that Blood Sugar Sex Magik sounds very much like a traditional rock and roll album with a punk/funk edge to it. The album is a combination of Kiedis' voice, which is not always clear, and the very traditional guitar, bass, and drum combination that defines virtually every American garage band. With a parental advisory because of numerous uses of the "f-word" throughout the album, this album is very much not what those who loved "Under The Bridge" are likely to buy it for. Instead of being mellow, most of the album sounds loud and angry. Even songs that start with a real melody or theme, like "The Righteous & The Wicked" degenerate into angry guitars and pounding drums.

Instrumentally, Blood Sugar Sex Magik suffers because so many of the songs are alike. The guitar, bass, drum combination gets very tired on the album as the Red Hot Chili Peppers compose so many of their songs in similar fashions. As a result, songs like "Suck My Kiss" and "Sir Psycho Sexy" actually sound quite similar with their instrumentation and the way the vocals are performed. Also, "I Could Have Lied" has the same vibe as "Under The Bridge" with the softer guitars, more dominant bass and lighter drums. They are exceptions on the album, but the exceptions sound so similar to one another. As well, many of the songs have the guitars played fast and loud with the bass and drums pounding right behind, so the feel of the album is remarkably consistent. The musical accompaniment is rather unimaginative and the only explanation for why this would be considered "alternative" at the time was that the traditional rock and roll combo was on the outs, replaced in mainstream pop with the keyboards in the late '80s/early 1990s.

Anthony Kiedis has a decent voice that stays mostly in the tenor range, though he does go lower on some of the tracks. On Blood Sugar Sex Magik, he varies between articulate and singsong in his presentations and almost inarticulate. "Suck My Kiss" is performed angrily, "Sir Psycho Sexy" has him as a vulgar storyteller and he mumbles through so much of "Under The Bridge" that I suspect a part of the reason it was so popular was that people just were trying to hear it more times to catch more lines. Unfortunately, even when Kiedis performs admirably, like making the fast-sung lines on "Give It Away" comprehensible, often the lyrics are so inane that one wishes they were not so clear so they would not be so embarrassingly simple.

Take, for example "Funky Monks, with its lines of "There are no monks in my band / There are no saints in this land / I'll be doing all I can / If I die an honest man / Confusion is my middle name / Ask me again I'll tell you the same / Persuaded by one sexy dame / No I do not feel no shame." The diction is simple and the rhymes are obvious. Unfortunately, the band sticks to such banal style when singing about some actually interesting and engaging concepts. It is rare, for example, for a rock band to sing about rejecting capitalism and material things, but Red Hot Chili Peppers do that with the rock nursery rhyme "Give It Away."

The songs are not all bad lyrically; "Naked In The Rain" is poetic and respectful as Kiedis sings about being grateful for all he has. And the classic "Under The Bridge" perfectly characterizes loneliness when Kiedis sings "It's hard to believe / That there's nobody out there / It's hard to believe / That I'm all alone / At least I have her love / The city she loves me / Lonely as I am / Together we cry." When the singers aren't presenting advanced dirty limericks ("Sir Psycho Sexy") they actually have a talent for writing.

But largely, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is a traditional and somewhat boring rock album with songs that are less distinct than most listeners acknowledge. Instead, it remains a great example of how sometimes being different from the current trends helps a group strike it big (though, ironically, they did it with the most conventional single from the album) and the album endures because of the associations with it as opposed to the inherent qualities of it. The best songs (and quite a few more) are available on other albums, making it very easy to avoid this one.

The best track is "Under The Bridge," the low point is the ridiculous "They're Red Hot."

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
Soul To Squeeze (single)
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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A Decent Collectible Now, But There Are Better Versions Of The Single "Soul To Squeeze."

The Good: Great vocals, Decent guitarwork, Nice lyrics
The Bad: SHORT, Better versions exist on the market.
The Basics: With a very true "avoid it" recommendation, this particular c.d. single version of "Soul To Squeeze" is not worth hunting down for anyone but the obsessive fans.


I feel it is especially important for me to begin my review of the "Soul To Squeeze" single review with a stronger caveat than usual. Before most of my reviews of c.d. singles, I note that the c.d. single is a particularly poor use of the compact disc medium; there are very few c.d. singles I end up enthusiastically recommending. In the case of the "Soul To Squeeze" single, it is this particular version of the "Soul To Squeeze" single that is getting it panned so hard. I like "Soul To Squeeze;" it's a good song and it is one that seems like it did better than the movie it was associated with (Coneheads). The reason I'm so down on this particular version of "Soul To Squeeze" is because it is the version given to radio stations to play.

This review is for "Soul To Squeeze," the obscure, one-track version of the song. "Soul To Squeeze" was released on four different c.d. releases (two in 1991, two in 1993), as well as a 7" vinyl release and an audio cassette version. Each and every one of those six other releases have at least two tracks (always "Soul To Squeeze" and at least one other song). The 1991 c.d. single actually has six additional tracks! The only version of "Soul To Squeeze" that has a single track is the single sent to radio stations by Warner Brothers to be played. As a result, this version of "Soul To Squeeze" has one real purpose: collector's item for the Red Hot Chili Peppers die hard fans. Anyone who wants value and is a collector of Red Hot Chili Peppers music will want any one of the other single versions because they offer greater value and more music.

With a single song clocking out at under five minutes, "Soul To Squeeze" is very much a Red Hot Chili Peppers song. Written by the quartet and produced by Rick Rubin, who produced most of the works for the recognizable quartet of Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante, Chad Smith and Flea, "Soul To Squeeze" features only the band. Kiedis sings the band-written lines on his own and Frusciante, Smith and Flea back him on guitar, drums and bass. Despite its exploitation for the movie "Coneheads," this is very much a Red Hot Chili Peppers song and it is quite good.

The song is a pop-rock ballad in the traditional sense with Smith's drums keeping a slower beat and actually finding themselves sublimated to Flea's bass, which is powerful in this song. While the song is slow most of the time, there are two bridges: one for a whining guitar solo, another for a lyrical bridge where Kiedis sings quicker. The guitars are fairly simple and "Soul To Squeeze" is most musically notable for the strength of the vocals and the omnipresent bass, which is given a lot more movement in the song than either most Red Hot Chili Peppers songs or in rock music. Flea carries an undertone harmony throughout the song on his bass and it is one of the better examples of melodic basswork in pop-rock.

The vocals are very much those of a traditional rock ballad. Kiedis sings the the lines clearly in a tenor voice, enunciating with surprising clarity for the sometimes noisy or energetic vocalist. Here his voice is kind, emotive and clear. He sings the sometimes singsong, sometimes poignant lyrics with equal earnestness and it is easy to listen to "Soul To Squeeze" and imagine he is singing directly to every listener.

As for the lyrics, "Soul To Squeeze" is not a masterpiece of poetics, but it is a song that conveys a lot of emotion. Sung about pain and loss, the Kiedis opens with the classic lines "I've got a bad disease / Far from my brain is where I bleed / Insanity it seems / It's got me by my soul to squeeze." The song is an angsty song that captures perfectly and poetically the sense of falling through life out of control.

But despite this being a good song, it is impossible for me to recommend anyone look up this version of the single. Instead, there are better versions of the single or the same track shows up on the Greatest Hits And Videos album, which offers a far greater value.

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Mother's Milk
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

2/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.





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Red Hot Chili Peppers's Mother's Milk Is Soured By Overproduction And Pretense.

The Good: Moments of musical originality, Covers are all right
The Bad: Lyrics are often terrible, Vocals are noisy, Instrumental accompaniment is amelodic, SHORT
The Basics: Loud, frenetic and overproduced, Mother's Milk is a disappointingly chaotic Red Hot Chili Peppers album that may be easily passed by.


My wife is a huge fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. She owns almost all of their works and they are her favorite band (her favorite artist is David Bowie, but Red Hot Chili Peppers are close behind, it seems). It is because of her that Red Hot Chili Peppers were once my Artist Of The Month. It might surprise some that she did not have Mother's Milk, one of the earlier Red Hot Chili Peppers albums (the predecessor to their first big hit Blood Sugar Sex Magik). However, for those who have heard the album - as I have now nine times - it might be less of a surprise that she is not adding this one to her collection.

Mother's Milk is funk-rock album by Red Hot Chili Peppers that is entirely lacking in the softer side the band has developed in recent years. Instead, it is louder, the guitars are monotonously thrashing and the lyrics are presented in a singing style that often sounds like the words are being vomited out - especially by the backing vocals. The shouted style of vocal performance is a striking contrast to what comes later, most notably with the band's first smash hit "Under The Bridge." For those raised on mainstream radio-played Chili Peppers, Mother's Milk is a charmless devolution and it is amazing that a band that sounds like such an average garage band (on this album) resulted in such a truly wonderful musical ensemble.

With thirteen songs, clocking out at 44:50, Mother's Milk is the first Red Hot Chili Peppers album with the now-recognizable quartet of Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith and John Frusciante. The quartet plays all of the primary instruments (save on "Fire," where the original guitarist and drummer remain) and the music on Mother's Milk is very traditionally guitar, bass, drums rock music. The band is mostly responsible for the sound as they wrote all but two songs (the Red Hot Chili Peppers present covers of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" and Jimi Hendrix's "Fire"). The album was produced by Michael Beinhorn, who produced some earlier Red Hot Chili Peppers albums. This album seems to be largely the vision of the band at that time and it is mediocre. As well, there is not much of it on the original release and getting this version often leaves fans underwhelmed.

Largely, Mother's Milk is a loud rock album and the lyrics are presented primarily by Kiedis. At this point, Kiedis did not seem to care much if people could hear what he was saying and the backing vocals by Frusciante on "Good Time Boys" overwhelms his. His lyrics are often shouted out and overwhelmed by the guitars that are being noisily banged upon and then produced in front of the vocals. In some cases, the overproduction protects Red Hot Chili Peppers as their songs on Mother's Milk have some truly inane lyrics. For example, the almost random string of rhyming phrases "Travel round the world gettin naked on the stage / Bustin' people out of their everyday cage / We like to think we make a sad man happy / And we like to make proud our mammy and our pappy . . . Like a pack of mad hatters who come from outer space / Our swinging's gonna shatter every stone cold face" ("Good Time Boys") is blissfully obscured on the album by the guitarwork.

In addition to lame lyrics and vocals overproduced to be underemphasized and unclear (what is the point of writing lyrics if you don't want them to be understood?!) Mother's Milk suffers from a strong sense of repetition. In this way, even the cover songs do not help the album. "Higher Ground" has something of a simple melody that is repeated - an effect made worse by a repeated "wah-wah" sound used throughout the Red Hot Chili Pepper version - over and over again and the cover is tiresome. Most of the Red Hot Chili Pepper songs on this album that do have melodies (as opposed to sounding like a lot of banging on the drums and random guitar licks) have a lot of repetition. "Subway To Venus" uses the same riff over and over again and "Magic Johnson" is little more than a repeated chant.

Ironically, one of the nicer tracks on Mother's Milk is "Pretty Little Ditty," which is a one and a half minute instrumental track which has a slower, sadder sound to it than anything else on the album.

Unfortunately, much of the rest of the album is exemplified by songs like "Stone Cold Bush," which is a lyrically vacant, noisy song. On that song, Red Hot Chili Peppers presents the lines "She's stone cold bush yea / And that's all right with me / Get up off your knees, come on walk with me / Tell me what you need to get along / A statue come to life / I cut you with my knife / Bleeding to the tune of dolly dagger" ("Stone Cold Bush") amid banging drums and frenetic guitars. Vocally, Kiedis is at his most amelodic here and the song is arguably what gets the album the Parental Advisory.

The covers are not terribly original. "Fire" is a pretty true interpretation of Hendrix's original and "Higher Ground" is essentially a guitar-driven version of Wonder's original song. On neither song does the band present any sort of innovative interpretation of the song being covered. This helps make the album sound like it is coming from a pretty juvenile garage band. Those who like rock and roll and originality will find very little of it on Mother's Milk.

The best track is "Pretty Little Ditty," the low point is "Good Time Boys," though it's a tough call on this one!

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
By The Way
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Red Hot Chili Peppers Comes Close To A Perfect Album With By The Way!

The Good: Vocals, Duration, Instrumentals, Lyrics
The Bad: Frontloaded
The Basics: Surprisingly diverse, By The Way resonates still because Red Hot Chili Peppers experiment musically while keeping the lyrics tight and intriguing.


Not every band or musical artist has it in them, but as I continue through the repertoire of Red Hot Chili Peppers, it seems like they have a powerfully close near-miss with perfection with their album By The Way. The rock/pop album is one of Red Hot Chili Pepper's most articulate albums and it has a lot to offer listeners, not the least of which are a number of truly amazing tracks that never appeared on the radio, nor on their Greatest Hits album. In fact, track to track, By The Way is easily the most intriguing Red Hot Chili Peppers album I've yet heard.

That said, it is not quite perfect. The last half of the album is somewhat more murky and unmemorable than the first half, which is great single after great single. The frontloaded nature of the album makes it somewhat less memorable as the album goes on and it suffers slightly upon multiple replays. Even so, By The Way is close enough to endorse eagerly and recommend anyone who likes pop-rock pick up a copy. After some of the straight-out weirdness of Californication, By The Way stands as an emotionally open album that presents a more experimental side of Red Hot Chili Peppers.

With sixteen songs clocking out at 69:19, By The Way is distinctly the work of Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band wrote all of the songs and they sing all of the words and play most of the instruments. While the album was not produced by the band, it was produced by Rick Rubin, whom the band had collaborated with before. One suspects they would not have done that if they did not like the results.

By The Way is a surprisingly pleasant mix of pop and rock songs and is arguably the most friendly album to those who like what they hear from Red Hot Chili Peppers on mainstream radio. In fact, the more pop-dance "The Zephyr Song" was played on mainstream radio stations when the album was released, while "By The Way," "Can't Stop," and "Universally Speaking" were singles largely played only on rock stations. Those who liked the radio hits from Californication but were turned off by the heavier rock songs on that album are likely to find By The Way (the album) much more accessible.

Part of the reason for this is that Red Hot Chili Peppers experiment with their sound on almost every track on By The Way. "Midnight," for example utilizes a string section and has more of a dramatic, epic quality to it, as if it were a ballad from a major motion picture. Similarly, "I Could Die For You" is a quiet, melancholy ballad that is very different from the up-tempo rock tracks like "By The Way" (the single) or "Throw Away Your Television." There is even a song that seems like Red Hot Chili Pepper's parody of a Country-Western or folk song with "Cabron," which has a very Western sound and feel to it.

In addition to the songs that have more of a traditional guitar, bass, drums sound to them, Red Hot Chili Peppers open up more with the keyboards and synthesizers on some of their tracks on By The Way. "The Zephyr Song" has more of a psychedelic dance quality to it because of the keyboards Frusciante is playing. As well, Flea makes his bass the dominant instrument on the amazing and troubling "Don't Forget Me" which makes it a much more murky and unsettling song. Of course, on that one, the lyrics go a long way to helping to establish the sense of psychological horror. As Flea slowly fingers the melody on the bass, lead singer Anthony Kiedis moans out "I'm a dance hall dirty breakbeat / Make the snow fall up from underneath your feet / Not alone, I'll be there / Tell me when you want to go / I'm a meth lab first rehab / Take it all off / And step inside the running cab / There's a love that knows the way . . . I'm an inbred and a pothead / Two legs that you spread / Inside the tool shed / Now we know it all for sure" ("Don't Forget Me") and the song becomes arguably the best Red Hot Chili Peppers song to never become a single.

Vocally, By The Way is a weird triumph for Kiedis and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. While on songs like "Universally Speaking" and "Minor Thing" the instrumentals become quite frenetic, the vocals are universally clear. Indeed, this album has Red Hot Chili Peppers prioritizing the lyrics and in this way the band and the album make a real statement. "Tear" has Kiedis, Flea and Frusciante harmonizing beautifully and with Flea's trumpet the song sounds more mature than most of the upbeat songs. Thematically, it follows the rest of the album with a more contemplative refrain of "All in all and I'm / Loving every rise and fall / The sun will make and I will take / Breath to be sure of this / In the end and then / All will be forgiven when" ("Tear"). On this album, the men seem more vocally harmonious and it lends itself to the varied sounds of the tracks quite well.

And while some of the latest songs on the album, like "Warm Tape" might be less memorable, they fit the overall quality of the album and By The Way ends strong. The album replays well because it opens so energetically and the quartet seems content to try new things. For those who only like the radio sound of Red Hot Chili Peppers, By The Way offers a nonthreatening way to try something new - whatwith the instrumental and thematic diversity of the album - without getting something harder than those who like the more mainstream sound would like. This is not to say that the mainstream rock songs like the title track aren't good, but they are available on other albums and what makes By The Way truly rock is that the non-radio hits actually are often as strong as the ones that were released as singles.

I love the sound of "The Zephyr Song" and "Don't Forget Me" sends a chill through me on every listen (I've heard it about fifty times). The lowest point is probably "Warm Tape" because it leaves less impression with the listener.

For other works by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, please check out my reviews of:
Californication
"Otherside" (single)
Greatest Hits And Videos
The Best Of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium

9.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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