FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Seven: Red Hot Chili Peppers
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THIS time around…
PHIOTO CREDIT: MTV/Getty Images
I am recommending the essential albums from the band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They can divide people, but I really like them, and I feel they have produced some terrific albums! I have recommended four that you need to own, an underrated one, and their latest. I have also popped in a book suggestion so you can get fully acquainted with the band. I am going to continue this series for a few weeks, as it is opening my eyes to the work of some truly brilliant artists. If you are not overly-familiar with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, take a look at the suggestions below and…
DIVE right in.
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The Four Essential Albums
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Release Date: 24th September, 1991
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Rick Rubin
Standout Tracks: Breaking the Girl/Give It Away/Under the Bridge
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-Blood-Sugar-Sex-Magik/master/42522
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/30Perjew8HyGkdSmqguYyg
Review:
“The Red Hot Chili Peppers' best album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik benefits immensely from Rick Rubin's production -- John Frusciante's guitar is less overpoweringly noisy, leaving room for differing textures and clearer lines, while the band overall is more focused and less indulgent, even if some of the grooves drag on too long. Lyrically, Anthony Kiedis is as preoccupied with sex as ever, whether invoking it as his muse, begging for it, or boasting in great detail about his prowess, best showcased on the infectiously funky singles "Give It Away" and "Suck My Kiss." However, he tempers his testosterone with a more sensitive side, writing about the emotional side of failed relationships ("Breaking the Girl," "I Could Have Lied"), his drug addictions ("Under the Bridge" and an elegy for Hillel Slovak, "My Lovely Man"), and some hippie-ish calls for a peaceful utopia. Three of those last four songs (excluding "My Lovely Man") mark the band's first consistent embrace of lilting acoustic balladry, and while it's not what Kiedis does best as a vocalist, these are some of the album's finest moments, varying and expanding the group's musical and emotional range. Frusciante departed after the supporting tour, leaving Blood Sugar Sex Magik as probably the best album the Chili Peppers will ever make” - AllMusic
Choice Cut: Suck My Kiss
Californication
Release Date: 8th June, 1999
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Rick Rubin
Standout Tracks: Around the World/Parallel Universe/Scar Tissue
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-Californication/master/42546
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2Y9IRtehByVkegoD7TcLfi
Review:
“On the surface filled with the usual punk funk, the band had now matured enough to make it sound more convincing. Keidis' voice, ravaged by age and excess, now emerged as a mighty instrument, while Frusciante's guitar held far more subtle nuance.
The album yielded four hit singles (Around the World, Otherside, Californication and the Grammy Award–winning Scar Tissue) but even more interesting waas the way the band let more than just fun and frolics into the mix. Frusciante on Get On Top even fused Public Enemy with prog rock, admittting that his unsdersatated solo had been influenced by Steve Howe of Yes.
Overall the album has a far more meditative feel, allowing you to finally believe that they'd come to do more than just party your town dry. It was the album that confirmned them as world class. They remain such today, and it's all down to this re-birth” – BBC
Choice Cut: Californication
By the Way
Release Date: 9th July, 2002
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Rick Rubin
Standout Tracks: By the Way/Universally Speaking/Dosed
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-By-The-Way/master/42557
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4ueGcY7b6BzBFyssWpEjZb
Review:
“The Red Hot Chili Peppers' eighth studio album finds the California foursome exploring the more melodic freeways of harmony and texture, contrasting the gritty, funky side streets of their early days. Luckily, with this more sophisticated sound, the Peppers have not sacrificed any of their trademark energy or passions for life, universal love, and (of course) lust. Although they recorded the spiky Abbey Road EP in 1988, this album actually sounds a lot closer to the Beatles' Abbey Road, with a little of Pet Sounds and elements of Phil Spector's lushest arrangements all distilled through the band's well-traveled funk-pop stylings. Harmony vocals and string arrangements have replaced some of the aggressive slap bass that the group was initially recognized for, but fans of both the gentle and the fierce Chili Peppers styles will embrace the title track and first single, "By the Way." In fact, this song on its own could almost be a brief history of everything the Red Hot Chili Peppers have recorded: fiery Hollywood funk, gentle harmonies, a little bit of singing about girls, a little bit of hanging out in the streets in the summertime, some rapid-fire raps from Anthony Kiedis, some aggro basslines from Flea -- the song plays like a three-and-a-half-minute audio version of Behind the Music. Overall, the album leans more toward the melodic end of their oeuvre, but they have grown into this kinder, gentler mode organically, progressively working toward this groove little by little, album by album. What once were snapshots of a spastic punk-funk lifestyle have grown into fully realized short stories of introspection and Californication. Though the pace of the album falters at times (particularly in the verses; the choruses are all pretty spectacular), it is refreshing to see that as the four Chili Peppers continue to grow older and more sure of themselves, their composition and performing skills are maturing along with them” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Can’t Stop
Stadium Arcadium
Release Date: 9th May, 2006
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Rick Rubin
Standout Tracks: Snow (Hey Oh)/Stadium Arcadium/Slow Cheetah
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-Stadium-Arcadium/master/38645
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7xl50xr9NDkd3i2kBbzsNZ
Review:
“That’s not to say they’ve turned into simpering acoustic-botherers though; this album yields a lot of great songs. ‘Hump De Bump’ is straight back to the old school – fast, goofy guitar toying, with reverberating bass that jumps around the frets à la ‘Love Rollercoaster’, with vocal gymnastics to match and odd brass squiggles. ‘Storm In A Teacup’ is a P-funk ‘Freaky Styley’ classic, sanded down to ‘Californication’-era smoothness, and John Frusciante gets to do what he does best on the likes of ‘Turn It Again’ and ‘Animal Bar’. Here is a player increasingly interested in the sonic, tonal capabilities of his instrument as opposed to fret wankery. Somewhere along the line the Chilis got sophisticated on our asses.
‘Charlie’ (not just about cocaine we’re relentlessly informed) is a syncopated treat that stumbles into anthem territory, while the likes of ‘Snow (Hey Oh)’ sees them opt for power-songwriting from the outset, throwing on “hey oh, whoo ah oh” choruses labelled “For Crowds At Wireless Festival Only”. ‘Hey’ is another titanic tune lumbered with wah-wah-esque guitar solos – an awesome prospect and even better if you’re partial to a bit of ’80s Eric Clapton among your coffee table lounge jazz” – NME
Choice Cut: Dani California
The Underrated Gem
Mother’s Milk
Release Date: 16th August, 1989
Label: EMI America
Producer: Michael Beinhorn
Standout Tracks: Subway to Venus/Taste the Pain/Fire
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-Mothers-Milk/master/42512
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1oOkcBu5bgkUzZTvKD1m8z
Review:
“A pivotal album for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1989's Mother's Milk turned the tide and transformed the band from underground funk-rocking rappers to mainstream bad boys with seemingly very little effort. Mother's Milk brought them to MTV, scored them a deal with Warner Bros., and let both frontman Anthony Kiedis and the ubiquitous Flea get back into a good groove following the death of co-founding member Hillel Slovak. With a new lineup coalescing around the remaining duo plus new drummer Chad Smith and guitarist John Frusciante, and with producer Michael Beinhorn again behind the boards, the band took everything that The Uplift Mofo Party Plan hinted at, and brought it fully to bear for this new venture. If anyone doubted the pulsating power of the opener, "Good Time Boys," it took only a few bars of band's outrageous and brilliant interpretation of the Stevie Wonder classic "Higher Ground" to prove that this new lineup was onto something special. Wrapping up with the aptly titled and truly punked-out "Punk Rock Classic" and the band's own punched-up tribute to "Magic Johnson," Mother's Milk was everything the band had hoped for, and a little more besides. Effortlessly going gold as "Knock Me Down" and "Taste the Pain" careened into the charts, the album not only set the stage for the band's Blood Sugar Sex Magic domination, it also proved that funk never died; it had just swapped skins” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Higher Ground
The Latest/Final Album
The Getaway
Release Date: 17th June, 2016
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Danger Mouse
Standout Tracks: We Turn Red/Goodbye Angels/Go Robot
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-The-Getaway/master/1015499
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/43otFXrY0bgaq5fB3GrZj6
Review:
“After 25 years, the Chili Peppers chose to record with a producer other than Rick Rubin; but in Danger Mouse, they chose wisely. He imposed the same method that proved so successful with The Black Keys, co-writing new material and bringing a keen pop sensibility to the arrangements – damped guitar picking and mouthed hi-hats for the title-track; crisp synthesiser sci-fi funk for “Go Robot”; and piano and two guitar figures muscled aside by Flea’s slap-bass for “Dark Necessities”, Anthony Kiedis’s claim of dangerous charm. As ever, California gets plenty of mentions, though there’s less filler than usual, the album reaching a yearning epiphany in the string-draped song for a son, “The Hunter” – The Independent
Choice Cut: Dark Necessities
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Book
Scar Tissue
Authors: Anthony Kiedis/Larry Sloman
Publication Date: 3rd November, 2005
Publishers: Little, Brown/Book Group
Synopsis:
“In SCAR TISSUE Anthony Kiedis, charismatic and highly articulate frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life story, and the history of the band itself.
Raised in the Midwest, he moved to LA aged eleven to live with his father Blackie, purveyor of pills, pot, and cocaine to the Hollywood elite. After a brief child-acting career, Kiedis dropped out of U.C.L.A. and plunged headfirst into the demimonde of the L.A. underground music scene. He formed the band with three schoolfriends - and found his life's purpose. Crisscrossing the country, the Chili Peppers were musical innovators and influenced a whole generation of musicians.
But there's a price to pay for both success and excess and in SCAR TISSUE, Kiedis writes candidly of the overdose death of his soul mate and band mate, Hillel Slovak, and his own ongoing struggle with an addiction to drugs.
SCAR TISSUE far transcends the typical rock biography, because Anthony Kiedis is anything but a typical rock star. It is instead a compelling story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption” – Waterstones
Buy: https://www.waterstones.com/book/scar-tissue/anthony-kiedis/9780751535662