{"id":825,"date":"2014-11-06T23:47:26","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T23:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=825"},"modified":"2014-11-06T23:47:41","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T23:47:41","slug":"rs-401","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=825","title":{"rendered":"RS #401: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication"},"content":{"rendered":"
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#401<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication<\/em><\/h3>\n
Release Date:<\/span>\u00a01999<\/div>\n
First Time Listen:<\/span>\u00a0Not exactly<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Red
Red Hot Chili Poolside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Impressions:<\/span>\u00a0Ughh,\u00a0I was secretly dreading reviewing this album. And then I lost the review I wrote… so now I got to tackle it again. Well, here we go… I was never a huge fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I don’t outright hate them as much as most people nowadays. Their brash ’80s funk\/punk sound is\u00a0completely unfashionable, not to mention the possibly-unfair thinking that they helped inspire\u00a0the\u00a0horrible rash\u00a0of Nu-Metal bands of the late ’90s\/early ’00s. Even on the radio, these songs\u00a0bugged me for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on, until I read about the so-called Loudness War<\/a>.\u00a0Many site this album as\u00a0a nadir in the recording industry’s race to\u00a0jack up\u00a0the decibels of CD recordings so the songs become clipped, distorted and difficult to listen to. (Read the book\u00a0“Perfecting Sound Forever”<\/a> for a great inside look at this phenomenon.)\u00a0Besides the sonic\u00a0problem, the album suffers from the same maladies that affect all\u00a0RHCP albums: too long (56 minutes,) too much filler surrounding a few good songs (“Scar Tissue,” “Otherside”), and some moments when\u00a0Anthony\u00a0Kiedis dribbles the ball off his foot rapping (“Around the World,”) dishing out clunky rhymes (“Right On Time”) or by being Anthony Kiedis (“I Like Dirt.”) The band is still solid.\u00a0After returning from another round of rehab, John Frusciante remains a sensitive and versatile\u00a0guitarist who mixes\u00a0in some nice slide leads, clipped funk, or wah-wah sounds and hey,\u00a0Flea and Chad Smith do what they do.\u00a0When the band\u00a0acts closer to their age, they sound introspective and have some surprisingly delicate tracks that work (“Californication”) better than the ones where they try to get down (“Get On Top.”) What? 15 songs?<\/em> Oh man, they should have cut this album in half. The longer they go, the more stars\u00a0they lose.<\/p>\n

Starred Songs:<\/span>\u00a0“Scar Tissue,” “Otherside,” “Californication”
\n<\/span>Sneaky Track:<\/span> “Porcelain”
\nShould this be on the list:<\/span>\u00a0No
\nReplace With:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, I think 1999’s Flaming Lips masterpiece “The Soft Bulletin” would fit the bill.
\nWill You Listen To This Album Again:<\/span>\u00a0No, unless I lose this review again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Summary: <\/span>Marred by mastering\u00a0problems, overlong and too much filler, but still a few delicate mature RHCP gems in there if you aren’t completely sick of these guys by now (call it the U2 effect.)<\/div>\n
Rating:<\/span>\u00a0\u26053\/4\u00a0(might get an extra star if I listen to the remastered vinyl version<\/a>, but that’s not happening)<\/div>\n
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#401 Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication Release Date:\u00a01999 First Time Listen:\u00a0Not exactly \u00a0 Impressions:\u00a0Ughh,\u00a0I was secretly dreading reviewing this album. And then I lost the review I wrote… so now I got to tackle it again. Well, here we go… I was never a huge fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I don’t … Continue reading RS #401: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[215,122,216,14,9],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rolling-stone-top-500-albums","tag-1-75-stars","tag-122","tag-red-hot-chili-peppers","tag-replace","tag-unowned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}