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Hmmm... I remember liking Under the Bridge, but I think a point was reached eventually where the shapelessness of the verse and the spectacularly irritating nature of the crescendo - the drawn-out "wayyyyyyyyy"s in particular, followed by the chorale wore me down to a nub, before one even got to the bit where it doesn't actually have an end per se, just a jazz noodle.
More recently, I've found their fixation on a) stretching out the last line of a chorus to the length of the folllowing bar and b) California more numbing than anything else. Hearing, say, the fluting up of "Rollercoaster", followed by the irksome comedy drawl of "of laaahhhv", one does not really need to hear the rest of the song, because one has in fact just heard the entire song - there's a fractal quality to the RHCP, where usually about six seconds will do you.
However, more broadly, why does this lead to such scabrous contempt? Perhaps part of the problem lies in an awareness that much of the RHCP's early work struck many of us at a time when we were susceptible to finding if not actively admirable at least temptingly divorced from our own befringed, rainy lives - pectoral muscles, shouting, slappy bass. Perhaps their sin is that they have not changed and we have; stylistically and, vitally, aesthetically. I mean, not only does Kiedis look like an arse on the cover of "Scart Issue", he looks like an arse who has not given serious thought to that haircut for well over a decade. Is it shame at our yoounger selves that makes them so easy to hate? |
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. Considering they are such a popular band, it is remarkable how few of their fans come out in their support; I suspect a lot of them just don't frequent discussion forums. 