Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Radio & Music >

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Page: 1(2)3

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:09 / 24.05.06

But then when they got Dave Navarro (DAVE. FUCKING. NAVARRO.) in on One Hot Minute, it was a bit disappointing. For some reason his Jane's magic didn't transfer so well to the Chilis. It was okay, but I wanted something wonderful.

16:17 / 24.05.06

I pretty much loathe everything since Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and probably only have a small soft spot for that because of shining teenage days spent toking on the herb that is superb, and suchlike. The Chilly Willys (as the youthful Boboss used to call them) were pretty much the only modern rock band that didn't hail from Manchester that I listened to as a boy of fifteen, and as such were always going to set up camp in my brane for good or ill.

Quite why I don't like any of their post BSSM output is really beyond my ken. All I know is that I find Kiedis's voice tres annoying, and their "funky" guitar riffs more so. I suppose it could have something to do with the fact that pretty much all of my friends absolutely hate the band, and pretty much always have done, at least for as long as I've known 'em - and that's a long time in many cases. It could also have something to do with the esteem in which today's rocking teens seem to hold them, which in my old age I find hard to take at all seriously. I reckon there might be something in Haus's fractal attack, too.

Whatever, certainly around these parts they're a band that people love to hate.

16:40 / 24.05.06

What he does is make bad music at very high level of technical proficiency. You see?

I understood what you were saying, I just don't agree that "what they do" is "make bad music." Or, more to the point, I don't recognize what people see as so self-evidently "bad" about their music. The quality of their output is varied from album to album, to be sure, but when they're good they're really good (YMMV, etc).

And Haus, you did say that you don't especially hate them yourself, so I don't mean to address you as the spokesperson for those who do. Nor do I have much interest in convincing anyone that they're "actually quite good, in fact," so I'm going to step off the defense for a while and see what people have to say.

Re: Navarro: Stoatie, I know! I was expecting much more, too. One Hot Minute is a tidy little album, and a good listen, but as a follow-up to BSSM it didn't have the punch I was expecting. Aeroplane's a favorite, though. Californication didn't do much for me, but I'm thinking of checking out the new one.

17:06 / 24.05.06

Boboss your experience with them sounds similar to mine- I liked them as a teenager- my 5th year of school was spent listening to RHCP's Mothers Milk and Uplioft Mofo Party Plan albums- then BSSM happened- they went massive and over the next few months i realised they were a bit shit.

I'd imagine a culmination of me growing up and them breaking big were what lost me. You couldn't go to a bar, party, club etc without hearing suck my kiss or give it away. Druggie macho jocks who like to paaaarty! lost their appeal, i read interviews with them where they talked about how mystic and at one with nature they were- and they sounded like me smoking spliffs aged 14. They had always been a little bit mysterious and underground- suddenly when they opened their mouths it was all a bit embarrassing.

Someone borrowed BSSM off me and i never got it back, 6 months after it came out- i'd lost interest. I saw them play Brixton Academy in '91 and i enjoyed it but they were slightly embarrassing. 3 years later they played Reading with Dave Navaro- i stomped to the front for old times sake-i watched 2 songs and then made my way out again- they were shit and i didn't like the songs anymore- I wondered over to the 2nd stage where a band called the Tindersticks were playing...

My problem is that they're so 1 dimensional- no real depth to the tunes- as Haus says all you need to hear is 6 seconds- that and Keidis is a tit of the highest order.

I was leant 'Scar Tissue' by my brother at christmas- under the guise of 'if you like rock biogs this has got some mad stories in it' - 'Head On' this ain't!
I flicked through small sections- it seemed to largely be a list of Keidis's sexual conquests and cod self psychology over his own drug issues- the biggest problem seemed to be the guy is a narcissistic twat.

Rock stars eh?

The Natural Way

17:13 / 24.05.06

Funk rock?

You want The Make Up, mate.

18:08 / 24.05.06

Dammit. What Boboss and Copey said, essentially. They were great for a while, lost it and got old. I loved under the bridge until it wore out in my brain, but rollercoaster of love is a piece of shit. Again I find I resort to the 'I like their early stuff' mantra, but I don't understand the hate.

Is it shame at our younger selves that makes them so easy to hate? Haus

Could be. I think you could name a few other shit bands that people loved at a particular time in their lives and now despise (Cranberries, Levellers, Bon Jovi, Crowded House...) and it's definitely not about the music alone.

I have become shameless in my old age and admit to myself that I like some things that just aren't cool, like grandad tapping his foot to Britney Spears. I took great pleasure yesterday in playing The Sultans of Ping FC to a friend who hadn't heard the Turnipfish song for a dozen years. It was ace, and I hold my head up high. If I had any Ned's Atomic Dustbin I'd play it right now. I can like the Magnetic Fields and The Cure and Devendra Banhart and Lionel Ritchie and Captain Beefheart and Tenacious D and Avril Lavigne and Gnarls Berkely and Big Daddy Kane and Jonathan Richman and the Beach Boys and The Cheeky Girls all at the same time.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

18:18 / 24.05.06

I thought "Yertle the Turtle" off Freaky Styley rocked ass in high school, because a funk-riffed Dr. Seuss reading was, and still is, a very fun idea.

BSSM came out when I was 16, and I'd dance to it at high school dances, but all things RHCP have always left me... tepid. No love, no hate. They always struck me as a skate-punk band with bar-rock sensibilities that got lucky, but never had the brains or creativity to be really interesting.

Compare, just for fun:

the evolutionary curves of the Red Hot Chili Peppers...

...and Faith No More. First albums out in the same year, and were practically identical in look/sound/attitude/style for their respective first albums. Except that Kedis has more singing talent and Mosley had more spunk.

Then look where they went. RHCP has BloodSugarSexMagic. FNM has Angel Dust.

It's not so much disliking RHCP as liking so many other bands so much more.

18:57 / 24.05.06

Haus:
> 2stepfan - when you say the issue is that RHCP has been
> embraced by the Daily Telegraph, do you mean that they get
> good reviews in the Telegraph?
Regularly to the point of inevitability!

> Perhaps that is the pleasure and the pain of a band with
> an ageing fanbase
No - a shifting demographic. Where once it was tattooed boys in shorts, now it is yummy mummies in 4x4s.

I still like them nevertheless, but then again I'm at a stage in life where I know lots of moderately yummy mummies in, well, not 4x4s but certainly people carriers.

19:09 / 24.05.06

See, I hate Faith No More.

19:21 / 24.05.06

Well, there's the problem.

Jake, Colossus of Clout

19:56 / 24.05.06

Throw me in the "used to be good" camp. I loved BSSM when it came out, and I still think Mother's Milk is a great album, easily their best. Freaky Styley and Uplift Mofo Party Plan were fun, too. The later stuff is fucking shit, though. "Rollercoaster" is one of the most irritating songs in the history of rock.

I certainly don't look to the Peppers for sublime, transcendent albums or anything. But Mother's Milk is a great album for a summer afternoon beer party in somebody's back yard. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that.

This "worst band ever" stuff is mystifying to me. Grand Funk Railroad, anyone? Bush? Good fucking Charlotte?

20:06 / 24.05.06

Bros? Celine Dion? Busted? Milli Vanilli? The Osmonds? East 17? Kula Shaker? Cast/ Stiltskin? Hanson? Chesney Fucking Hawkes?

Jake, Colossus of Clout

20:13 / 24.05.06

KELLY CLARKSON!?

20:14 / 24.05.06

That´s nothing.

If you really want your ears to bleed, listen to these german bands:

Modern Talking, Zillertaler Schürzenjäger, Freddy Quinn, Heino, Hanne Haller, Silly, Die Puhdies and Roy Black.
And there are lots more.

BTW, I bought the new CD, but I´ll have to listen to it for a couple of days to really appreciate it.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

20:37 / 24.05.06

... I like Kula Shaker.

Honestly, I think "I hate Faith No More" pretty much sums up the thread for me. That's not a perjorative, I just think if you like the way the Red Hot Chili Peppers went, and hate the way Faith No More went, there's some sort of taste schism in there that I can't personally see the other side of.

20:49 / 24.05.06

Only Kula Shaker is making me come close to ponderance thus far, although I've not heard any of the German acts who I'll take on advisement are dreadful. Die Toten Hosen certainly were. Kelly Clarkson's singles, otoh, have all been very lovely proper guitar pop not made by pale, unpleasant student types; I'm getting my partner the CD for a b'day gift and look very much forward to hearing it.

Returning to FNM; they, and Mike Patton in particular, have taken some stick on the board in the past, and admittedly their one stab at 'funk-rock', 'The Real Thing' is a very shit album which I could say almost exactly of what many have of 'BSSM'. I was young! etc.

But, comparatively, 'Angel Dust' (which was my first ever album owned, and I'm pretty proud) was a vastly more interesting beast than... well, the entire RHCP oeuvre? Yeah. Even the likes of 'Epic' off aforementioned shit album are more baroque and twisty. Patton, as a personality, as a frontman, is far less banal than Kiedis. 'Introduce Yourself', from the pre-Patton, Chuck Moseley era is - I believe - something of a landmark in forms of rock music, and I still love that too. FNM have a deeply unfortunate legacy - Papa Roach, nigh-all rap metal, Korn - but so do, say, Husker Du and it's hardly their fault that people pee on the blueprints. There's probably a good album in the highlights of 'King for a Day..' and 'Album of the Year' too.

21:46 / 24.05.06

So we're clear, I've never love the Chilli Peppers, I just liked them at a time in my life when I had little time for any music that didn't bleep and bloop.

Professor Silly

02:37 / 28.05.06

loved BSSM back in the day (I had just graduated high school) and MM before that...lost interest when Frusciante quit and Navarro didn't quite step up to the plate.

Now Frusciante's back and I can't quite care. I don't listen to BSSM anymore (although I can't quite sell it either), which is entirely due to Kiedis. I love love love Frusciante's guitar playing and vocal harmonies, Flea is amazingly subtle compared to the old stuff, Smith is solid and easily ignorable, but Kiedis grates my nerves plain and simple.

...but then I consider FNM to be one of my all-time favorite bands. I wonder if we would find a strong inverse relationship in the two bands' fan bases--few seem to love both, and I've read of a long standing Patton-Kiedis feud (apparently the two don't like each other much at all. Kiedis once canceled a RHCP festival appearance just because one of Patton's groups was also on the bill).

10:22 / 28.05.06

It's interesting the FNM is brought up here along side RHCP. I would assume if you ask Mike Patton's opinion of RHCP he would vomit in front of you then and there. This goes way back to the Mr. Bungle days when Mr. Patton and crew were offered a spot on several european concerts along side RHCP and Anthony Kiedis said "if they play, we don't". This effectively took a lot of cash out of Bungle's pockets which they were not too pleased with.

Personally I agree with many posters who think everything after BSSM was crap, and most of that album was too. I really enjoyed Mothers Milk, but after that they turned into scene queens who snorted way too much coke, stuck juice, got major hangups about being 'cool' and all had a mid life crisis. Frusciante's solo work when he left was great, the rest of the gang stank IMO. Speaking of mid life crisis... 92 was when BSSM came out??? Holy freakin shit... where are my Dead Kennedy tapes...

PS. just for a plug which Mr. Patton would find so fitting, he has a new album called Peeping Tom out now, and since I am back in India with a severely blocked internet connection, someone buy it and give a review puleeez!

10:49 / 28.05.06

Hey Professor Silly!

You beat me to it. Anyways the gig you mention was the 2000 Big Day Out in Australia. Although the organisers dismiss this as rumour, I know it for fact. Mr. Bungle ended up doing a solo gig around Australia after negotiations fell over between them and BDO organisers, thanks to RHCP. I was supposed to do live FOH(front of house) sound for the Mr. Bungle support band(Johnleespider) in Brisbane at the time but could not make it and the band says Mike was pretty cut, again, money out of his and everyone elses pockets. Not only that, I was told that Kiedis did rag onstage at the BDO about Bungle at one part if my meagre memory serves me??? 6 years already!!! bloody hell.

13:01 / 28.05.06

I can like the Magnetic Fields and The Cure and Devendra Banhart and Lionel Ritchie and Captain Beefheart and Tenacious D and Avril Lavigne and Gnarls Berkely and Big Daddy Kane and Jonathan Richman and the Beach Boys and The Cheeky Girls all at the same time

Yes, thank you.

Anyway, I like RHCP and I think that they *are* a talented band. Actually I've kind of gone out the other side with RHCP. I really liked them a lot when "Mother's Milk" came out - "Knock Me Down" remains a much loved song - and then I was uni when BSSM came out. I still think "Give it Away" is an great song, actually. But BSSM was the album that those guys really blew up on, and in the states at least it was SO. OVERPLAYED!!!! I liked "Under the Bridge" when I first heard it but I've never recovered from the total media saturation that song had way back when.

And it was around this time that I really started to dislike them again. I always found their early music fun but not very deep. I remember ~I used to always get sick of their albums really quickly.

But I do think they've matured as artists and I do think their more recent stuff - "Californication", "By the Way", etc. - are more layered tracks that take longer to get under your skin (take that however you like, people!) and have much more staying power than their earlier stuff does. It's really only been within the past two years that I've given them another chance and gone from being bored with them to liking them again. Who knows? Maybe that's a reflection on my own aging. I don't know what changed - I think a friend gave me a mix cd with a RHCP song on it and I ended up really liking it, and the gates were opened.

I have an addiction to rock autobiographies and I have READ "Scar Tissue" in full and I have to say it actually added to my appreciation of the band. Kiedis IS a twat and definitely looks like one on the cover of the book, but it was a good read. If you like rock bios (and I love them.)

Hydra vs Leviathan

17:27 / 28.05.06

Interesting that a lot of people here only like their older stuff...

Could be to do with people and events in my life, but i didn't hear anything by the RHCP that i liked (thought, in fact, they were a cock-rocking 80s joke band that non-cockish people only liked out of grudging admission that they had guitar and bass skillz) until "Californication" came out, and i thought "Toad Trippin'", the title track and particularly "Scar Tissue" were great songs (albeit with that slightly annoying "these lyrics sound like they're referring to something deep and meaningful, but i can't quite decipher exactly what they mean" thing (see also: Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, The Beautiful South))...

the latter song, in particular, was and is very intimately associated for me with my ex... after we broke up, it was simply too painful for me to hear it for at least a year, but oddly enough one of the key moments in the at-first-tentative development that happened a couple of years after that from her being my ex to her being (totally non-sexually) one of my closest friends was her being round, with some other friends, for dinner, and a random CDR i had put on which happened to have those 3 songs on, and both of us (separately) singing along to "Scar Tissue", and just thinking it was a great song...

the follow up album to "Californication", or what i heard of it, seemed just like a cheap cash-in attempt on the "new" fans who they had attracted with that change of style tho... haven't heard any of their new double album...

Thinking about it, the RHCP are a bit like the Beatles for me - loads of people i know think they are TEH GRAETEST EVAR!!!111!!!, while i think they have a few immensely powerful and moving songs, and the rest just doesn't do anything for me (and both seem to be bands that people who like more obscure stuff consider it cool to hate)...

18:02 / 28.05.06

they went massive and over the next few months i realised they were a bit shit.

I think that basically sums up the attitude of most people in the thread, in which realised they were a bit shit means got popular and therefore were no longer cool.

I really like Californication, even beyond the singles, there's some really strong tracks on there. By the Way is alright, and I haven't heard the new one. However, I would agree that it was a mistake to put California in the title of yet another song.

Also, I've heard Peeping Tom, and it's pretty good, I think it's worth of its own thread, so I'll put one on there now.

22:57 / 28.05.06

However, I would agree that it was a mistake to put California in the title of yet another song

But they are from California. I mean, they are "writing what they know.."

Regrettable Juvenilia

23:18 / 28.05.06

I think that basically sums up the attitude of most people in the thread, in which realised they were a bit shit means got popular and therefore were no longer cool.

Could I advise you, Patrick, not to cast aspersions on people's motivations for not liking a band? Nobody on this thread has said that their reasons for not liking the Chilis is that they became popular and "no longer cool", so unless you'd like to explain some clever between-the-lines reading you've done, or you are a mind-reader, perhaps that's enough of that, eh? Quite enough of that.

23:31 / 28.05.06

I think that basically sums up the attitude of most people in the thread, in which realised they were a bit shit means got popular and therefore were no longer cool.

I kind of feel your making your own arguement there Patrick- in my post i was talking about the culmination of a band getting over exposure (turn on the radio and its that song again!) and growing up and out of something (puberty, adolescence, adulthood call it what you want)- i suppose the mothers milk years of the chilli peppers will always bring back fond memories and if anything by breaking big they got Cooler didn't they?

My reading of the thread is that they were a band that had their moment 89-92 they were (in their own way, and in a very different time) an edgey band - mixing up music styles- pre-grunge american rock music that didn't take itself too seriously and that wasn't trying to be G'n fuckin' R or Metallica- they seemed fresh- but the holes soon started to show, the big album was a boring dinosaur with a limited depth and their 'alternative' attitude, pretty quickly became the mainstream with innevitabley dull results.

09:10 / 29.05.06

My reading of the thread is that they were a band that had their moment 89-92 they were (in their own way, and in a very different time) an edgey band - mixing up music styles- pre-grunge american rock music that didn't take itself too seriously and that wasn't trying to be G'n fuckin' R or Metallica- they seemed fresh- but the holes soon started to show, the big album was a boring dinosaur with a limited depth and their 'alternative' attitude, pretty quickly became the mainstream with innevitabley dull results.

I disagree with that opinion. I mean the truth is the band was around for quite some time in the 80s before Mother's Milk. I personally don't remember hearing about them until Hillel Slovak died, which I think must've been around 88/89? Being a bit of an old-timer, I recall that they were certainly thought of 'alternative' 'til Blood Sugar Sex Magic came out. They were kind of the perfect college band of that day, because college kids seem to love whitebread funk. (At least we did back in the day!)

Personally I think that the RHCPs sound today is a lot richer and more mature than the "Catholic School Girls Rule" days (though I do like that song!) I'm by no means saying that Kiedis and co. are the most talented people out their today but I do think they have talent. Additionally it certainly seems for their songs that to some extent they are trying to give the fans (and the radio and the singles chart) what they want, but nor do I think their songs are pure, calculated power pop either.

Their earlier stuff is fun but I just don't feel it has the richness and the staying power of their newer stuff. I almost feel like it is two different bands, which in a way, thinking about the number of line-up changes they've had, to some extent it is.

09:35 / 29.05.06

My first impression so far:

Mars sucks, I´ll keep listening to it, but it´s like a compilation of b-sides.

I like Jupiter, but not that much yet. I really liked the last two albums, but this will probably not come close. They should have picked their favourite 11 songs instead of releasing a double album.

09:41 / 29.05.06

What do you think of Dani California? I really like it. Catchy, fun tune.

00:40 / 30.05.06

Could I advise you, Patrick, not to cast aspersions on people's motivations for not liking a band? Nobody on this thread has said that their reasons for not liking the Chilis is that they became popular and "no longer cool", so unless you'd like to explain some clever between-the-lines reading you've done, or you are a mind-reader, perhaps that's enough of that, eh? Quite enough of that.

This is what was said: "they went massive and over the next few months i realised they were a bit shit," which could be a perfectly legitimate conclusion reached from hearing the album a few more times. However, the way it's phrased indicates that it was the going massive that led to the conclusion that they were shit, and had they not become so popular, he might have ended either liking them or forgetting them.

It's fine to not like the Chilis, but the primary reason for the hyperbole in saying that they are "the worst band in the history of the world" is because they're quite popular. Now, perhaps this is a carefully thought out conclusion, but I wouldn't lean that way.

I myself certainly will go negative on something I once mildly liked or was indifferent about if it's constantly getting raved about, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to say that most of the vitrol on the thread here is due to the fact that they're a very popular band, and also one that at this point it's not particularly hip to like.

02:21 / 30.05.06

There's nothing I can add to this thread without misbehaving.

08:23 / 30.05.06

I like Dani Dalifornia, too! It makes me want to inject my pasty skin with a broiler chicken like sun tan.

One thing, I thought of:
I almost never get the meaning of english pop songs. I have to read the lyrics to get the (possible) meaning. When I listen, I mostly listen for the music, not the language. I understand the lyrics one word at a time, it´s as if someone speaks to you in a language you understand, but chooses words randomnly.

Maybe that makes it easier for me to listen to popular english-lyrics bands? There is no popular german band I can listen to except for the godlike Die Ärzte and of course Rammstein. Their lyrics are hilarious, especially in combination with the singer´s voic and his over the top rolling Rs.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:26 / 30.05.06

Patrick, you said:

I think that basically sums up the attitude of most people in the thread

Did you actually mean by that:

This is my own interpretation of a statement made by a single person in the thread

Only, those are two vastly different statements.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:45 / 30.05.06

Well on the basis of this:

I myself certainly will go negative on something I once mildly liked or was indifferent about if it's constantly getting raved about

...Perhaps what Patrick actually meant was "this is a tendency of mine which I am now projecting onto other people in this thread".

I see in Patrick's most recent post we now have "it's not particularly hip to like [RHCP]" thrown into the mix - that good old reliable "you only like/dislike this band to seem trendy!" line.

Mist: leaving aside the fact that the RHCP's popularity isn't the issue here at all (a fact that can be demonstrated by having a look elsewhere in the music forum at which artists are liked by the RHCP's detractors in this thread), in my experience it's by no means true that popular artists have lyrics that are more likely to get in the way of my enjoyment of music than more obscure artists. Just look at the lyrics of your life thread...

09:36 / 30.05.06

Patrick said:

This is what was said: "they went massive and over the next few months i realised they were a bit shit," which could be a perfectly legitimate conclusion reached from hearing the album a few more times. However, the way it's phrased indicates that it was the going massive that led to the conclusion that they were shit, and had they not become so popular, he might have ended either liking them or forgetting them.

Now patrick i actually followed that sentence with the following paragraph- please re-read it rather than taking quotes out of context.
i said:
I'd imagine a culmination of me growing up and them breaking big were what lost me. You couldn't go to a bar, party, club etc without hearing suck my kiss or give it away. Druggie macho jocks who like to paaaarty! lost their appeal, i read interviews with them where they talked about how mystic and at one with nature they were- and they sounded like me smoking spliffs aged 14. They had always been a little bit mysterious and underground- suddenly when they opened their mouths it was all a bit embarrassing.

I reckon i was fairly clear on why i didn't like them any more- i also admit to a having fond memories attached to Mothers Milk record.

I suppose also deciding something isn't cool/ changing your mind is a part of growing up and forging an identity for yourself- isn't it?

I used to like smoking- i don't anymore- i can't stand it.
I used to think that nobody could eva write a better book than fear and loathing.
I used to think that George Lucas was teh genius.

As i said in my initial post we grow up and life changes us- we learn more and experience more- the niches/ gangs/ ideas that we create for ourselves as teenagers become less important.

I'm not saying you shouldn't listen to them- they just lost me along the way...

Page: 1(2)3