Back To Their Best
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have unleashed a two-CD set, Stadium Arcadium - a 28 track double album with discs entitled "Jupiter" and "Mars".
The band - Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith - entered the studio last March with producer Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, System Of A Down) to commence work upon the album in the same house in the Hollywood Hills where they recorded 1991's groundbreaking, multi-platinum album BloodSugarSexMagik.
"We set out to write 13 songs," says Kiedis. "But as has been the case every time we've tried to do that, we ended up with 30-some-odd songs. The difference this time was we ended up liking all of those songs and finishing all of those songs, and it actually became a very difficult process to even whittle it down to 28."
Everybody thinks that they have just about grown out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, that they were a phase you go through when you are younger. Well this album is going to change a few minds, it is a double album of pure class.
Leaving behind the boyish tomfoolery and hard-living excess of old for tasteful musicianship and a gloss of studio sheen, here they turn in more of the effortlessly slick song writing they presented on their last couple of albums.
I would say that this is one of the must own albums of the year, the craft and guile that has gone in to making this album is terrific. The music is second to none, I am sure there will be a some "Chili Peppers" fans that will not like this album as it is radically different from what has gone before, but I am sure they will soon come round to loving what is a fantastic album, pure and simple.
You need to listen to the album as a whole to get the whole concept of it, but if you were to ask what were the stand out tracks, it would be hard to name a few as the temptation would be to name all twenty-eight tracks. Yes it is that good. As we all knew before the release 'Dani California' and 'Tell Me Baby' were going to be on this album. It is impossible to name the best track on this album they are all brilliant, what could I choose? 'Strip My Mind'? 'Hard To Concentrate'? It is far too hard to name a track.
The reason why this album is so good is that the band have matured in their music writing. They are comfortable with the music that they are producing, and so they should be after twenty-three years and this being their ninth album.
"The chemistry was in better order than in a long time," Kiedis told Spin earlier this year. "Everyone is frighteningly happy at the moment." Although he says he's again exploring "the dark and nefarious side of Los Angeles" in his lyrics, he clarifies, "but not in a judgmental sense," venturing, "It's all about the joy of dysfunction."
Kiedis says of the double album's title: "I hope it means something different to everyone, but to me, in the chorus of the song Stadium Arcadium, I get the feeling of being off in the wilderness with a large group of people creating a huge light, playing music for those people and reflecting the love that's going on between us and them."