California Show Your Teeth

The Red Hot Chili Peppers invented the rap/metal genre a good decade before the term was coined, not that the band’s music is simplistic as the sub-genre would suggest as the Peppers also include elements of funk and jazz among others. This could explain how the band has survived, releasing nine albums as other rap/rockers like Limp Bizkit and Korn have disappeared into virtual obscurity. And the Peppers add to their funky legacy with Stadium Arcadium.

But ever since John Frusciante rejoined the band, the Peppers have gone on a mellower path with their last albums, Californication and By the Way. And even though Rick Rubin, who was at the help of the break out album, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, is back, the band continues the softer terrain. Even the louder songs on the set never reach the bombast of Give it Away or other songs that go even further back in their catalog. Lyrically, Anthony Kiedis also shows growth from the guy who was the master of the single entendre fifteen years ago (although the jury’s still out on how dirty She’s Only 18 is, but Hump de Bump isn’t as suggestive as you might think). Of course they had to grow up sometime because no one wants to see a dude on the wrong side of forty wearing nothing but a sock. Then again, I don’t want to see that from a dude on the right side of forty. But anyways.

If there is a downside to Staduim Arcadium is that, like almost every double album, it is way too long clocking in at over two hours and twenty-eight tracks. Then again the album doesn’t plunge into the pit falls that has brought down other recent double disks by not dividing the album into specific genres like party songs and slow jams so both disk sounds like two full length Pepper albums, and the two disks, Mars and Venus, have no intrinsic means to them. As expected with this many tracks, there are a few songs that quickly got old and I found my skipping songs like Snow (Oh Now) and So Much I after a few listenings.

Other songs have a very distinct Peppers song so much that when I first heard Tell Me Baby I thought it was Don’t Stop. There a few songs that utilizes a horn sections reminiscent to elder funker Parliament and much to the pleasure of Christopher Walken, Readymade has a killer cowbell part. But in the end, the set could have been scaled down to a single disk, although not getting rid of the up tempo songs, as there were too many mid tempo songs bogging down the two disks.

Song to Download - Readymade

Stadium Arcadium gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.