knowncutter's Full Review: Stadium Arcadium [Digipak] by Red Hot Chili Pepper...
Note to readers: Every so often people make mistakes. I am not one of those people. Still, in the case of this review I did sort of overhype it a little. OK fine, I promoted it out the wazoo and have realized for some time that it's not as flawless as I claimed. Consequently, I would like to take back all claims of the greatest album of 2006 and lower the rating from five stars to four without actually taking the time to change the review. I still stand by my main points.
I’ve got a question for you all. Let’s say you go your entire life writing mushrooms off as food fit for dogs, trying them occasionally only to validate your point. Now lately some friends of yours, actually they’re friends of your neighbors and you overheard their discussion while hiding behind some bristly shrubbery, have been hyping up a delicious, enormous mushroom large enough for anyone to go and take a bite out of. Naturally, curiosity overwhelms you and you take the short hike over to the location of the giant fungus. You can actually see the mushroom from your bedroom window, but due to circumstances beyond your control (your obesity and foul odor, which causes even you to pass out every so often) it takes you several days. When you finally get to the holy grail of ‘shrooms you’re already of the mindset that you will hate the taste of this object. You take a bite and… well what do you think happens?
Of course you’re not going to all of a sudden dine solely on courses of fungus. It would be foolish to believe that you would undergo such a sudden change of heart. My point here, and I promise you there is a point, is that the same should be expected of the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s new double album, Stadium Arcadium. If you’ve never liked any of the Chili Peppers works much, from the funky, awkward, white-boy rock of Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik to the more mainstream alternative Californication, you shouldn’t expect to like Stadium Arcadium.
As much as I do love this dual disc package, as I’ll allude to later, it is overindulgent at points (each disc is about an hour long) and does very little to deviate from the sound the Peppers have become known for. To Chili Peppers fans this will sound like the, “Best the thing the band has ever done,” as lead singer Anthony Kiedis proclaimed, because it excellently combines the elements of funk and harmonizing alternative rock the band has steadily been perfecting since 1991. To the curmudgeons who would much rather bore their ears into oblivion with the latest Pearl Jam album, this ambitious, career defining album will do nothing to change your minds, because your minds, assuming their existence is indeed verifiable, probably have little desire to be changed.
Stadium Arcadium is a Chili Peppers fan dream come true, at least rivaling all their previous works on sheer substance alone. Which leads me to the most amazing trait of Stadium; in a whopping twenty eight tracks, two hours of music the band almost entirely avoids any real stinkers. Most double albums throughout history have had a hard time dodging several songs that just make you scratch your head and wonder what the hell they were thinking. For example the Beatles’ The White Album is chalk full of filler (Piggies anyone?) and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness has a few sad, sappy, suckers I’ll skip every time I get to. I won’t go as far as saying Stadium is perfect, but there honestly aren’t any songs here that I can without a doubt say I dislike.
One might argue that’s because all these songs have the same average blandness and they would have a point...to a certain degree. The only song clearly separating itself as a “hit” is Dani California, which fuses Kiedis rapping verses with Flea’s throbbing bass line, and explodes into an almost comically arena sized chorus. Other than that, these songs do sound like everything the Chili Peppers have ever done rolled up and squashed into a giant ball of ingenuity. To the casual observer Stadium may come across as a lack of creative output from a band past their prime, as they rehash everything that has gotten them their mainstream success. While I’ll admit none of these songs show the Peppers completely reinventing themselves, nearly every song is stacked with layers of instrumentation and harmonies that the Chili Peppers have never blended so elegantly before. As far as a lack of creative outburst goes, the Peppers claim to have had 38 tracks they wanted to release and had to cut ten of them. If anything the Peppers had too much creativity to handle.
The majority of this musical proficiency comes from lead guitarist John Frusciante whose flurry of solo albums clearly helped him harness the elements of production albums like Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik never had. The band’s ability to play their own instruments straight up is well documented and Frusciante, Flea , and Chad Smith (drums) are some of the best in the business at what they do. What makes Stadium Arcadium even more special is Frusciante’s harmonizing vocals and overdubs, which had been hinted at on Californication and By the Way. You won’t hear many songs here only featuring one vocal path from Kiedis, and songs like Torture Me are hard to imagine without Frusciante’s beautiful cries of, “Hold on my love,” behind Kiedis’ already familiar tone. That’s not even mentioning the horn additions that carry the interludes.
It’s rather difficult to pick highlights on such a consistently excellent album, but certain songs do stand out. Slow Cheetah brings to mind I Could Have Lied with Frusciante finger picking through the verses only to eventually erupt into a chorus almost guaranteed to get stuck in your head (which could be said of many choruses on this set). Strip My Mind features Frusciante bellowing chants (that for some reason bring to mind a group of monks worshipping something around a fire) throughout the verse, and Readymade has a riff so potent it actually got me pregnant (a rather impressive feat considering I’m a male).
The flaws I see on this album are really only me nitpicking. None the less, the Peppers attempts to revive their funk roots at times sound forced, and not nearly as spontaneous or energetic as they did on Sex Magik. That probably stems from the fact that the lyrics on Sex Magik were so vulgar and profane Kiedis almost had to sound crazy, or just flat out ridiculous, to deliver them. Hump de Bump is the worst perpetrator of this forced funk, although it saves itself when it changes pace. Having said that, the Peppers are at some of their best when merging the funk filled verses of Tell Me Baby or 21st Century with a chorus more reminiscent of their latter works.
One area that I’m sure many will be quick to critique, and I’m not even going to bother defending, is Kiedis’ lyrical prowess. His lyrics are often completely nonsensical, which could be forgiven when he was fifteen years younger and writing, “I lost my house key, sit on my porch and read Bukowski,” but now when he says, “You look like a lady, but you’re walking like a sauerkraut,” it just seems absurd. And when he does have a point to a song, shouldn’t he be able to make it about something other than relationships taking place in California? It seems for the first time in his life Kiedis realized there were states beyond the land of the white minority as he wrote a song titled Especially in Michigan. As great as this song is musically the lyrics have nothing to do with Michigan as far as I can tell. “Lions and tigers come running just to steal your love.” Is he talking about the Detriot Lions and Tigers? And why would a professional football and baseball team want to interfere in your love life? And now that I think about it, why does Michigan have two sports teams named after animals not even remotely indigenous to the area? Regardless, I’m fond enough of his vocals and undeniably catchy rhyme schemes to forgive his lack of words that actually give you something to think about.
In terms of comparing Jupiter to Mars (disc one is titled after the former and disc two after the latter. And yes I’m just as confused as you are as to why) it’s impossible to say which is better. Realistically, either could have been released as a single album and I’d probably have been completely satisfied. The fact that there are two five star albums served up in one helping only adds to the unbelievable greatness the Chili Peppers are offering us. It’s just a shame there will be those who never have, and never will, like what will probably be the best musical effort of 2006.
Song Rankings
$= Great song worth your money
Download (essentially steal)= Good song
Skip= Average Filler
Garbage= Terrible Track
Mars
1. Desecration Smile- $
2. Tell Me Baby- $
3. Hard to Concentrate- Skip
4. 21st Century- $
5. She Looks To Me- Download
6. Readymade- $
7. If- Skip
8. Made You Feel Better- $
9. Animal Bar- Download
10. So Much I- Skip
11. Storm In A Teacup- $
12. We Believe- Download
13. Turn It Again- $
14. Death Of A Martian- Download
An ambitious double album, Stadium Arcadiumfinds the Red Hot Chili Peppers building on their more mature, latter-day approach, while also acknowledgin...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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