The Red Hot Chili Peppers

To music, what Nicholas Cage is to acting.

First off, yes, I am back from the dead. You'll once again be getting regular content from the site to hopefully fill 5 minutes of your workday as you crap on the company dime.

And yes, I was going through some stuff, probably why I grew a goatee. It may be a side effect of Derisivmagvita.

Anyway. During my formative years in high school, I had limited exposure to music. Most of that was my own doing as I was a big old nerd who loved owning my friends at Halo.

I graduated high school back in 06' so if you recall there was no good way to stream music. I wasn't going to get the family computer infested with viruses from downloaded scat porn instead of scat music by mistake while using LimeWire. I loved Scatman John. And even in my youth I knew to be careful while surfing the web. Pedo's were just lurking behind every chat room. Plus, the dial up bills would betray my attempts anyway.

No, my only real source of music thankfully came from my older brother. He is six years older than me, so he had already departed the family domicile, but he graciously left behind a couple binders of CD's wrapped in our school's drip.

Yes, I am so, so, so white.

After I passed my first driving test, I was able to get my sleek and beautiful Ford Focus out on the open road to and from school. I would need tunes and there was a bounty to be had.

The first CD that stared me in the face upon opening the case happened to be By the Way. As I hope you are aware, that album is a fucking all timer. The first seven songs in sequence can compete in any argument against any other album for how smoothly and forcefully it opens.

1. By the Way

2. Universally Speaking

3. This is the Place

4. Dosed

5. Don't Forget Me

6. The Zephyr Song

7. CAN'T STOP

   
   

And Holy Fuck, when that 7th track played music in general took up permanent residency in my small dumb brain.

Don't get me wrong, I was still about stomping my friends at Halo and failing to talk to girls, but now I had something more.

With that album and many more classics that I began earnestly leafing through, Californication, The Battle of Los Angeles (Rage), Against the Grain (Bad Religion), just to name a few, I was hooked. I don't think I've ever thanked my brother for this influence, I suppose I took it for granted until faced with my own mortality (my knees could explode at any time, really brings life into perspective, so thanks man, I love you).

Since that time, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have always held a special place in my heart. They were my first love, and cruelly, my first musical resentment.

Now hold on, they didn't personally wrong me by throwing used needles off their tour bus and striking me in the face as a young lad as I waited in the rain for an autograph. Nothing so dramatic.

No, they spoiled me. They spoiled me with the sheer catalog of great songs that fell into my lap at once. I was under the delusion that they could do no wrong, that their sound would not devolve into something I disliked (or have started elsewhere).

Since those early albums (graduating senior year with Stadium Arcadium also in the bank) I moved on to college where my musical influences expanded yet again, mostly thanks to the owner of one shitty blue Saturn (love you Matt).

But as life got more interesting around me and alongside all the experiences I went through, I still kept tabs on RHCP. Album after album came out and I would just sigh, as I liked less and less of the songs present. As I said, I grew to resent them.

"Man, all their new stuff sucks, they've changed man".

I held that feeling for years.

Until I grew the fuck up and have had time to reflect.

Sure, I don't like a bunch of their songs. But their catalog is MASSIVE. There are so many strong songs on there what the fuck do they owe me or any of their fans? Should they pump out the same music or change so they could feel some joy in playing music? Or gain new fans who liked the new sound and may discover it on shuffle someday?

I started to wonder if I went and listened to each album, start to finish, multiple times, what would the actual empirical results tell me?

Let's take a look.

I would argue liking 36% of a bands songs is a rarity. With filler and transition titles in there surely the true percentage is higher. I must protest my goodman, it's surely even higher when you consider there's usually only a handful of songs you enjoy on most bands' albums.

And as you can see, my discovery of their music and the style of songs they were pumping out from Californication to Stadium Arcadium cannot be a coincidence. It's also a fact that Californication is one of the most celebrated Alt Rock albums of all time.

I came in at the peak of their powers, and was ignorant of that fact.

And as I have been pondering them and the sheer extent of songs that I do like and host on a playlist, I had been struggling to reconcile with how I have so many songs of theirs I disdain. How can that be? Well, fuck man, really, I think we're not meant to understand it. Does everything need an answer?

Perhaps you can understand me when you look through the lens of another enigma.

I speak of course of the works from the terrible, great, awful, masterful Nicholas Cage. Those of us who like both mediums of movies and music can feel a kismet energy between him and RHCP that provides clarity of this conflict. He is wonderful. He is draining. He is a living, revolting, beautiful conundrum of chaos. The stars in the sky, the abyss below the sea. He simply is.

Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cage's portfolio is extensive. My brain started to hurt just scrolling through the many titles on his imdb. To be fair that may be the tequila talking.

(As an aside a recent personal favorite of mine is the unheralded Mandy as a takeaway for those who give a fuck).

I love the RHCP. I dislike much of their sound. Are they the sum of their worst parts? My answer would be no.

If it was the same for me, I'd be fucked.