One more work day to Christmas
eve, but still time to write a review before my walk to work time is
temporarily (but pleasantly) interrupted.
Disc 690 is…. Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Artist: Red Hot
Chili Peppers
Year of Release: 1991
What’s up with the Cover? The four ‘chilis’converted
into an art design. You know what they say – every rose has its tongue.
How I Came To Know It: This album was so big everyone
knew it, but I knew it through my friend and former roommate Greg, who was a
big Red Hot Chili Pepper fan long before “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” came out. I
bought it a few years later, after I missed having Greg’s copy in my music
collection.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Red Hot Chili Pepper albums. I really
wanted “Freaky Styley” to be number one, I think I have to go with the obvious
choice and pick “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” as the best. “Freaky Styley” is still
my sentimental favourite, though.
Rating: 3 stars but almost 4
I’m going to admit up front that I don’t like what happened
to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the years that followed “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.”
I think they strayed too far into commercial pop music and got away from the
unique sound that made them so interesting to listen to.
While “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” is the beginning of
this shift, like a lot of good transition albums it manages to capture just the
right amount of the old and the new. There are strong pop sensibilities getting
introduced on this record, but it is still buried within that funky pseudo-rap
rock that the band maintains its core power.
The pop elements also make this album accessible, so
if you are wondering what album you should get your friend who doesn’t have any
RHCP, this is the one. Don’t overthink it and try to impress them with “Freaky
Styley” or “The Uplift Mofo Party Plan.” Those are great albums, and every RHCP
purist should own them, but “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” is the gateway drug to understanding
this band.
Of course there is the very pop crooning of “Under the Bridge” and the too-obvious
strumming of “Breaking the Girl” –
both songs that practically scream ‘please play our shit on the radio!’ But
like I said back when I reviewed Blue Oyster Cult’s “Mirrors” there is no
inherent sin in wanting your records to sell well.
And while Blue Oyster Cult didn’t deliver with “Mirrors”
the RHCP had a massive hit on their hands with a whole bunch of tracks on this
record, including the two I just mentioned.
I don’t even really like “Breaking the Girl” – I think it meanders around and never quite
develops into the song it wants to be. Not so, “Under the Bridge” which despite massive overplay in the nineties
remains a song that inspires me and connects me to humanity writ large every
time I hear it. A five star song that despite its perfection isn’t what the
RHCP are about. I’m sure a whole bunch of teenage girls bought “Blood Sugar Sex
Magik” and were bitterly disappointed to find this out. They shouldn’t have
been.
Fortunately, I had been steeped long and deep in the
RHCP by my old roommate, and knew exactly what I was getting into. I knew they
were going to get funky all over my ass and that the bass riffs were going to
move me in the spine from the top of my tailbone all the way up to the
hippocampus (where funky music shall ever reside).
Sure “Funky
Monks” has a bit of extra production to make it friendlier to the masses,
but at its core this is still Flea getting down and groovy on the bass guitar.
And when Anthony Kiedis delivers his staccato vocals on “Give It Away” he still spits out his half rap/half rock vocals in a
lascivious way that practically screams “I AM ALWAYS SHIRTLESS!” On the title
track that follows hard behind it, he lets you know he’s probably not wearing
pants either. Every rock front-man should be so lucky to have this kind of
wanton charisma.
There is a more powerful rock feel to this record
than on their early stuff that I really liked. It digs into their funk and
grounds it. “Suck My Kiss” has a
guitar riff that is all about the crunch, but never fully leaves the orbit of the
crazy rhythms and beats that make this band work in the first place.
When the band reverts to their original style entirely,
such as on “Mellowship Slinky in B Major”
it doesn’t quite work. I don’t think this is because that style was inferior – quite
the contrary – I just think earlier albums did it better.
The biggest problem with this album is that it is
too long. At seventeen tracks and over seventy minutes it just goes on too
long, and takes away from some of the classic tracks by flooding them with less
memorable fare. Ideally, they could lose the album’s last four songs and it
would be perfect. I’d be sad to lose “Sir
Psycho Sexy” simply because it is a beautiful mess, but at over eight
minutes it is a mess that needs to be half the size.
Despite this, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” is a very
strong record. Later, the RHCP would not inspire me, and earlier their records
needed just that sliver of musical direction they were lacking. Here they all
come together, and if it overstays its welcome a little, there are worse
musical crimes out there.
Best tracks: Power of Equality, If You Have
to Ask, Funky Monks, Suck My Kiss, The Righteous and the Wicked, Give It Away, Blood
Sugar Sex Magik, Under the Bridge,
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