Product description
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Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication - CD
.co.uk
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Following a string of unsatisfactory replacements
(including former Jane's Addiction (
/exec/obidos/artist-search/Jane%20Addiction/%24%7B0%7D ) alum
Dave Navarro), Californication--the band's seventh album--saw
them reunited with both errant guitarist John Frusciante (hauled
out of a long and debilitating heroin addiction) and producer
Rick Rubin, whose mixture of commerical nous and sonic smarts
helped make 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002LQR/%24%7B0%7D ) their breakthrough set.
It's a welcome reunion: Frusciante's playing, in
particular--tight, yet lyrical--fits these songs like a second
skin, lending them a sort of ease that is perfectly in
keeping with the reckless hedonism of their lyrics. The songs
themselves are much the same mixture of adrenalised swagger and
high-tensile funk as ever. And typically, there are two or three
fillers here ("Emit Remmus", "Purple Stain") which probably
should have been left on the shelf. Ultimately, though, it's
their ballads ("Road Trippin'", the moody, desolate "
Tissue") which really demonstrate their strengths, both as
songwriters and arrangers--and reveal, albeit briefly, the hearts
this crew normally take such pains to conceal. --Andrew McGuire
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BBC Review
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Everyone's favourite sock wearing funk
rockers had, by 1998, been through the mill. Drugs, death,
divorce, heartache and some dodgy acting jobs do not a happy
bunch of Californians make. It was bassist Flea's visit to former
guitarist John Frusciante, asking him to re-join the band which
saved the day (in place of Dave Navarro who, himself, had exited
stage left pursued by his own demons). At first
befuddled by reativity without the aid of stimulants, Frusciante
in sessions at home started melding with his old bandmates and
Californication- the band's most succesful album - was born.
On the surface filled with the usual punk funk, the band had now
matured enough to make it sound more convincing. Keidis' voice,
ravaged by age and excess, now emerged as a mighty instrument,
while Frusciante's guitar held far more subtle nuance.
The album yielded four hit singles (Around the World, Otherside,
Californication and the Grammy Award-winning Tissue) but
even more interesting waas the way the band let more than just
fun and frolics into the mix. Frusciante on Get On Top even fused
Public Enemy with prog rock, admittting that his unsdersatated
solo had been influenced by Steve Howe of Yes.
Overall the album has a far more meditative feel, allowing you to
finally believe that they'd come to do more than just party your
town dry. It was the album that confirmned them as world class.
They remain such today, and it's all down to this re-birth.
--Dennis O'Dell
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