For Anthony Kiedis and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, tragedy turned
\ninto the best medicine.<\/p>\n
In 1988, the band’s guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin
\noverdose. The band’s regrouping was too much for drummer Jack
\nIrons, who bolted and spent years in obscurity before joining Pearl
\nJam. Kiedis, himself a heroin addict, cleaned up his act following
\nthe death of his friend and bandmate.<\/p>\n
But the Chili Peppers, who had wallowed away as an unknown
\nsecret since their formation five years previous, used the
\nrebuilding time to craft what I considered to be their best lineup
\never. Besides Kiedis and bassist Flea, the band recruited guitarist
\nJohn Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith, honed their musical and
\nsongwriting skills, and finally emerged in 1989 with
\nMother’s Milk<\/i> — a high-water mark I don’t think they’ve
\never achieved again.<\/p>\n
The Chili Peppers brink out the funk early and often; the
\nopening number “Good Time Boys” is a tribute to the bands who laid
\nout the road before them and a sign that they were back and ready
\nto claim the funk-rock throne. But their next move was a risky one
\n— they took on Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground.” Skeptics could
\nhave claimed the band’s cover version was a sign that they weren’t
\ncompetent enough songwriters to make it on their own.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for the Chilis, not only do they stay close to the
\nbone of the original version, but they also add enough flavor to
\nmake it their own — and it’s a great track as a result. (Wonder
\nshould also be thankful that the Chili Peppers covered the song, as
\nit helped open new listeners’ ears to Wonder’s earlier works.) The
\nother cover on this album, a balls-out rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s
\n“Fire,” sounds like it was a one-off shot that was recorded for
\nfun.<\/p>\n
The showpiece of
\nMother’s Milk<\/i> is “Knock Me Down,” a song which celebrates
\nKiedis’s newfound sobriety and asks his fans to put him in his
\nplace if they catch him getting wasted again: “If you see me
\ngetting by, if you see me getting high \/ Knock me down \/ I’m not
\nbigger than life.” (Too bad some people didn’t take Kiedis
\nseriously; he admitted to using heroin again this year, but seemed
\nrepentant about his relapse.)<\/p>\n
For every cut which might be seen as a throwaway (“Magic
\nJohnson,” “Fire,” “Pretty Little Ditty”) there is a slab of funk
\nrock which is quite tasty (“Subway To Venus,” “Sexy Mexican Maid,”
\n“Nobody Weird Like Me”). In fact, only one or two songs on
\nMother’s Milk<\/i> fail to hit the target, most notably the
\nalbum’s closer “Johnny, Kick A Hole In The Sky” (despite some
\nimpressive bass work by Flea).<\/p>\n
Despite the power of this album,
\nMother’s Milk<\/i> still did not prove to be the big breakthrough
\nthat the Red Hot Chili Peppers were looking for. (That would come
\none album later with the smash hit “Under The Bridge.”) But Kiedis
\nand crew were able to overcome the shortfalls that had plagued them
\non previous albums and produce an artistically solid album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5857],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-35774","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-red-hot-chili-peppers","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35774"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35774"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}