\nBlood Sugar Sex Magik<\/i> was released upon an unsuspecting
\npublic in 1991. Working with producer Rick Rubin, who was known for
\nhis work with metal giants Slayer among others, the band (vocalist
\nAnthony Kiedis, bassist Flea, guitarist John Frusciante and drummer
\nChad Smith) was focused on creating a release that would change
\ntheir world. And change it did. The media got behind
\nBlood<\/i> and literally shoved and pushed and grinded the three
\nsingles (“Under the Bridge,” “Breaking the Girl,” and “Give it
\nAway”) onto your local rock radio station. MTV played the videos a
\nlot (yes, MTV used to actually play videos!), further cementing the
\nband as a mainstream rock act. Combined, the trio of singles
\nbrought the Red Hot Chilli Peppers mainstream success that
\ncontinues today.<\/p>\n
I divide this release into quarters. Because 4 doesn’t go into
\n17 evenly, I don’t consider track 17 “They’re Red Hot” as nothing
\nmore than a hidden track that is mentioned on the back of the
\nCD.<\/p>\n
The first quarter opens with “The Power of Equality,” making it
\nquickly evident that the band is more than the trio of singles.
\nFlea’s bassline drives this song. “If You Have to Ask” is propelled
\nby guitarist John Frusciante’s riff. This duo quickly establishes
\nthat the band is more than Flea’s basslines. The single “Breaking
\nthe Girl” highlights this quarter. Flea’s contribution to the
\nband’s sound is highlighted in “Funky Monks.”<\/p>\n
The second quarter starts out with my favorite non-radio single
\nsong on this release is “Suck My Kiss.” I like the attitude in
\nKiedis’ lyrics, the music of Flea, Frusciante, and Smith is focused
\nand tight with syncopated starts and stops. My second non-radio
\nsingle song on this release immediately follows, “I Could Have
\nLied.” The subtle music, the sincere lyrics like “I could never
\nchange \/ just what I feel\/ my face will never show\/ what is not
\nreal,” and the emotional guitar solo take this song over the top
\nfor me. “Mellowship Slinky in B Major” and “The Righteous & the
\nWicked” showcase Flea, Frusciante, and Smith jamming. These two
\nsongs offer the most simple riffs on the release.<\/p>\n
The third quarter features the remaining radio singles, “Give It
\nAway” and “Under The Bridge.” Thirteen years later, I still get
\ngoosebumps when I listen to “Under the Bridge.” Where Mother’s Milk
\nfails to make a connection with me, “Under The Bridge” hits home
\nmusically and lyrically each and every time I hear it. Flea’s
\nbassline and guitarist John Frusciante’s riff provide a perfect
\nexample of how the guitar and the bass can play together, without
\nhaving the two instruments play the same riff.<\/p>\n
The following lyrics describe loneliness and the love affair
\nbetween the band and Los Angeles: “It’s hard to believe\/ that
\nthere’s nobody out there\/ it’s hard to believe\/ that I’m all alone\/
\nat least I have her love\/ the city she loves me\/ lonely as I am\/
\ntogether we cry.” There are no fancy words, only bared emotion. The
\nother tunes “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” and “Naked in the Rain” don’t
\nreally do much for me. I skip over these two when I listen to the
\nrelease. As a title track “Blood” is weak and boring. Drummer Chad
\nSmith provides a solid backbone in “Naked in the Rain” but can’t
\nsave the track from . . .. (yawn) sorry. What was I saying?<\/p>\n
That leads up to the final quarter. “Apache Rose Peacock” does
\nnothing for me. The lyrics are stupid “Sittin’ on a sack of beans \/
\nsittin’ down in New Orleans \/ You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen \/
\nsitting on that sack of beans.” A great release doesn’t allow for
\nfiller tracks and that’s what this one is. For as much as I like
\nthe opening duo of “The Power of Equality” and “If You Have to
\nAsk,” I think track 14 “The Greeting Song” should have been the
\nfirst track. Instead, burried in the last quarter of the release,
\nit sounds out of place. It’s still a great song, just misplaced in
\nthe sequence of the songs on this release. I can get into the
\nlyrics of “My Lonely Man,” though the music doesn’t do the
\nemotional words justice. “I love you too \/ See my heart \/ it’s
\nblack and blue \/ when I die \/ I will find you.” The last song in
\nthis quarter “Sir Psycho Sexy” is a methodically slow cluster. The
\nlyrics “A long, long, long, long time ago\/ Before the wind before
\nthe snow\/ lived a man, lived a man I know” are too stupid to
\naccept. I can’t suspend my belief in reality long enough to analyze
\nthe following: the subject lived a long time ago from the present
\n(in the past), but the speaker knows him. How credible is the
\nspeaker if he has been around for a “long, long, long, long time”?
\nIt doesn’t get any better in the last stanza as Kiedis sings, “Now
\nI lay me down to sleep \/ I pray the funk will make me freak \/ if I
\nshould die before I waked (sic) \/ allow me Lord to rock out naked.”
\n“Waked” and “naked” don’t rhyme just because they are spelled
\nsimilarily!!<\/p>\n
This release would have been so much stronger if the band would
\nhave had someone, anyone, tell them to quit with the self-indulgent
\ncrap. Listen to this release in the following order:<\/p>\n
Track 1 – The Greeting Song Track 2 – If You Have to Ask Track 3
\n– Breaking the Girl Track 4 – Suck my Kiss Track 5 – I Could’ve
\nLied Track 6 – Give it Away Track 7 – Mellowship Slinky in B Major
\nTrack 8 – Under the Bridge<\/p>\n
In my opinion, those are the best songs on this release and,
\nlistened to in that order, this release rocks. I dropped “The
\nRighteous & the Wicked” in this lineup as it duplicates the
\nvibe of “Mellowship Slinky in B Major.” Unfortunately, the band
\nreleased it with 8 other tracks that drag down this release. Eight
\nright out of 16 is 50% and I can’t, in good conscience, recommend a
\nrelease where I skip through half of the tracks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5857],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-38233","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-red-hot-chili-peppers","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38233","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38233"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}