Just listening to Stadium Arcadium, which has some great tracks on it, but it got me thinking as I’m pretty sure this was this tour I saw them on, which was a bit of a non-event.

What I was wondering was whether Blood Sugar Sex Magic period the finest of the Chilis? Not their finest album per se (and that’s another discussion), but the time it would have been best to see them and that they were at their peak as a unit. Blood Sugar was obviously their breakthrough album and also arguably their best album (see above comment), but was it their finest moment? On a confident high due to sales and a great record, but still playing to smaller, more playing intimate audiences? Very much into the band and not yet seeking side projects? Post Slovak, but pre Frusciante’s drug issues?

And, ultimately, would this have been the best time to see them live?

I think it was their high point, and Blood Sugar absolutely is the best album they ever did. Don’t go to many gigs but saw them after it broke big at Reading in ’94 and them playing was by far the best musical event I’ve been to.

I saw them around that era, would have been 1994/5 and pretty sure One Hot Minute had been released by then. My suspicion is that was when they peaked as a band for what I liked about them most, which was the energy and funkier side of what they did (leaving aside the lyrics which were unnecessarily offensive imo in a couple of cases).

I’ve not seen them since and the couple of albums that followed One Hot Minute were good but very different feel overall.

ooh – a thread crossover:
(skip to 1min)
[video]http://youtu.be/6Ej0iEeajuo?t=1m3s[/video]

BSSM remains one of my favourite albums and also a reference point for me when mixing/mastering. But the strange thing it isn’t actually like any of the Chili’s other albums – it’s an almost pure funk tour de force, like something Parliament/Funkadelic could have produced.

Their first three albums are rather mediocre (I’ve listened to them tons and they remain unmemorable), Mother’s Milk has lots of energy and the start of some good songwriting (Knock Me Down really stands out). One Hot Minute is an oddity because it was written recorded so differently with Dave Navarro but I think it’s actually aged pretty well. Californication is brilliant, raw punky simplicity, and I can see why it made them bigger than ever. By The Way is great too, a development of the pop side of Californication and I think Stadium Arcadium is pretty epic in scope with some great songs and a lot of emotive energy. I’ve given up on I’m With You, it seems to have nothing to say and sadly the new single seems like late era RHCP by numbers…

Basically everything great they’ve ever done has involved John Frusciante. Kiedis is a great frontman (though dubious quality singer), Flea is spectacularly good and Chad Smith is super solid but almost all the melodic and harmonic inspiration and resulting emotive energy comes from John. He’s an amazing musician. If you saw them on the BSSM tour you’d need to have caught them early on before John lost the plot and then eventually quit in Japan. It’s a miracle he survived and they managed to make Californication.

They obviously had something special as a live band during the Hillel era but I don’t think that’s translated at all well on the studio recordings, which is a shame. A band lives and dies by its songwriting and without Frusciante collaborating the Chilis just don’t write great songs, which is a shame. However, fingers crossed there’s some good stuff in the new album, maybe Mr Klinghoffer can make the magic happen again?

Yep. Far and away their best. I’m not a massive Chillis fan, but I can’t let myself get rid of the cassette. One of the first albums I ever bought.

One Hot Minute was dreadful and then they just got worse. BSSM was definitely their peak IMO. Some of their earlier stuff was okay.

Can’t believe this album is now ~25 years old, takes me back to yoof and part way through A-Levels!

It’s the only album of theirs I ever bought, anything I heard afterwards was so commercial compared to the songs on BSSM. Under The Bridge is still right up there as being one of my favourite songs ever.

and also a reference point for me when mixing/mastering.

Under the bridge is my goto hifi “testing” song.

Basically everything great they’ve ever done has involved John Frusciante.

This.

One of them yeah, I have to admit I’m a huge fan and have been since I was a teenager. BSSM is very good.

They’re at their best when John Frusciante is with them, prior to him they were all a bit shouty and silly when he joined they became huge and made some of their best stuff, then he left and well… ‘One Hot Minute’, he came back and they made Californication and By the Way which were brilliant and huge for them. Sadly he left again in 2009 and they’ve not been the same again.

Saying that their new single ‘Dark Necessities’ is great, I just wish John Frusciante plaid a bit of his wailing guitar on it.

For me Californication is their finest hour, but I’m biased – it was pretty much the soundtrack of my year backpacking in Australia – they played it in every backpacker bar every night from Sydney to Carins and everyone seems to sing along. I couldn’t listen to it when I got home for about 5 years, partly because it reminded me it was 3c and pissing down outside and I had to get to work to spend 8 hours staring at a computer screen and partly because I heard it too much.

…it’s an almost pure funk tour de force, like something Parliament/Funkadelic could have produced.

Which is odd as George Clinton produced Freaky Stylee.

Knock Me Down really stands out

Oh yes. 😀

Started listening to them when Mother’s Milk came out and saw them on that tour early 1990. I think UMPP has it’s moments but MM was the first really decent album – Higher Ground was a bit of a hit. But yeah BSSM is their biggest selling album with some decent singles – Under the Bridge and Give it Away.

As for me, I prefer Californication and By the Way.

I still have my brum hummingbird (?) gig ticket for the bssm tour. One of the few gigs I can remember 😉

Since everything of theirs sounds exactly the same can any one song or album be considered particularly outstanding against the others?

If any BSSM fans on here haven’t seen Funky Monks – the docu. film following the album recording – dig it out. Well worth it.* you won’t hear Breaking The Girl the same way again. Or They’re Red Hot.

*Disclaimer: very possibly it’s not as good as I remember. It’s been a while.

Since everything of theirs sounds exactly the same can any one song or album be considered particularly outstanding against the others?

It has for the last 5(ish) albums, but before that there was more to it.

BSSM was and is a classic, I love it, again partly because I was a teenager listening to it growing up and loving it.

I saw them in Brixton on the OHM tour with Navarro playing and they were still really really good, missed the BSSM tour, one of those regrets I guess.

As for them being clean for BSSM, read scar tissue, there were precious few moments when Keidis or JF weren’t wrecked in those days.

Since everything of theirs sounds exactly the same can any one song or album be considered particularly outstanding against the others?

😆

STONE THE HERETIC!

As for them being clean for BSSM, read scar tissue…

I have. I never said they were clean. 😉

By “pre Frusciante’s drug issues” I meant before he unfortunately lead a very dangerous, solitary drug-fuelled life, quite possibly bought on by the excesses around BSSM.

Sounds odd reading that back, but I’m not entirely sure how to phrase it better.

I like uplift mofo party plan , mothers Milk & bssm best.
During a recent loft sort out, I found the baseball cap John Frusciante gave me a long time ago during a gig at the Riverside . Happy memory.

BSSM & By the way, love them both, some of the older stuff is great. Brothers Cup in-particular

Sorry to be pedantic, but it’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik 😉

I think each album since BSSM has given us some great songs, but for the ‘complete’ album it has to be BSSM. And yep, watch ‘Funky Monks’ as it’s a brilliant insight into the making of the album.

Mother’s Milk is the best one for me.

Sorry to be pedantic, but it’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Fair point, well made.

Frusciante is a great musician, and wrote some good material for BSSM. The rest of it is very much the same shtick.
It’s ironic that Anthony Kiedis got all uppity about Mike Patton ripping him off on the video for Epic, Patton and everyone else moved on, yet RHCP got a bit stuck in the early 90’s, each new album a bit shitter than the last.
So, yeah, BSSM was probably their creative peak…

Fair point, well made.

No problem 🙂

Really interested to hear The Getaway, will be the first album since BSSM without Rick Rubin on production. Dark Necessities has really grown on me after a few listens…

Always preferred the album before. Mother’s Milk?

But the time of BSSM as you say was probably the time to see them.

I saw them once. Back in 89/90. I think they were supporting Faith No More at the time (I may be wrong).

Love BSSM, Californication and By the way, all great albumns. Mothers milk and Stadium Arcadium are also good.

I saw them at Man city’s ground a few years a go and was really unimpressed, as were a lot of the crowd I think. They just kept banging on about politics and I think they got boo’d at one point. Really put me off them for a few years. But a few of their tracks came on in the car the other week though and I’m back to liking them again.

James Brown was Fricken awesome at that gig though, even though he was an old man and kept having to sit down for rest!!

For me Californication is their finest hour

This. Superb album, start to finish. They were at the peak of their powers before they became too popular and started playing (a little bit) to the gallery. By The Way was very good but almost too slick.

Since everything of theirs sounds exactly the same can any one song or album be considered particularly outstanding against the others?

What I’ve thought for years. Bit like Status Quo, really…

Definitely their peak. Just churning out garbage now. They sound like some sort of RHCP cover band who like to riff on the favourites.

Californication is one of the worst mastered CDs I have ever heard.

Saw them in ’91, but I don’t think BSSM had come out then as I don’t remember them playing any of that stuff. It’s def their best album, there’s something about it that just works. Such a shame it all went a bit tits up after that

Oy! Nowt like the Quo they are way better than chilli’s.

It’s their only decent album tbh. Most of the other albums have good songs and some have better songs, but not enough.

(By The Way gets runner up IMO purely for having The Solo.)

Californication is one of the worst mastered CDs I have ever heard.

I’m guessing you’ve never heard And Justice For All

They just went more and more bland stadium rock after BSSM.
No time for em now, except Flea’s work with Atoms for Peace.

I got into them after seeing do Black Eyed Blonde in the film Thrashin’ and thinking WTF! Loved the first two Hillel albums at the time (although cant listen to them nowadays) and then peaked with MM, started getting more MTV/airtime with BSSM and started loosing interest.

They (Anthony) have always been crap live, feels like he’s only turning up for the money.

Sorry, going back to the sound of Californication, is it the mastering/manufacturing that’s wrecked the sound? I always figured it’s a mixing issue (everything is soooo hot it crackles) and blamed Rubin. However he recently did Music for Men* which sounds as clean as my bibshorts before an epic ride (clean).

The first Imagine Dragons album is the next candidate for “worst sound”, the waveforms look like somebody used an Adobe Illustrator path filter on them.

As for the albums, I confess I’ve not heard anything after By The Way from end to end, but that’s because everything I have heard, which is plenty because they’re so popular now, sounds EXACTLY the same – melodic self-satisfied boring repetitive weak and very very ” by the numbers”. So, IMHO, they went through utter hell and from this comes a variety of differing, energetic sounds with pain, love, loss, party funk and lots of drugs…all the better for it. Californication sounded like they’d just opened their eyes to what they had become, and the reflection drove a sweeter side to the sound and the combination was very good. After that they just decended into twaddle. I heard Stadium Arcadium was nearly a triple album, they couldn’t figure how to cut it down. Jesus, yak, point proven…. They’ve got no idea how tired it all is now.

*If you like RHCP you might well like this. Not that it’s quite the same thing, but it is excellent. Imagine Dragons, however are tosh of the highest order.

Knock me down is their finest moment,esp for the subject matter. For me Carlifornication is brilliant because of the fact it was recorded under what was nearly the same circumstances,and I think it pushed them on.

Snap, duckman!