Album: By The Way

Band: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Released: 2002

It’s always very sad when a band that was once vibrant and youthful gets old and crotchety on you.  Who would have ever thought it would happen to the guys that did nothing short of excess?  The ones that performed wearing only socks to cover their genitalia.  The madmen that delivered the inspired cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground”, asked its listeners to “Suck My Kiss”, who spoke eloquently of the harrowing darkness of heroin use in “Under The Bridge”.  Who would ever believe that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would become light-rock?

Well, on their latest release, ‘By The Way’, they fall far and fast.  It doesn’t take long after the initial goosing of the title track to realize that something is truly wrong in Pepper-ville.  Song after song struggles limply from start to finish.  No exuberance, no pyrotechnics of guitar or bass, no primal drumming from the otherwise excellent stickman, Chad Smith.  Nothing.  It’s as if the band hired Peter Cetera of Chicago fame to produce instead of ZZ Top wannabe, Rick Rubin.  You could plug most of these songs into any radio format that features the likes of Celine Dion, Billy Joel or Elton John, with nary a raised eyebrow.

Spit-shine production, passionless instrumentation, extremely laid back grooves and laughably bad lyrics all conspire to due this once explosive band in.  The reckless spirit of recordings past is surgically removed for Top 40 consumption.  What the band strived for on the conceptualized ‘Californication’, now smacks of superficiality and shows the band in a creative free fall.

Nothing on this album is as bad as ‘Cabron’, though.  Wildly flamboyant flamenco-style guitar by John Frusciante leads into a wedding band rhythm shuffle that could have come from a Casio keyboard for all anyone knows.  Singer Anthony Kiedis’ hammy antics kick into overdrive with his pseudo-Spanish accent.  A little sampling of the lyrics: “I am small/But I am strong/I’ll get it on with you/If you want me to/What else can I do”.  “I come around and make these get down have a barbecue/Let’s keep the moon awake and do electric boogaloo”.  Electric Boogaloo?

What is most frustrating about this particular band’s descent into the quagmire of banal, lighter-waving anthems is that they never seemed destined for it.  They always seemed an unstoppable force of fire and fury.  This is truly one of the most stunningly bad albums produced by a major band ever.  Is this an indication of the band’s future?  That is indeed the question.

 Brett Hickman