The first time I heard
Stadium Arcadium, the new double CD from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I loved it, in that way you do when everything you hear sounds really good, but you aren't listening that closely.
Then I listened again, paying attention, and thought... OK, it's not as good as I thought it was at first listen.
And then I listened again, and this time I started to fall under the spell of the pop-rock-funk thing they have going on. I was bouncingly happy to hear their funkier sound coming on strong on a number of cuts ("Tell Me Baby," "Warlocks," "Hump De Bump") because without Flea's funky bass it's not the Chili Peppers to me. Which isn't to say I don't like them getting all Jimi Hendrix or California beach pop rock on us either. It's hard to explain, sometimes, what this band is. "Make You Feel Better" is just pretty California beach pop rock (and I was born here, I know it when I hear it). And I kind of want to hate it, but I just can't, because it's just too sweet and everyone knows I'm a sucker for guitars that do that chiming thing. It blends into "Animal Bar," which goes rougher and a little sadder, but still holds you there near the Pacific Ocean, "swimming like a shark." And if there's ever been a more California song than "Dani California" I really don't know what it is. If I didn't live here already, that song would make me want to move, just like the poor doomed Dani of the title.
In some ways
Stadium Arcadium plays like a greatest hits album, even though it's all new material. It covers everything about the Peppers, from their start as a sort of high school goof-off band, just stumbling around, drunk and obnoxious, with their instruments (and if you weren't around then to see it, don't get pissed off at me for telling you the truth) all the way to
Californication, and then out beyond that to where all those things come together and melt and make you melt to listen to them.
And really, I don't want to melt. These guys have always been a little too testosterone-y for me, although their party til you puke and die days are behind them now. And the band is holding back a little too much, creating a radio-friendly sound instead of letting loose the way you know they can. Restrained but not in a "yeah, I have my panther on a leash, don't worry" way. More in a "if I really whale on this shit, they won't play this on FM radio" way.
And I absolutely refuse to work that last cliche, the one that says "there's a great album's worth or material here, too bad it's a double album," or even the one that says "double albums are the death knell." I won't say every track of the 28 on
Stadium Arcadium is great. But whether you take the two CDs as separate albums, or mix and match your own little MP3 playlist of your favorites, or listen to the whole damn thing, it all works.
One last note... the CD comes digitally categorized as "alternative & punk," and I had to laugh - this is a rock album, folks, no matter what anyone might tell you. And it hit number one on the charts about ten minutes after it was released, so you do have to ask... alternative to WHAT, exactly?