Red Hot Chili Peppers
I’m with You
Warner Bros.
With all due respect to the Red Hot Chili
Peppers’ infectious youthful abandon in
the mid ’80s and the plaintive beauty of
their Jaguar-driven 1991 megahit “Under
the Bridge,” I’ll come right out and say
it:
Californication (1999) and
By the Way
(2002) were their high-water marks. Given
the less sophisticated and dimensional
music they recorded prior to recruiting guitarist
John Frusciante in 1988, as well as the
generally lackluster material they produced
without him from 1993 to 1997, it’s safe to
say he was
the guitar sound of RHCP and
that he was a huge
part of why those
two albums ruled.
Frusciante is one of
a kind. Though he
struggled mightily
with depression and
addiction that landed him in rehab in 1998,
his playing was funky and inventive, and
yet still classic and down-to-earth sounding.
Which is why he became a hero to legions
of young guitarists over the last 15 years.
But Frusciante’s secret wasn’t just his guitar
mastery—he thought epically. A huge fan of
Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and experimental
music, he imparted
Californication
and
By the Way with fantastic songs (“Scar
Tissue” and “Otherside” on the former,
“Dosed” and “The Zephyr Song” on the latter),
gorgeous melodies and harmonies, and a
compositional sensibility that was simultaneously
grand and grimy. So when Frusciante
left again 2007, everyone wondered if RHCP
was kaput. But we should’ve seen the writing
on the wall: 2006’s
Stadium Arcadium had
cool music, but the songwriting magic was
clearly gone—and Kiedis’ uninspired performances
were practically self-parody.
The great news for RHCP fans is that
new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer—a longtime
Frusciante friend and collaborator who
toured with the band for
Stadium—is an
excellent fit. His warm, vintage tones and
phrasing maintain a feeling of compositional
continuity, even as he conjures a stunning
array of sounds and feels that are uniquely
his—from the jazzy
glissando licks on “Did I
Let You Know” to the country-ish twang on
“Police Station,” the nylon-string-powered
“Brendan’s Death Song,” and the familiar-feeling
but fresh and funky anarchy of
“Monarchy of Roses”—and it has clearly
reinvigorated the band in every way.
Must-hear tracks: “Did I Let You Know,”
“Goodbye Hooray,” and “Police Station”