Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Studio Album Collection 1991-2011 (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

This digital box set contains Red Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991), One Hot Minute (1995), Californication (1999), By the Way (2002), Stadium Arcadium (2006), I'm with You (2011). There's too many smash-hits to count and is well worth the while.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers' best album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik benefits immensely from Rick Rubin's production – John Frusciante's guitar is less overpoweringly noisy, leaving room for differing textures and clearer lines, while the band overall is more focused and less indulgent, even if some of the grooves drag on too long. Lyrically, Anthony Kiedis is as preoccupied with sex as ever, whether invoking it as his muse, begging for it, or boasting in great detail about his prowess, best showcased on the infectiously funky singles "Give It Away" and "Suck My Kiss." However, he tempers his testosterone with a more sensitive side, writing about the emotional side of failed relationships ("Breaking the Girl," "I Could Have Lied"), his drug addictions ("Under the Bridge" and an elegy for Hillel Slovak, "My Lovely Man"), and some hippie-ish calls for a peaceful utopia. Three of those last four songs (excluding "My Lovely Man") mark the band's first consistent embrace of lilting acoustic balladry, and while it's not what Kiedis does best as a vocalist, these are some of the album's finest moments, varying and expanding the group's musical and emotional range. Frusciante departed after the supporting tour, leaving Blood Sugar Sex Magik as probably the best album the Chili Peppers will ever make.

Tracklist:

01 - The Power Of Equality
02 - If You Have To Ask
03 - Breaking The Girl
04 - Funky Monks
05 - Suck My Kiss
06 - I Could Have Lied
07 - Mellowship Slinky In B Major
08 - The Righteous & The Wicked
09 - Give It Away
10 - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
11 - Under The Bridge
12 - Naked In The Rain
13 - Apache Rose Peacock
14 - The Greeting Song
15 - My Lovely Man
16 - Sir Psycho Sexy
17 - They're Red Hot

Following up Blood Sugar Sex Magik proved to be a difficult task for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In 1993, two years after Blood Sugar, former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro joined up, but it was still another two years before One Hot Minute appeared, due to various personal problems. Navarro's metallic guitar shredding should have added some weight to the Chili Peppers' punk-inflected heavy-guitar funk, but tends to make it plodding. By emphasizing the metal, the funk is gradually phased out of the blend, as is melody; the grinding chant of "Warped" is hardly as twisted as anything on Freaky Styley, or even "Give It Away." The ballads "My Friends" and "Transcending" are blatant attempts to hold on to the mainstream audience gained by "Under the Bridge," but the melodies are weak and the lyrics are even more feeble. One Hot Minute is as musically ambitious as Blood Sugar Sex Magik, but is even more unfocused, which means it provides the fewest thrills of any of the group's albums.

Tracklist:

01 - Warped
02 - Aeroplane
03 - Deep Kick
04 - My Friends
05 - Coffee Shop
06 - Pea
07 - One Big Mob
08 - Walkabout
09 - Tearjerker
10 - One Hot Minute
11 - Falling Into Grace
12 - Shallow Be Thy Game
13 - Transcending

Many figured that the Red Hot Chili Peppers' days as undisputed alternative kings were numbered after their lackluster 1995 release One Hot Minute, but like the great phoenix rising from the ashes, this legendary and influential outfit returned back to greatness with 1999's Californication. An obvious reason for their rebirth is the reappearance of guitarist John Frusciante (replacing Dave Navarro), who left the Peppers in 1992 and disappeared into a haze of hard drugs before cleaning up and returning to the fold in 1998. Frusciante was a main reason for such past band classics as 1989's Mother's Milk and 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and proves once and for all to be the quintessential RHCP guitarist. Anthony Kiedis' vocals have improved dramatically as well, while the rhythm section of bassist Flea and drummer Chad Smith remains one of rock's best. The quartet's trademark punk-funk can be sampled on such tracks as "Around the World," "I Like Dirt," and "Parallel Universe," but the more pop-oriented material proves to be a pleasant surprise – "Scar Tissue," "Otherside," "Easily," and "Purple Stain" all contain strong melodies and instantly memorable choruses. And like their 1992 introspective hit "Under the Bridge," there are even a few mellow moments – "Porcelain," "Road Trippin'," and the title track. With the instrumentalists' interplay at an all-time telepathic high and Kiedis peaking as a vocalist, Californication is a bona fide Chili Peppers classic.

Tracklist:

01 - Around The World
02 - Parallel Universe
03 - Scar Tissue
04 - Otherside
05 - Get On Top
06 - Californication
07 - Easily
08 - Porcelain
09 - Emit Remmus
10 - I Like Dirt
11 - This Velvet Glove
12 - Savior
13 - Purple Stain
14 - Right On Time
15 - Road Trippin'

The Red Hot Chili Peppers' eighth studio album finds the California foursome exploring the more melodic freeways of harmony and texture, contrasting the gritty, funky side streets of their early days. Luckily, with this more sophisticated sound, the Peppers have not sacrificed any of their trademark energy or passions for life, universal love, and (of course) lust. Although they recorded the spiky Abbey Road EP in 1988, this album actually sounds a lot closer to the Beatles' Abbey Road, with a little of Pet Sounds and elements of Phil Spector's lushest arrangements all distilled through the band's well-traveled funk-pop stylings. Harmony vocals and string arrangements have replaced some of the aggressive slap bass that the group was initially recognized for, but fans of both the gentle and the fierce Chili Peppers styles will embrace the title track and first single, "By the Way." In fact, this song on its own could almost be a brief history of everything The Red Hot Chili Peppers have recorded: fiery Hollywood funk, gentle harmonies, a little bit of singing about girls, a little bit of hanging out in the streets in the summertime, some rapid-fire raps from Anthony Kiedis, some aggro basslines from Flea – the song plays like a three-and-a-half-minute audio version of Behind the Music. Overall, the album leans more toward the melodic end of their oeuvre, but they have grown into this kinder, gentler mode organically, progressively working toward this groove little by little, album by album. What once were snapshots of a spastic punk-funk lifestyle have grown into fully realized short stories of introspection and Californication. Though the pace of the album falters at times (particularly in the verses; the choruses are all pretty spectacular), it is refreshing to see that as the four Chili Peppers continue to grow older and more sure of themselves, their composition and performing skills are maturing along with them.

Tracklist:

01 - By The Way
02 - Universally Speaking
03 - This Is The Place
04 - Dosed
05 - Don't Forget Me
06 - The Zephyr Song
07 - Can't Stop
08 - I Could Die For You
09 - Midnight
10 - Throw Away Your Television
11 - Cabron
12 - Tear
13 - On Mercury
14 - Minor Thing
15 - Warm Tape
16 - Venice Queen

Indulgence has long been a way of life for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, yet they resisted the siren's call of the double album until 2006's Stadium Arcadium. Sure, 1991's breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik was as long as a classic double LP, but such distinctions mattered little in the era when vinyl gave way to CD, and they matter less now, as the CD gradually gives way to digital-only releases. In fact, like how Blood Sugar was the tipping point when the LPs ceded ground to CDs, Stadium Arcadium could be seen as the point when albums were seen as a collection of digital playlists. Yes, it's pressed up as a two-disc set – including an extravagant but pointless special edition housed in a clunky box that includes a make-yer-own-spinning-top – but this is an album that's designed for you to mix and match, create your own playlist, rip and burn on your own. It's designed for you to sequence its 28 songs in some kind of cohesive manner, since the band sure didn't take the time to do that here; it's the first major album by a major band that makes as much sense on random as it does in its proper sequencing. Well, that's not entirely true: the official 28-song album does begin with "Dani California," the clearest single here, the one thing that truly grabs attention upon first listen and worms its way into your subconscious, where it just won't let go, as so much of Anthony Kiedis' catchiest melodies do. After that, it's a long, winding path of alternately spacey and sunny pop, ballads, and the occasional funk workout that used to be the Chili Peppers' signature but now functions as a way to break up the monotony. And there needs to be something to break up the monotony, not because the music is bad but because it all exists at the same level and is given a flat, colorless production that has become the signature of Rick Rubin as of late…

Tracklist:

DISC TWO - "Jupiter"
01 - Dani California
02 - Snow (Hey Oh)
03 - Charlie
04 - Stadium Arcadium
05 - Hump de Bump
06 - She's Only 18
07 - Slow Cheetah
08 - Torture Me
09 - Strip My Mind
10 - Especially In Michigan
11 - Warlocks
12 - C'mon Girl
13 - Wet Sand
14 - Hey



DISC TWO - "Mars"
01 - Desecration Smile
02 - Tell Me Baby
03 - Hard To Concentrate
04 - 21st Century
05 - She Looks To Me
06 - Readymade
07 - If
08 - Make You Feel Better
09 - Animal Bar
10 - So Much I
11 - Storm In A Teacup
12 - We Believe
13 - Turn It Again
14 - Death Of A Martian

Losing John Frusciante for a second time doesn’t send the Red Hot Chili Peppers into a tailspin. By now, the Chili Peppers shed guitarists like a second skin, changing their outer layer but retaining their inner core. Such is the case with I’m with You, the band’s first album since 2006’s Stadium Arcadium. If that double-disc was defined by its unwieldy sprawl, its songs spewed not sequenced, I’m with You is characterized by its focus, both within individual tunes and the songs as a whole. New guitarist Josh Klinghoffer – veteran sideman and longtime pal of Frusciante who provided secondary guitar on the closing stretch of the Stadium Arcadium tour – doesn’t compete for center stage the way previous Peppers did. He doesn’t strut, he weaves, disappearing so completely into the arrangements he doesn’t seem to leave his signature despite the heavy layers of guitars on each cut. This makes I’m with You the flipside of One Hot Minute, where the Chili Peppers bent over backward to accommodate Dave Navarro: the Peppers don’t miss a step, they almost seem relieved to be carrying on without Frusciante. Part of that could be due to a newfound musical elasticity, a reflection of Flea taking music theory classes at USC during the group’s half-decade gap between albums. Certainly a song like “Happiness Loves Company” – half Beach Boys, half Kinks – shows a compositional dexterity unthinkable for previous incarnations of the Peppers, but there’s no showiness here, the album is all about precision. This extends to Anthony Kiedis, who neither hams it up on the ballads nor goofs around on his raps, he merely serves the purposes of the song like the old pro he now is. Ultimately, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are served well by that professionalism; they’re long past the point of proving themselves, they’re no longer here for a party, they’re rock & roll lifers, and I’m with You illustrates they can settle into maturity convincingly.

Tracklist:

01 - Monarchy Of Roses
02 - Factory Of Faith
03 - Brendan's Death Song
04 - Ethiopia
05 - Annie Wants A Baby
06 - Look Around
07 - The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie
08 - Did I Let You Know
09 - Goodbye Hooray
10 - Happiness Loves Company
11 - Police Station
12 - Even You Brutus?
13 - Meet Me At The Corner
14 - Dance, Dance, Dance


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