The Red Hot Chili Peppers last album was a greatest hits collection, but they could have just as easily slapped that title on “Stadium Arcadium.” It’s that good. This two cd set is like a career retrospective with all new songs, a culmination of what they do best with all their previous trademark elements on display in each song of the sprawling twenty eight track cd.
How do their attention span-challenged fans cope with this quality overload, this embarrassment of riches? Think of it as a play list to download of the best Chili Peppers songs you’ve never heard. The album was originally intended as a single cd with 10 or 12 songs, “hit ‘em and quit ‘em” as lead singer Anthony Kiedis explained but after they recorded the 38th song of the sessions they began to consider releasing a trilogy of albums. Is it possible they’ve come up with a double album with no filler? Even The Beatles had “Revolution No. 9.”
A true band effort, each member contributes equally. Kiedis’ lyrics and unique deadpan delivery, Flea’s charging bass lines, Chad Smith’s outrageous drumming and the biggest surprise, John Frusciante’s fiery, Hendrix-like guitar solos and smooth, full vocal harmonies. Each song has a different flavor of what the Chili Peppers do best, from the funk of “Hump De Bump” and “Storm in a Teacup” to the rock/rap of “C’mon Girl” and “21st Century” and the atmospheric romanticism of “If” and “Snow ((Hey Oh)).” But how do you pick highlights when they’re all good?
With the absence of valleys to offset the peaks, the best parts of “Stadium Arcadium” are Frusciante’s wild solos and Kiedis’ lyrics which sound like they were composed for what they sound like rather than what they actually mean. As Flea says, “If you don’t like this album, you don’t like The Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
Listen for lots of tracks all week from "Stadium Arcadium" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers on Paul Shugrue's new music show, "Out of the Box" Monday through Thursday from 7pm to 9pm and Saturday from 1pm to 5pm on Public Radio 89.5 WHRV-FM