Red Hot Chili Peppers: Review of Dani California

Over the years since the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been on the scene, they have produced a wide variety of hits, ranging from the slow feeling “Under the Bridge” to the hard head-banging sound of “Give It Away”, which showed diversity in their music and the band’s broad musical talents. Coming out of the late eighties when rock music had no idea what it wanted to be, The Chili Peppers fit right in to the mold. They were wild and crazy, but had a soft side to their music.

After the band’s line up changes back and forth from original members to picking up new talent and making albums that didn’t take off, the original members rejoin after all the self-afflicted pain, like drug abuse and death of a fellow member the group, settled into a place of comfort. The result of the reunion was an album that was top shelf called “Mothers Milk” which includes a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” that helped make that record go gold in the early nineties.

Probably the group’s highest achievement to date is the album “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” which sold seven million copies due to the for mentioned singles “Under the Bridge” and “Give it Away”. After more drug abuse and line up changes, the band filtered out yet another album entitled “Californication” which lacked the drive the rest of the albums thus far had to this point. The new release from the album “Stadium Arcadium” entitiled “Dani California” has a slow popish feel, very nice bass lines, but in a whole the song is far from entertaining nonetheless.

If it weren’t for the music starting off sounding like it was going to be worthwhile (which is very misleading to the listener), you would have a hard time keeping from tossing the whole CD out your window. Rock artists are often known to step outside the lines and write material that doesn’t often fit their style. A few even have success with a style change, but if this song is the example of what’s to come from the rest of the CD, I hope they aren’t looking for a good response to sales.

The song “Dani California” is a lyrical joke in itself. I hope the band wasn’t serious when they wrote this, but after all it is only rock n’ roll. I’m sure there are some fans that think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. We have seen this happen to many artists over the years. A band will release an album trying to be innovative for it to become the biggest embarrassment of their career. One of the legendary bands known for their hard-edge is the rock and roll band of the seventies and eighties Kiss.

While Kiss has produced many hits over the years, they too had a brain malfunction in the highlight of their comeback when they released an almost disco sounding album. They survived so maybe there is hope for the Red Hot Chili Peppers after all.