Red Hot Chili Peppers
Ok, so I admit. I wasn’t the biggest fan until recently. Literally, like, pretty much just this summer. I’ve had a bunch of their music for a while, but I’d never really listened to them. Always thought they were a little too… eclectic(?) for my tastes. Now, I just think I was crazy. Granted, I love all of their “popular” stuff. Give me some credit, however. I didn’t realize half of the songs I like were singles until AFTER I did some research and found it out.
But seriously, iTunes Genius (if you’ve never used it, you should try it. It’s like Pandora for people without Internet. But only with your personal music library) couldn’t make playlists off of half of the singles, and if it did, most of the time it picked singles my other favorites had put out themselves. Like… ‘Californication’ and ‘The Luckiest’ (Ben Folds)? Yeah, not much in common. Especially when you accept that it took the live version of Luckiest instead of the studio version. I think the only connection they have is that someone is singing. About something.
So, I did what I always do. One of my good friends calls me a “Music Whore.” I have a tendency not only to collect as much music as possible from a particular group, but I read histories, etc. Let me tell you, RHCP has one of the more… extravagant histories of all of the bands I like. I learned little things that were really interesting. Like how I now want to read Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis. Or how Flea almost actually quit the group after the release of By the Way. (Or maybe it was after the recording.) Or, best yet, listening to Frusciante go on for 18 or so minutes about how the guitar for Dani California was written in studio. You never realize just how much a band has gone through until you sit down and read their history, and the histories of the members.
As a newcomer fan of RHCP, I am definitely excited to hear them get back into the studio and put out another CD. It’s on my 2010 list of “Things I Must Buy When They Come Out.”
Anyone have any suggestions as to songs to listen to?