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As many of you have probably heard, The Red Hot Chili Peppers' latest offering, Stadium Arcadium, was released yesterday after much ado.
The hype was on account of not only the band's stature, but the fact that Stadium is a double-album; a bit of a rarity for a band this successful. You have to go all the way back to 1995, when the Smashing Pumpkins graced us with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, to find another instance of a band this popular releasing two discs of music at once. And since that turned out pretty well (to say the least), the excitement surrounding the RHCPs' 9th studio album had reached a fever pitch leading up to its release. Bassist Flea called it "the best thing we've ever done."
He's right.
Like Mellon Collie, there are 28 tracks in all (14 on each disc). The discs are not labeled Disc 1 and Disc 2, for whatever reason, but "Jupiter" and "Mars." Oh, and there's a picture of Saturn on the upper left-hand corner of the case. Go figure.
As a simplistic test of quality, I listened to the entire album yesterday (with just a few scattered breaks here and there) and marked any of the tracks that struck me as particularly good songs upon the first listen (excluding Dani California, which I'd already heard numerous times). After I was finished, I looked over the list I'd made and realized I'd marked 21 of the album's 28 tracks.
More than a few stand out. The first song on "Jupiter," and the first single released for radio airplay (about 2 months ago), Dani California, is chief among them. Other notables include the very next track, Snow ((Hey Oh)), the titular Stadium Arcadium, and the slow-building epic Wet Sand. Oh, and that's just the first disc.
Either one of the album's two discs would be an impressive Peppers-worthy installment in its own right. Together, they represent a creative outburst by a band that has been honing its sound for 23 years. In a time where the Trent Rezners and Bonos of the world are adjusting their styles to accomodate what appear to be steadily weakening vocals, RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis sounds as strong as ever.
Kiedis' songwriting has come a long way, as well. Hard to Concentrate, the third track on the Mars disc, reads like a marriage proposal. It's hard to believe this is the same man who cavorted on stage wearing only a strategically-placed tube sock, or the man who penned Suck My Kiss on 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
All in all, this is a must-own for fans of the band, casual or otherwise. It nods in the direction of every phase of their highly accomplished career. Looking back, it couldn't have happened any other way. When you take a world-class band with the time, resources and reputation to do whatever they want, an album like Stadium Arcadium is the inevitable result.
The hype was on account of not only the band's stature, but the fact that Stadium is a double-album; a bit of a rarity for a band this successful. You have to go all the way back to 1995, when the Smashing Pumpkins graced us with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, to find another instance of a band this popular releasing two discs of music at once. And since that turned out pretty well (to say the least), the excitement surrounding the RHCPs' 9th studio album had reached a fever pitch leading up to its release. Bassist Flea called it "the best thing we've ever done."
He's right.
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As a simplistic test of quality, I listened to the entire album yesterday (with just a few scattered breaks here and there) and marked any of the tracks that struck me as particularly good songs upon the first listen (excluding Dani California, which I'd already heard numerous times). After I was finished, I looked over the list I'd made and realized I'd marked 21 of the album's 28 tracks.
More than a few stand out. The first song on "Jupiter," and the first single released for radio airplay (about 2 months ago), Dani California, is chief among them. Other notables include the very next track, Snow ((Hey Oh)), the titular Stadium Arcadium, and the slow-building epic Wet Sand. Oh, and that's just the first disc.
Either one of the album's two discs would be an impressive Peppers-worthy installment in its own right. Together, they represent a creative outburst by a band that has been honing its sound for 23 years. In a time where the Trent Rezners and Bonos of the world are adjusting their styles to accomodate what appear to be steadily weakening vocals, RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis sounds as strong as ever.
Kiedis' songwriting has come a long way, as well. Hard to Concentrate, the third track on the Mars disc, reads like a marriage proposal. It's hard to believe this is the same man who cavorted on stage wearing only a strategically-placed tube sock, or the man who penned Suck My Kiss on 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
All in all, this is a must-own for fans of the band, casual or otherwise. It nods in the direction of every phase of their highly accomplished career. Looking back, it couldn't have happened any other way. When you take a world-class band with the time, resources and reputation to do whatever they want, an album like Stadium Arcadium is the inevitable result.
Last edited by Yoda; 05-10-06 at 03:53 PM.
....that or LimeWire 
