Quote:
|
Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous
i agree in spirit with you BUT i think Californication is their masterpiece and By The Way is also one of my favs. the early shit was way more in your face, but when they finally settled down to focus on instrumentation suddenly they were a decent band
|
This is why I compare them to Flaming Lips. That band's early records were a hot mess trying to be Butthole Surfers one second, J&MC the next, even Spaceman 3 and SY.
I LOVE those records, all of them, from the disastrous self-titled through Telepathic Surgery, but I like them because I just love the Lips, and that's one of my things. Couldn't change it if I tried.
They didn't really turn into a legitimately "good" band that could stand on its own two feet until Priest Driven Ambulance, and they hadn't even really refined their sound at all at that point. By the mid '90s they were one of the most exciting and fun bands around, and THEN they found their muse and started to experiment with car stereo orchestras, concept albums, Zairkeeka, and The Soft Bulletin, which is barely a rock record at all, but even for a guy like me, raised on pulverizing punk, it was a transcendent album and a masterpiece.
Indeed I like their earlier albums more because of the later work, as I can see the fleeting sparks of what was to come even in songs like "Jesus Shooting Heroin."
I'm talking about the Lips because I really have nothing to say about early RHCP. It's all very meh to me until Blood Sugar, and it got meh again after Californication was played into the dirt by everyone everywhere.
I heard some of Stadium Arcadium once and thought it was ok, but this was like ten years ago now... not sure I'd feel the same way. Even at the time I was loathe to admit that I liked anything about it.
But "Soul to Squeeze" is early '90s gold man. I dig that song like crazy.
I also like their "Love Rollercoaster" cover from Beavis and Butthead Do America. Heh.