So why is Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
With Californication, I’m transported back to the summer With Californication, I’m transported back to the summer of 1999.
Ah, 1999: pre-9/11, when Y2K jitters and Bill Clinton’s legacy were the news of the day and “nu-metal” was the musical fad du jour.
1999 was a unique year in my life. I had moved to California (Berkeley, in San Francisco’s East Bay, specifically) the previous fall with a couple of bucks in my pocket, a beat-up car, zero job prospects, and my dude Adam in tow.
Cut to the summer, and I had stumbled into working at an internet start-up (just before the infamous dot-com bubble burst, kids!) and, more importantly, I had met my future and now wife.
Californication came out in June of that year, and songs like the title track and “Scar Tissue” dominated terrestrial radio – which I still listened to quite a lot of at that time. The consensus was that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were “back” after their massive early ‘90s popularity had somewhat waned by the late ‘90s.*
* Perhaps I’m an outlier, but I found One Hot Minute (#301 of best 1,000 albums ever) to be flat-out fantastic.
Part of the narrative of RHCP’s return to funk/punk/rock supremacy ties to guitarist John Frusciante returning to the band, replacing Dave Navarro. And indeed, Frusciante’s gorgeous melodic tone and tasty licks dominate Californication’s sound, making it a consistently exciting and engaging listen.
It’s also an album that shows the band at the peak of its powers in terms of balancing outstanding song craftsmanship with an eclectic mix of styles and sounds. “Otherside,” for example, shows off Anthony Kiedis’ vocal talents beautifully.
The confessional lyrics are striking. If I read this as a poem, I’d be like give me more of this please.
Pour my life into a paper cup
The ashtray’s full and I’m spillin’ my guts
She want to know am I still a slut?
I gotta take it on the other side
Staying with the mellower side of the album for a moment, the acoustic number, “Road Trippin’,” which closes out Californication, is straight up perfection.
And who would have thought that RHCP would leverage strings to back them up?
But then cut to “Purple Stain,” a delightfully grimy funk rock track that sports one of my favorite choruses that the Red Hot Chili Peppers have ever produced.
Knock on wood we all stay good
‘Cause we all live in Hollywood
With Dracula and Darla Hood
Unspoken words were understood
Not shockingly, it’s the title track, “Californication” that most pulls me back to my early days of living in California, after having grown up in New York. Not only is it an excellent mid-tempo melodic rocker with a catchy chorus, but it spins an interesting if melancholy tale dispelling the “California dream.”
The pop culture drops are particularly cool, such as:
Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement
And Cobain, can you hear the spheres singing songs off Station to Station?
And Alderaan’s not far away, it’s Californication
Pop culture stuff that has something to do with Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication
This is as good a time as any to get into a topic that I think of often regarding RHCP: they’re kind of a divisive band, and I’m not entirely sure why.
Well, I do have some theories as to why some people seem to not only dislike but hate the Red Hot Chili Peppers. One is that they simply achieved a level of fame – during the early ‘90s and then again from the period spanning Californication through the admittedly much-overhyped Stadium Arcadium (2006) – that brought out the hater hordes.
Another might be that some people are just not into funk music specifically, and therefore find RCHP’s mix of funk, punk, and rock to be distasteful in some way. Or perhaps it’s a mix of these factors matched with the band’s over-the-top antics and overall vibe?
Some stats & info about Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, SoCal Bands, Funky Metal, Hard Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #286
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Californication released? 1999
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #64 out of 1,000
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
It’s understood that Hollywood sells Californication.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.