Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium Review
You know that feeling in your throat after you’ve just slammed a massive shot of vodka?
It’s identical to the feeling I get when I think of the chili’s latest 2006 release, Stadium Arcadium.
The difference is, after the vodka you feel good. After listening to Stadium Arcadium, you put it in the backyard, and take a dump on it.
For the record, The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s are one of my favourite bands. Unfortunately, they’ve managed to make such a humongously terrible album, I have no choice but to review it.
To truly comprehend the level of faeces smushed into the album, we should go back in time to 1991. Only one thing happened that year - the chili’s released ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’. Like ‘Stadium Arcadium’, it was packed with two kinds of songs:
- groovy emotional songs
- funky rocking songs
The only difference is, for Stadium Arcadium, replace the words groovy, emotional, funky and rocking with gay. Let’s take a look at this graph.
Give it Away: Real funky bassline, a real concept to the song. Anthony slams the verses before exploding your face with a flurry of Give it Away’s. Delicious.
Hump de Bump: The song opens pretty good, until suddenly we gaze and listen in disbelief when we’re introduced to the chorus:
hump de bump, doo-badoop hump de bump, doo bup. aw-no!
..What the fuck?
I’m deadset speechless. How do you come up with this shit? This is the chili’s, not the fucking wiggles. What happened to the band? I’ll tell you. They’ve just transformed into big flappy vaginas.
Red Hot Chili Peppers circa 2006: a bunch of pussies
Bring back that groovy sleaziness of Sir Psycho Sexy:
I swatted her like no swat team can, turned her cherry pie - right into jam
Yeah Anthony, you smash that chick’s box. Now we’ve got something like:
It’s not about the smile you wear but, the way we make out
LAME. It’s too friendly, it’s boring. One Hot Minute, RCHP’s 1995 studio release has great songs like Warped, Aeroplane and My Friends. Although generally critiscized, it’s possibly my favourite chili’s album - it’s experimental, it’s different and Dave Navarro’s psychadelic touch works perfectly.
I’m all for a band changing it’s style for a new album, but Stadium Arcadium isn’t a new style at all, it’s just a mediocre, vaginarised version of their previous work.
You know what else pisses me off?
On the bands official website discography, which is set chronologically, they place One Hot Minute right at the bottom, claiming “It’s not a real chili’s album”. Who the hell has ever heard of a band doing that, simply disowning an album because of a different line up?
Let’s say - I have a wife - I have a child with her. We divorce, and I re-marry and have three new children.
“Who are you? Oh. It’s my first son, your worthless trash to me now. However, I will still acknowledge you as the worst of my children”.
Anthony Kiedis on himself: “I’m a douche”
Before the official release of the album, Flea stated: “If you download Stadium Arcadium, yes, it is stealing from us, and that is lame”. Guess what. I downloaded Stadium Arcadium.
And it is lame - the album was a lot lamer than anyone who downloads the album is by a longshot. Have a fucking cry. Your album peaked the charts world-wide, and as a consequence you’ve lowered the universal minimum standard of good music.
Flea will have to wait 2 more seconds until he can afford his diamond-encrusted Mercedes, because I downloaded Stadium Arcadium.
Let’s take a look at the song “If”. The whole song is just this croony, soft melodic guitar and background strings that is just, plainly uncomfortable, especially accompanied with Anthony’s gentle wussy lines, such as:
We could take a walk into the canyons of fifth avenue sing and dance just to name a few. We could find a place to stay, a secret little hideaway.
It reminds me of something from Plain White Tee’s - Hey There Delilah. Incase you haven’t already assumed so - yes, that’s bad.
In this case, wussiness isn’t to be confused with emotion. Remorse, regret, reflection and angst make great emotional song’s of the chili’s such as Otherside, Don’t Forget Me and Under the Bridge.
Typical of artists to talk up their albums before release, Flea stated: “If you’re not a fan of Stadium Arcadium, you’re no fan of ours”. Get fucked.
I’m glad your house burnt down. I’m ashamed you spend so much time in Australia, and I’m ashamed of your album.
Chris said:
Dec 29, 07 at 4:09 pmI just want to say- no matter how correct or insightful your reviews may be, using phrases like “flappy vaginas” and using the word “gay” as one of your major descriptors really isn’t going to be taken seriously. Ever.
admin said:
Dec 29, 07 at 5:35 pmstop being a flappy vagina and take the review half-heartingly
Toby said:
Dec 30, 07 at 12:38 pmVery well said miek, you gay flappy vag!
A Fan said:
Jan 04, 08 at 6:58 amThe old, kick-ass, HARD Peppers were much stronger and didn’t have emotions…
Actually, no! I love this album. Of course some songs are lame, but fuck it! It’s 28 songs.
flappy vagina said:
Jan 04, 08 at 9:51 amstaidum arcadium sux balls and words like gay and lame and puss help describe how shit something is
Nathan said:
Jan 11, 08 at 9:23 amAwesome review. I haven’t been a fan of the Peppers for years now, and I wasn’t aware Flea was an asshole. Fuck that album.
K. said:
Jan 19, 08 at 6:16 pmYeah, what happened to Flea being the nice one? I remember when I read Scar Tissue I thought he was such an awesome, genuinely nice guy, but now he’s turned into this huge pompous ass. I’d say the same for Kiedis but really, Kiedis has always been an ass. If anything, he’s pussied out, like you’ve said, in the last little while.
Also, you are perhaps the first Chili Peppers fan I’ve come across who puts OHM as their favourite album. It’s probably my second after By the Way, and I’m always confused as to why people call it a shitty album when it’s anything but. I love the style of it - it’s so original and GOOD.
Anyway, good review. I like a few songs off of SA but yeah, mostly it was disappointing. Your bit about Hump De Bump made me laugh for about 30 seconds straight, and when you think about it, that’s actually a pretty long fucking time.
Actually, one last thing: I think the only note-worthy part of SA is Frusciante’s solos. He did well. That’s about it.
admin said:
Jan 19, 08 at 6:28 pmThanks for the comment - True, the solo’s do rip on the Stadium. I just didn’t feel like handing any praise to the band at the time of writing. Yep, couldn’t agree more about Flea - he did sound awesome in Scar Tissue. I’ll make sure to put Scar Tissue in the ‘Fiction’ section next time im at the bookstore
jim said:
Jan 22, 08 at 12:26 amIsn’t that song Pea on OHM enough to make you hate Flea? It worked for me. I can’t see how you like OHM so much, but yeah, the best part about SA is easily the guitar. Flea is a bit of a selfish arsehole though. Have you heard bout the californication law suit? Greedy…
They don’t consider OHM an album the same because it wasn’t frusciante or slovak on it…And for the record, I’m a huge frusciante fan. anyhow, i half agree, but i don’t hate it.
admin said:
Jan 22, 08 at 12:18 pmYeah, I forget about Pea sometimes cause I deleted it off OHM. Such a waste of track space.
Sig said:
Feb 24, 08 at 11:53 pmI’m so provoced after having read this, that I don’t even know when to start. You claim you’re a chili peppers fan? A fan would have a bit more respect for something as beautiful as music. Anthony said that Stadium Arcadium is the best record they have ever made, and then you call it a piece of shit. This is their work. It’s what they do. They have put their souls and hearts into this record, and you come trashing it, like you have the right too. Reading this text gave me the impression that you are a very narrow minded and naive person. The first time I pressed play and heard Desecration Smile I was blessed with this wonderful calm feeling. I had been so worried that the peppers were going to fail misserably with their new album. But they didn’t! I really feel that they have found themselves as musicians on this record, and I respect this piece of work with my whole heart. You can’t compare a record to other records of the band! “It’s not as good as BSSM” is a very stupid thing to say. This is an individual piece of art, and you should treat it with respect.
Gaz said:
Mar 04, 08 at 8:24 pmLmao. This is by far your best and most accurate review. Applause!
admin said:
Mar 04, 08 at 10:28 pm“They have put their souls and hearts into this record, and you come trashing it, like you have the right too.”
Only a retard who likes this album could say something that stupid. Of course I have the right to, it’s called freedom of speech, the same right that allowed you to leave your crappy amusing comment on my page.
Reading your comment gave me the impression you sniff paint for a living.
I could put my heart and soul into making an album using a banana and a brick as an instrument. Does that mean it’ll be good since I was so passionate about it?
Just cause the peppers were enthusiastic and talk up their terrible album doesn’t mean I should respect it too.
Sig said:
Mar 05, 08 at 2:17 amWell, if you’re not going to respect the album, you can at least respect them as musicians. I’m fine with you not liking the album, BELIEVE ME, it’s fine. But when you put a picture of them with cat-heads online for everybody to see, and then call them pussies… That’s just you beeing an mean. And about the bananas and bricks thing? You are clearly not getting my point. They’ve used their instruments. Instruments they’ve been playing their whole lives! This is their profession. I don’t think it’s right to put manipulated pictures on the internet just because you think they did a bad job. That’s just disrespectful.
Exscuse my english, please.
admin said:
Mar 10, 08 at 5:29 pmOf course it’s right to put manipulated pictures on the internet if someone did a bad job. How will they know they’ve done a bad job then? They’ll just go straight back into the studio and pollute the airwaves even more. And I’ll write another review straight away and call them pussies again.
Nath said:
Jun 19, 08 at 2:23 pmThis album is ok if you see it from the bands perspective. The sound & lyrics of the album emanates evidently from their vast touring experience’s, life’s high & lows, joy plus suffering etc.
I find this album sounding quiet tired, jagged & grey - but I can understand that, this is a mature band that is not immune to aging & decline.
Anyway, it’s 2.5 out of 5 from me - appreciative for the RHCP monumental effort but I cant suck much juice from this album, meaning I find it hard to enjoy this album as a whole artistic & creative package.
Peace
James said:
Sep 10, 08 at 7:45 pm10/10 review. 10/1000 album.
I remember first listening to this album after waiting so long and the disappointment was incredible. I was in denial of how shit it is. Chili’s were in my top 3 favourites and now everytime i listen to them, i think of stadium arcadium and cringe. It has no doubt tainted my view on them. As soon as Flea said “if your no fan of this album, your no fan of the chili’s.” he obviously knew what a pussy job they had done.
Ben said:
Nov 28, 08 at 9:18 amThis is probably the best review of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Stadium Arcadium” I’ve ever read. It seems like a lot of the Peppers’ best work comes from hard times. How was the life of the Chili Peppers prior to/during the recording of this album? They were swimming in cash, having wonderful relationships, drug-free, idolized by millions, driving nice cars, etc. A good life with no pain and much gain resulted in an uncreative, dismal, robotic, fake-emotional album known as Stadium Arcadium. Even the sound of the title makes me sudder. Anthony can’t even come up with beautiful titles anymore. And yes, they all have changed as people as well. Maybe except for Chad. It’s amusing everytime I see fanboys trying to defend this album and use the same excuse: “You have to expect a band to change”. The band actually did not change that much from their modern sound, they actually just wrote bad songs and made bad artistic decisions. Flea is totally wrong about his theory. If we don’t like the album, it’s cause we don’t like it. As hardworking people, we selectively spend our hard-earned cash. If we buy something we don’t like, you better expect that we are entitled to say that it sucks and criticize it. We are the ones that made them successful by buying their albums and going to their concerts. We have the right to tell them “You guys did not do a good job and you sound like a bunch of flappy vaginas.”
Justin said:
Dec 24, 08 at 5:08 pmI do find your comments quite amusing. However, I have been a RHCP fan from day one. And if you look closely you will find a direct correlation between the break they took after Blood Sugar and the level of maturity that increases in the following albums. You have to realize that they aren’t the 20 year old testosterone filled animals they once were. Bands do mature, along with their music. I know of this band you may know of called Led Zeppelin, and the exact same thing happened to their later albums. It’s obvious that Incubus has done the same. Not bashing what you said but people do grow up.