Red Hot Chili Peppers Album: “The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1st LP) [PA] [Remaster]”

This record is great considering that it was (orginally) released (almost) 20 years before today when the radio waves are cursed by these ultra corporate/unoriginal rap/metal bands (my local alt/hard rock station actually played songs from this bands original four albums, now all they play is junk like "P.O.D.(posers obviously darnit)".

But this little underatted gem is 95% excelent(I'm not too hot with the simplistic"Police helicopter"). The top tracks in my mind would be "Green Heaven", with the best bass/guitar riff I've ever heard. The fast paced "Out In L.A." The chilling instrumental "Grand pappy du plenty." "Baby appeal" which could have easily made it on Freaky Styley, and "Buckle down", which I like for no reason That I can currently think of.

If that was not enough, if you buy the remaster(which you probably will end up with anyway, since it's easier to find) you get 5 demos added as Bonus tracks. Which range from the "Get up and jump" demo which is so off it's hilarious. To the "Green heaven" demo, which I think is better, with the exception of the scratchy beggining( But it's cool, and somewhat eerie how the bass line slowly fades in at the end of it). It also includes the demo for "What it is" from Out In L.A.(the album, not the song) Which consists of lyrical bits from songs like "Green Heaven", And "The Brothers Cup"(off Freaky Styley). The remaster also has better sound quality (obviously).

So to wrap things up, I would have to say that although it is not thier best, it is by far not thier worst ( it is still better than One Hot Minute, and it is much better than thier last release. So buy it, and enjoy.

HOP OUT!

As a thirty-something Gen-X lad, I'm one of the few who has been listening to the Chili Peppers since the mid 1980s. I say this not because I'm one of those insufferable gits who thinks his devotion to a band is more authentic because he was a fan before they became popular. Rather, I mention it to provide the context for my review of this album.

Younger folks who find this album puzzling because it bears no relation to the Chili Peppers they started listening to in the mid to late 90s or even in the 2000s need to understand that this album is not an anomaly or a one-off. It is the essence of what the Chili Peppers sounded like for a decade before today's twenty-somethings started hearing them on the radio and college-bar juke boxes in the 90s. And fortunately for those twenty-somethings, they were not around to witness the unrelentingly bland music scene that obtained in the mid-80s. Even punk had lost its edge by then and morphed into new-wave (Go-Gos turning from punk girls into a mainstream chick-band, Johnny Rotten reverting to John Lydon and fronting PIL, Mick Jones fronting Big Audio Dynamite, etc.). In a radio landscape filled with cheesy synth-pop and poof-haired makeup-wearing metal bands, hearing this and the next three Chili Peppers albums was veritably mind-blowing. Those of us who heard the Chili Peppers in the mid-80s finally understood what our parents felt like when they heard the Beatles or Led Zepplin for the first time.

"Hyperbole," one might be tempted to retort. "If the sound was so fresh, great and mind-blowing, then why did it not achieve the sort of commercial success that the Beatles and Led Zepplin did?" Quite simply, this album was a bit TOO far ahead of its time. Younger folks who complain this album is "dated" don't appreciate how completely ahead of itself this album was nor just how much the sound that was introduced by this album -- and subsequently perfected by the Chili Peppers by the end of the 80s -- influenced the music of the 90s and beyond. (Contemporary acts like Hoobastank and Linkin Park owe a huge debt to the legacy left by the Chili Peppers and many of the Seattle-grunge bands.)

Nonetheless, musical tastes eventually caught up with the Chili Peppers when their 4th album "Mother's Milk" garnered solid commercial success. And in true Chili Peppers' fashion, by the time their sound finally "caught on," they had already turned in a rather different direction. With the 1991 release of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" the Chili Peppers were again one step ahead of the game and were helping to define future musical tastes, just as they are doing again in this decade and just as they had done in the 80s -- starting with this album.

Is the quality of the music on this album outstanding? Not really, no. It lacks polish, its production quality leaves vast room for improvement (I still have the original CD release -- haven't heard the remastered version yet) and it even falls flat on its face on a couple of tracks. Yet most tracks rock hard with fresh, raw, angst-free energy, and a couple might still fit right in on today's alternative-format radio stations. But most importantly, it's crucial not to lose sight of the context of the dreadfully dull music scene into which this truly groundbreaking yet underrated (at the time) album was thrust. It's also worth keeping in mind that these guys were about 20 years old when this album was recorded, so they weren't exactly the veteran musicians of today's polished and practiced RHCP.

Bottom line: this album is essential for anyone who wishes to understand the Chili Peppers' full body of work and the band's lofty place in musical history.

I don't mind this album, I don't hate it, I mean it's weird to hear how the Chili Peppers started. I wish that they had Jack Irons and Hillel with them during recording, that would've added a hard intensity, but oh well, we still have some solid tracks, all funky, all punk, it's really good pump up music but I wouldn't reccomend it to people who are just getting into the Peppers with "One hot minute" and "By the way" I started with Mother's milk so going back to the original punk rock lineup was easy for me, I was used to it. I give this album 3 stars, but the remaster gets 4 stars due to the bonus tracks featuring the original lineup, you can see how much tighter and more full of energy than the lineup on the actual album, not a bad debut, but the Chili peppers got their "funky" sound with "Freaky Styley" definately. Like I said, think before you buy, overall I'm not too disappointed.

I find it interesting that many of the negative reviews of this album come from listeners under 20 or so. They're comparing it to the last 2-3 albums put out (Hot Minute, Califormication,and whatever the New Bland Album is called). I suppose it's hard for them to appreciate the album in the context of the music that was being made at the time. Remember, this was released in 1984, not 1994. Or 2002.

RHCP were a fairly unique band at that time. Now, almost 20 years later, the radio is overwhelmed with "alternative" rap/metal/ska/pseudo-punk bands like Blinktown. Or Crazy-182. Gee, how cutting edge. Kindof like tatoos and piercings - when every idiot out there is doing it, it's not exactly 'rebelious' anymore.

Anyway, while this isn't the RedHot's best, I would put it far above the last 3 put out. Basically, I think they hit their pinnicle when BSSM came out in 1991. I remember going to a couple of shows that year and and seeing the same idiots in the audience that used to wear Slayer and Poison t-shirts. I thought, well, it's gone mainstream. It's over. And it was, for me.

This is the Chili Peppers first album, and it is a completely different band then what they are today. This music is like a genre in itself. It mixes Funk, Rap, Punk, and Ughhh all into one. It is great for any Chili Pepper fan to know where the band has come from. This album is also great for anyone interested in a new and great type of music. I highly recomend this album to anyone. And any music fan can and will enjoy this unique sampling of great music.