Great album:



Aeroplane, One Big Mob, Falling Into Grace, Walkabout... all great tracks.

Crap album:

Agree completely. That's what I told my labmates when we were listening to RHCP greatest hits.

I'm actually gonna have to disagree since I thought "Californication" was one of their best. It was nice to have Johnny back in the band and they brought the funk/rock thing into full effect.

"One Hot Minute" has some good songs, but Dave Navarro was not the best guitarist for that kind of band. He even admitted to hating Funk music. I can't say that OHM was bad, but it is definitely one of their weakest albums, while "Californication" is one of their best.

Interesting. Most people have railed against "One Hot Minute" and praised "Californication". I don't have either of those but "Californication" always struck me as kind of blah but fodder for critics. Maybe I'm only basing that on some of the singles. The title track and "Scar Tissue" are kind of whiny and annoying retreads of "Under the Bridge".

I have developed what has become to be known throughout the quantum physics community as RodeoSchro's Immutable Theory of Red Hot Chili Peppers. It states:

"Whenever the Red Hot Chili Peppers feel the need to sell albums and/or increase their exposure, they will record at least one song, if not an entire album, that mentions 'California' or some part of California, as many times as possible."

I expect to be nominated for some type of award this year.

Thank you! I've been saying this for...well, since Californication came out! Lazy boring borderline adult contemporary rock by numbers, and John Frusciante sounds like a 10 year old on this record. After how assured and on point his playing sounded on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, hearing him on Californication was a let down.

One Hot minute is one of my faves by them, not just because Navarro is one of my favorite guitarists, but because they were on the verge of creating something new and had they stuck it out, they would have crossed the line of innovation in the rock world yet again.

I really liked the songs on Californication when it first came out in the summer of '99 but in retrospect the album is a bit hit-and-miss. I liked some of the more "traditional" songs like Get on Top and also rockers like Parallel Universe but the slower songs like Otherside and the title track bore me to death. Nowadays I prefer One Hot Minute, which is the album that got me into the Chili Peppers in the first place. But in my opinion, the only REALLY crappy thing about Californication is the sound of it, more specifically the mastering of it. If you open up any of the songs in a wave editor you will see that this record is severely clipped, which means that the loudest parts go beyond the maximum volume a CD can reproduce, which causes digital distortion.
Trying to listen to this album on headphones is not exactly pleasant to the ears because of the bad decisions made in mastering this album.
I'm not the only one ranting about the sound quality of this album because for a while there has been a petition on the internet about re-releasing Californication with more "dynamic" and not clipped mastering.
There's also an "unmastered" version available that has been leaked on the internet.

U2

Pop -----> All That You Can't Leave Behind

I like Californication