album giveaway-a-go-go!
Californication
by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Track Listing:
1. "Around the World" **
2. "Parallel Universe"
3. "Scar Tissue" **
4. "Otherside" **
5. "Get on Top" **
6. "Californication" **
7. "Easily"
8. "Porcelain"
9. "Emmit Remmus"
10. "I Like Dirt" **
11. "This Velvet Glove" **
12. "Savior"
13. "Purple Stain" **
14. "Right on Time"
15. "Road Trippin'" **
** = album highlight
Now, before I can really talk about why I love this album so much, I feel like I need to give some background on my... upbringing. My early music experience, if you will.
To make a long story short, I was raised in Malaysia and had no cable TV and therefore no music channels and no real experience of Western TV shows or channels. We rented VHS tapes so there was tons of film-watching, but I never really experienced TV unless we were on vacation.
My uncle, however, would record hours of MTV Europe for us and send them on over. I mean, I got a lot of mileage out of those tapes. I would sit there and watch them over and over and over, rewinding and rewatching. It was the entirety of my modern music experience as a 7 year old (my dad, bless him, was faithful to his Led Zeppelin and didn't really branch out).
And on these tapes was "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And it was my favorite music video, by far. I loved it. I loved them. They were amazing to me. And still are.
Roll on a few years, and I'm finally buying albums for myself to listen to on ye olde discman. My family and I were stuck in Milwaukee (of all places) for the summer while my mom completed her masters degree, and the only two CDs I had in my posession were the Matrix soundtrack and Californication, which I practically wore out. And you know what? I have yet to tire of it. I think the title track is in some way a generational anthem for people my age. Like, that shit was important.
Look, I know a lot of singles were released from this CD. So if you feel like you've heard this all too many times, I'd urge you to reconsider. The unreleased tracks are beyond fantastic as well and contain some of the most powerful lyrics the Chili Peppers ever came up with. This was, after all, made just after John Frusciante had crawled away from the hellish heroin addiction he shackled himself with. "Savior" is intense and evolving all the time.
And everything else! I just wanted to quote all these songs all the time!
Be the one to see my flaws,
make me bleed with painted claws!
Arrrghh I just love them. They have this angry surf energy to them and at the same time this quiet, natural mysticism. The imagery on this album wavers between the plastic of Rodeo Drive and the earthiness of the desert. It's just great.
So listen to this and love it. Because this was perhaps the Peppers' greatest triumph, and their new music has lost all meaning for me.
DOWNLOAD :)