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The Red Hot Chili Pepper: Stadium Arcadium

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Warner Bros. Records
Released: 2006.05.09
Time:
 62:39 / 59:59
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD Double
Web address: www.redhotchilipeppers.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2008.03.02
Price in €: 7,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


CD 1: Jupiter
[1] Dani California (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:42
[2] Snow ((Hey Oh)) (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 5:34
[3] Charlie (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:37
[4] Stadium Arcadium (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 5:15
[5] Hump de Bump (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:33
[6] She's Only 18 (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:25
[7] Slow Cheetah (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 5:19
[8] Torture Me (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:44
[9] Strip My Mind (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:19
[10] Especially in Michigan (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:00
[11] Warlocks (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:25
[12] C'mon Girl (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:48
[13] Wet Sand (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 5:09
[14] Hey (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 5:39

CD 2: Mars
[1] Desecration Smile (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 5:01
[2] Tell Me Baby (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:07
[3] Hard to Concentrate (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:01
[4] 21st Century (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:22
[5] She Looks to Me (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:06
[6] Readymade (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:30
[7] If (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 2:52
[8] Make You Feel Better (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:51
[9] Animal Bar (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 5:25
[10] So Much I (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:44
[1] Storm in a Teacup (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:45
[12] We Believe (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 3:36
[13] Turn It Again (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 6:06
[14] Death of a Martian (Flea/J.Frusciante/A.Keidis/Ch.Smith) - 4:24
 

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Anthony Kiedis - Vocals, Background Vocals, Art Direction
Michael "Flea" Balzary - Bass, Background Vocals, Art Direction
Hillel Slovak - Guitar, Sitar, Background Vocals, Art Direction
Jack Irons - Drums, Background Vocals, Art Direction

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Guitar, Soloist
Lenny Castro - Percussion
Paulinho DeCosta - Percussion

Natalie Baber - Choir, Chorus
Mylissa Hoffman - Choir, Chorus
Alexis Izenstark - Choir, Chorus
Spencer Izenstark - Choir, Chorus
Emily Kokal - Choir, Chorus
Dylan Lerner - Choir, Chorus
Kyle Lerner - Choir, Chorus
Gabrielle Mosbe - Choir, Chorus
Sophia Mosbe - Choir, Chorus
Monique Mosee - Choir, Chorus
sabella Shmelev - Choir, Chorus
Landen Starkman - Choir, Chorus
Wyatt Starkman - Choir, Chorus

Michael Bolger - Trombone
Richard Dodd - Cello
Billy Preston - Tambourine
Arad Warnaar - French Horn

Rick Rubin - Producer
Ryan Hewitt - Engineer, Mixing
Andrew Scheps - Engineer, Mixing
Chris Holmes - Engineer
Jason Lader - Engineer
Mark Linette - Engineer
Jon Cohan - Drum Technician
Dave Lee - Guitar Technician
Jason Gossman - Mixing Assistant
Bnthony Zamora - Assistant Engineer
Phillip Broussaard - Assistant Engineer
Vlado Meller - Mastering
Mark Santangelo - Mastering Assistant
Lindsay Chase - Production Coordination
Iatt Taylor - Art Direction, Design
Gus Van Sant - Photography
Michael Muller - Photography
 

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s

2006 CD Warner Bros. 49996
2006 CD Warner Bros. 9362442222
2006 LP Warner Bros. 44391

Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers calls the band’s first new album in four years, Stadium Arcadium, the most-anticipated album of the spring, "the best thing that we’ve ever done…. There’s this weird kind of sublime, subliminal undercurrent that is suggestive, in a spirited way, of our earliest records." Exuding all the passion, energy and funked-up rock that have made the Red Hot Chili Peppers one of the most popular bands in history, the 2-CD Stadium Arcadium, simply put, will knock your socks off.

An ambitious double album, STADIUM ARCADIUM finds the Red Hot Chili Peppers building on their more mature, latter-day approach, while also acknowledging their lighthearted, youthful sound. The Los Angeles-based funk-rock quartet's third studio outing since John Frusciante returned to the fold, this 2006 release once again reinforces how crucial the guitarist is to the Peppers' aesthetic, with his mix of swirling, psychedelic leads and heavy riffs providing the perfect foil to Flea's bold bass heroics. (Instrumentally, the record also benefits from guest appearances by Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez, percussionists Paulinho Da Costa and Lenny Castro, and the legendary Billy Preston on clavinet.)

Remarkably consistent for a two-disc, 28-song offering, STADIUM ARCADIUM kicks off with "Dani California," an energetic track that hints at a Beatles influence, while showcasing vocalist Anthony Kiedis's neo-rap delivery and the tight rhythmic interplay of Flea and drummer Chad Smith. Other highlights of this collection include the emotive "Wet Sand" and the frenetic "Torture Me," which provide nice counterpoints to loose, limber tunes such as the funk workouts "Hump De Bump" and "C'mon Girl." In many ways a culmination of the Chili Peppers' decades-spanning musical evolution, STADIUM ARCADIUM stands as one of the group's most impressive efforts.

Recorded at The Mansion At Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California.



Indulgence has long been a way of life for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, yet they resisted the siren's call of the double album until 2006's Stadium Arcadium. Sure, 1991's breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik was as long as a classic double LP, but such distinctions mattered little in the era when vinyl gave way to CD, and they matter less now, as the CD gradually gives way to digital-only releases. In fact, like how Blood Sugar was the tipping point when the LPs ceded ground to CDs, Stadium Arcadium could be seen as the point when albums were seen as a collection of digital playlists. Yes, it's pressed up as a two-disc set - including an extravagant but pointless special edition housed in a clunky box that includes a make-yer-own-spinning-top - but this is an album that's designed for you to mix and match, create your own playlist, rip and burn on your own. It's designed for you to sequence its 28 songs in some kind of cohesive manner, since the band sure didn't take the time to do that here; it's the first major album by a major band that makes as much sense on random as it does in its proper sequencing. Well, that's not entirely true: the official 28-song album does begin with "Dani California," the clearest single here, the one thing that truly grabs attention upon first listen and worms its way into your subconscious, where it just won't let go, as so much of Anthony Kiedis' catchiest melodies do. After that, it's a long, winding path of alternately spacey and sunny pop, ballads, and the occasional funk workout that used to be the Chili Peppers' signature but now functions as a way to break up the monotony. And there needs to be something to break up the monotony, not because the music is bad but because it all exists at the same level and is given a flat, colorless production that has become the signature of Rick Rubin as of late.

Rubin may be able to create the right atmosphere for Flea and John Frusciante to run wild creatively - an opportunity that they seize here, which is indeed a pleasure to hear - but he does nothing to encourage them to brighten the finished recording up with some different textures, or even a greater variety of guitar tones. As such, the bare-bone production combined with the relentless march of songs gives Stadium Arcadium the undeniable feel of wading through the demos for a promising project instead of a sprawling statement of purpose; there's not enough purpose here for it to be a statement. That fault is down to the band not forming the raw material into something palatable for the listener, but there's also the problem that as a lyricist Anthony Kiedis just isn't that deep or clever enough to provide cohesive themes for an album of this length; he tackles no new themes here, nor does he provide new insight to familiar topics. To his credit, he does display a greater versatility as a vocalist, cutting back on the hambone rapping that used to be his signature and crooning throughout the bulk of this album, usually on key. That said, he still has enough goofy tics to undercut his attempts at sincerity, and he tends to be a bit of a liability to the band as a whole; with a different singer, who could help shape and deliver these songs, this album might not seem as formless and gormless. But there is a fair amount of pleasures here, all down to the interplay between Flea and Frusciante. While drummer Chad Smith does prove himself quite versatile here, gracefully following the eccentric turns and meanderings of the bassist and guitarist, the string instruments are the reason to listen to Stadium Arcadium. That's always been the case to a certain extent with the Chili Peppers, but here it's especially true, as they push and pull, rave and rumble, lie back and rock out - pretty much spit out anything they can do on their instruments over the course of 28 songs. As good as much of this is, there is a little bit of monotony here, since they're working variations on their signature themes, and they haven't found a way to make these variations either transcendent or new; they're just very good renditions on familiar themes. These tracks rarely betray their origins as studio jams - more than ever, it's possible to hear that the track came first, then the song - and while that can result in some good listening, it all does kind of drift together. That said, there are no bad tracks here - it's all of a relatively high quality - but there are no standouts either, so it takes a very dedicated fan to start sorting out the subtleties between the tracks (not the wheat from the chaff, since it's all wheat). And while those hardcore fans may certainly enjoy the make-your-own-adventure spirit of Stadium Arcadium, it's hard not to feel that it's the band's responsibility to take this very good repetitive album and mold it into something sharper and more effective. So call it the rock version of Peter Jackson's King Kong: there's something pretty great and lean buried beneath the excess, but it's so indulgent, it's a work that only a fanboy could truly love.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



Four-year career hiatuses followed by sprawling double-albums could spell trouble for a band of the Chili Peppers' stature: consider they'd originally recorded enough for three discs. The restless, trouble-plagued outfit that helped break alternative rock into the mainstream with a potent fusion of punk 'n' funk in the '80s finds itself two decades on almost completely devoid of the former's energetic abandon, while the latter's effusive rhythms are considerably subdued over the course of this two-hour, 28-track collection. It's not so much that the Peppers have lost their muscular, often uber-macho edge as they have willfully tamed it in service of mature reinvention here. The mellower, often introspective, if no less potent pop ethos that characterized the crossover hit "Under the Bridge" blossoms fully here on tracks like disc one's "Snow," "Wet Sand," and the jazz-cool of "Hey." The title track, "Desecration Smile," and "She Looks To Me" finds them venturing further into laid back pop ballad territory, while the tricky rhythms of "Dani California," "Charlie," and "So Much I" eventually kick into familiar top gear on the pop-savvy "Tell Me Baby" and hip-hop seasoned "Storm in a Teacup." It's not that there's a paucity of musical adventure here ("If" and "Animal Bar" finds them wafting into Floydish neo-psychedelia while "Make You Feel Better" seems to channel no less than Joe Jackson) but that it's delivered with a subtlety-and dare we say it?-tasteful musical restraint that's a stark contrast to the band's early, overly overt nature. There's perhaps too much mid-tempo simmering and reflection going on; like most double-albums it could be focused into a much more compelling single disc. But that seems largely beside the Peppers' hooks-over-histrionics point here: an unlikely record to kick back to, and one that both challenges assumptions and eases the band into middle age with an oft languorous, if undeniably savory groove.

Jerry McCulley - Amazon.com



Wenn man Anthony Kiedis’ kürzlich erschienene, arg selbstverliebte Sexdrugsrocknrollografie Scar Tissue gelesen hat (bzw., wie der Verfasser dieser Zeilen, gar übersetzen "durfte"), kommt man leicht in Versuchung, das neue, nach vierjähriger Pause entstandene Studioalbum erst mal aus Prinzip blöd finden zu wollen. Leider machen es einem die vier Berufskalifornier verdammt schwer, denn Stadium Arcadium macht einfach gute Laune - mit 28 sehr sehr guten Songs, die komplett ohne Füllmaterial daherkommen. Das Album ist im guten Sinne routiniert - aber nie langweilig. Und musikalisch werden die Peppers immer besser, man muss das so deutlich sagen. Gut, das ist alles gefällig, radiokompatibel und (von Rick Rubin) recht glatt durchproduziert. Und einige Riffs und Melodiebögen hat man so oder ähnlich schon mal gehört. Was soll’s, musikalische Resteverwerter waren die P-Funk-Crossmeister schon immer, gelegentlich sogar auf sehr originelle Weise. Mit dem Doppelschlag Stadium Arcadium bekennen sich die Ex-Sock’n’roller nun auch endlich dazu, eine Band für die breite Masse zu sein. Gut so! Nichts ist peinlicher als saturierte Millionäre, die in Riesenarenen auftreten und ihr rebellisches Indietum hervorkehren. Lieber vier in die Jahre gekommene Zappelphilippe, die vor Energie und Spielfreude sprühen und ihre Instrumente beherrschen (wozu immer noch auf beeindruckende Weise Kiedis’ Stimme zählt!), die von Rap bis Schweinerock jedes Genre drauf haben - und sich zum Glück doch nicht so ganz ernst nehmen wie man zuletzt befürchten konnte. Siehe das selbstparodistische Video zu "Dani California". Sogar eine neue Fortbewegungsart haben sie erfunden: "You try to be a lady, but you’re walkin’ like a sour kraut". Das möchte man dann doch zu gern live im Stadion sehen: Anthony Kiedis! , mit Socke über dem Gemächt, wie er den Sauerkraut-Walk macht! ...

Axel Henrici - Amazon.de



The Red Hot Chili Peppers unleash a two-CD set, Stadium Arcadium - a 28 track double album with discs entitled "Jupiter" and "Mars".

The band - Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith - entered the studio last March with producer Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, System Of A Down) to commence work upon the album in the same house in the Hollywood Hills where they recorded 1991’s groundbreaking, multi-platinum album BloodSugarSexMagik.

"We set out to write 13 songs," says Kiedis. "But as has been the case every time we've tried to do that, we ended up with 30-some-odd songs. The difference this time was we ended up liking all of those songs and finishing all of those songs, and it actually became a very difficult process to even whittle it down to 28."

"Every album we do, we try to have a concept and a sense of direction," Frusciante explains. "The most important idea for this album was movement." Smith elaborates, "Something new is constantly being introduced, in every chorus or verse, whether it's a backing vocal or a guitar part, a different rhythm or an unexpected style."

"The chemistry was in better order than in a long time," Kiedis told Spin earlier this year. "Everyone is frighteningly happy at the moment." Although he says he's again exploring "the dark and nefarious side of Los Angeles" in his lyrics, he clarifies, "but not in a judgmental sense," venturing, "It's all about the joy of dysfunction."

Kiedis says of the double album’s title: "I hope it means something different to everyone, but to me, in the chorus of the song Stadium Arcadium, I get the feeling of being off in the wilderness with a large group of people creating a huge light, playing music for those people and reflecting the love that's going on between us and them."

"I think we're aware that we're all vehicles of something much bigger than ourselves," Flea allows. "And we also know it's up to us to do the footwork to get in a position to receive all this energy flying around. Spirituality can be a pretty vague term, but each of us in our own way is interested in looking beyond what's directly in front of our face."

Stadium Arcadium is the ninth album from the Chili Peppers and the first since 2002's By The Way.

Warner Bros. Recordings


The band's ninth studio album is the most ambitious work of its twenty-three-year career - an attempt to consolidate everything that is Chili Peppers, from their earlier, funnier funk-metal stuff to soul-baring "Under the Bridge"-style balladry to Californicating vocal-harmony pop.... It's a late-career triumph that could pass for another, lesser group's greatest-hits collection.

Brian Hiatt - Rolling Stone



Stadium" is big, majestic and mature. It overflows with the kind of music the Chili Peppers do best: a physical, often psychedelic mix of spastic bass-slapped funk and glistening alt-rock spiritualism. Only they've never sounded this good as musicians.

Josh Kun - Los Angeles Times



[Grade: A-] [The Chilis] are not only at the top of their game on the CDs' 28 combined tracks (whittled down from 38), they burst through the roof.

Kevin Johnson - St. Louis Post-Dispatch



Coming 30 years into the Red Hot Chili Peppers saga, the barrier-defying double album Stadium Arcadium trades the usual sophomoric shock tactics for something truly surprising.. Here, the ultimate West Coast party band proves that the strategically placed tube socks are a thing of the past and that they deserve - gasp! - to be taken seriously. Thank guitarist John Frusciante, who's more of a presence here than usual, lacing songs like "Charlie" with dizzy, art-tastic guitar solos and pushing his fellow Peppers into heretofore unexplored territory, as on the Stereolab-on-steroids power drone "Animal Bar." There's a good bit of new ground covered here, primarily on the second disc, which is subtitled "Mars." On "21st Century," for instance, bassist Flea corrals his over-the-top funkateering, marshaling out the notes in a spare, angular style that's more reminiscent of Gang of Four than the Ohio Players. The set's first disc, a.k.a. "Jupiter," has more of a classic Chilis vibe, replete with purposefully goofy, rhythm-dominated odes to knockin' boots: Flea makes the most of the chance to grind his pelvis into the groove of "Bump Da Bump," while frontman Anthony Kiedis works his stream-of-consciousness mojo on the delirious "Especially in Michigan." The smattering of ballads here - relatively few compared to the band's most recent studio efforts - fall short of the emotional oomph of, say, "Under the Bridge." But when the Peppers get it right, as they do for most of Stadium Arcadium, they tickle and provoke, nudge and wink, and make it easy to tell 'em to hold on tight and don't let go.

David Sprague - Barnes & Noble


Rolling Stone (pp.225-226) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[Flea] finally cuts loose again here, reasserting himself as the best non-hip-hop reason to buy a subwoofer."
Rolling Stone (p.102) - Ranked #2 in Rolling Stone's "The Top 50 Albums Of 2006" - "[A] confessional and creative triumph."
Entertainment Weekly (p.79) - "John Frusciante lays down his sledgehammer riffs, Kiedis begins to actually sing the elegiac chorus, the golden harmonies of the bridge kick in, and by the end, you're blindsided by how great it all sounds." - Grade: B+
Q (p.126) - Ranked #4 in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums of 2006" - "[With] funk-rock rhythms, Californian harmonies and bittersweet themes."
Kerrang (Magazine) (p.47) - "There are hidden depths here, melodies that become more insistent and subtleties that reveal themselves from where they sit modestly beneath the surface."
Q (Magazine) (p.106) - 5 stars out of 5 - "[Frusciante] has brought a sense of experimentation to a band not renowned for dabbling with the unorthodox. It's testament to his new-found vocabulary that no two songs sound the same."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.110) - 4 stars out of 5 - "It's the sound of a band on a roll....The unbridled creativity here is a cause for celebration."


Early in the second hour of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' mammoth new double album, the guy who once yelped, "I want to party on your pussy!" whisper-sings a gentler, though not unrelated, proposition: "All I want is for you to be happy/And take this woman and make you my family." The delicate "Hard to Concentrate" is the most vulnerable Peppers tune ever - a full-on marriage proposal from Anthony Kiedis, with Flea's muted bass and John Frusciante's layered guitars slow-dancing over Afrobeat hand drums.

The twenty-eight-song, box-set-length Stadium Arcadium isn't a middle-aged concept album about trading in your tube sock for a tux. But the band's ninth studio album is the most ambitious work of its twenty-three-year career - an attempt to consolidate everything that is Chili Peppers, from their earlier, funnier funk-metal stuff to soul-baring "Under the Bridge"-style balladry to Californicating vocal-harmony pop. And unlike the Foo Fighters' similarly expansive but bloated double disc In Your Honor, and almost every other double album of the post-vinyl era, the band pulls it off. It's a late-career triumph that could pass for another, lesser group's greatest-hits collection.

Much of the credit for the album's depth - and the swelling, ever-morphing, headphone-candy arrangements that boost every track - goes to the band's not-so-secret weapon, John Frusciante. It's been clear since his return to the band on 1999's Californication that Frusciante came away from his near-fatal heroin addiction with new musical superpowers, and they're in full bloom on Stadium Arcadium. Take "Charlie," which sounds like a monochromatic "Give It Away" retread until it bursts into the rainbows of Frusciante's falsetto harmonies and dueling, simultaneous guitar solos. Also of note are the laser-gun funk riffing and nuclear-fuzz solo on the pulsing, supercatchy "Tell Me Baby" and the Art Garfunkel-like backup vocals on the eerie, droning ballad "If."

But like the Rolling Stones - another rhythm-conscious act who started by ripping off black music only to dig much deeper - the Red Hot Chili Peppers are a real band, where everybody counts and no one is replaceable (save for, perhaps, Bill Wyman). Flea has spent years whittling down his frantic popping and slapping to a Zen-like melodic minimalism, while melding ever more deeply with Chad Smith, who remains the swingingest rock drummer this side of Mitch Mitchell. But after 2002's By the Way, the band's least funky album, the bassist finally cuts loose again here, reasserting himself as the best non-hip-hop reason to buy a subwoofer. Flea's quacking, double-time lines on "21st Century" are a reminder that the Chili Peppers were recording Gang of Four-influenced dance rock back when Franz Ferdinand was just a dead Austrian. And then there's Kiedis, whose vocals keep improving at an age when many rockers start slipping their high notes to backup singers. He shows versatility throughout, from his dead-on impression of Jimi Hendrix (his biggest vocal influence) on "Hump de Bump" to a new country-rock growl on the chorus of the riff-o-rama track "Readymade." Kiedis is also, more or less, the inventor of rap rock, and he embraces his roots, dropping the most rhymes on any album since BloodSugarSexMagik. He hasn't updated his flow in a couple of decades, and most of his lyrics are still unrepentant nonsense ("Ticky ticky tackita tic tac toe/I know everybody's Eskimo"). But the very familiarity of the style makes it an appealing counterpoint to the band's latter-day melodic splendor, instead of a Durst-ian embarrassment.

Stadium Arcadium has too many midtempo tracks and, in the manner of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, is more of a summation of the Peppers' career than a step forward. But the band is still capable of surprises, as on one of the discs' many potential singles: the bouncy, four-chord "Make You Feel Better," a Sixties-influenced pop tune with Fifth Dimension harmonies and a Ringo Starr beat. A few songs later, Kiedis seems to confess some fears about the project at hand: "The risk, is it worth it?/The disc, is it perfect?" Perfect? Nah. But close enough.

BRIAN HIATT - May 3, 2006
Rolling Stone
 

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