Red Hot Chili Peppers – Stadium Arcadium
EMI – out 8 May 2006

if there’s anything more mystifying in the modern rock world than the fawning adulation afforded the red hot chili peppers
then this writer doesn’t know about it
if there’s any band capable of continually rewriting the same two songs
– the punk-funk one and the ballady rock one –
over and over without getting caught short
then this writer hasn’t heard of them
if there’s a gurning frontman out there that ‘raps’ in a more irritating frat-boy hiccupping manner than anthony kiedis
this writer has been lucky enough not to witness it
and if there’s any record released this month that is more dull than a double album
– that’s 28 songs –
of hiccupping punk-funk, ballady rock,
almost exclusively obsessed with Cali-fucking-fornia
then i’d rather not know about it, thank you very much
incidentally, flea, i downloaded my copy of Stadium Arcadium
i can assure you the audio quality was just fine
it’s the quality of the songs that you should be worrying about