Red Hot Chili Peppers – discography
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Original Release Date: 1991
Produced by: Rick Rubin
Tracks:
- The Power Of Equality
- If You Have To Ask*
- Breaking The Girl*
- Funky Monks
- Suck My Kiss*
- I Could Have Lied
- Mellowship Slinky in B Major
- The Righteous and The Wicked
- Give It Away*
- Blood Sugar Sex Magik
- Under The Bridge*
- Naked In The Rain
- Apache Rose Peacock
- The Greeting Song
- My Lovely Man
- Sir Psycho Sexy
- They’re Red Hot
(* marks the tracks released as singles)
Review
Blood Sugar Sex Magik, produced by Rick Rubin in 1991, is without doubt the best Red Hot Chili Peppers’ album. From their origins they have been streaming upwards, progressing and developing, both musically and personally, which resulted in recording this masterpiece. This was when the band really started recognizing and taking advantage of that special chemistry and energy they had when creating music together. The sound is not as overpowering as in Mother’s Milk; there was no more heavy guitar riffs which was leaving room for experimenting with some different, more melodic sounds, that Frusciante desperately wanted to integrate in their music, and more emotional lyrics.
Overall, these 17 tracks, written at a more rapid pace than the bands’ previous album, are energetic, aggressive, powerful, but at the same time as emotional as ever before. Blood Sugar Sex Magik is starting with The Power of Equality – a song about racial equality and prejudice, followed by more sensitive songs about the emotional side of a failed relationship Breaking The Girl, I Could Have Lied and touching Anthony’s drug addiction problems and loneliness in Under The Bridge, thus lyrically covering a wide range of different topics. Every single song on this album deserves to be separately described and reviewed, but for now, I can’t help mentioning a ‘sexual eruption’ of Suck My Kiss, and maybe my all time favorite song Give It Away. For the first time in their career, in Blood Sugar Sex Magik the band included soft, fragile songs, ballads even, and even though it is not what Anthony is doing the best as a vocalist, these few tracks serve as a proof of the bands’ musical and emotional range. Although Anthony was apprehensive about including Under The Bridge at first, believing the lyrics were too soft and unlike the bands’ style, Rick Rubin convinced him the opposite, and did the right thing as the song peaked high on charts – as high as #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
However, being ‘on top of the world’ as this album was well received by critics and the audience, didn’t really fit Frusciante’s character as he decided to leave the band. It was the most horrible show ever. Every single note, every single word, hurt, knowing that we were no longer a band. I kept looking over at John and seeing this dead statue of disdain – said Anthony Kiedis about the last show they played together…
