Red Hot Chili Peppers
Blood Sugar Sex Magik

THE REVIEW

These days, with nothing to do, I started rummaging through the endless piles of records invading my room, and who do I come across? The Red Hot! I laughed a lot listening to them again, thinking back to my childhood... This is the first rock band I discovered, and for which I felt a particular affection: at the age of twelve, I always went around with my Walkman and my cassette of “Californication” (the album that introduced me to them), which over time I have increasingly reevaluated negatively. Yes, because, one fine day a couple of years later, I ended up in a record store in Bologna and decided to buy another album by the Red Hot Peppers. In the midst of total indecision, it was the salesman who illuminated my path, recommending “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” the album by the Red Hot, which I had never heard before.

After the first listen, I immediately fell in love with this album, and I listened to nothing else for at least a year before starting to expand my knowledge to other genres. Any comment is meaningless in describing the '90s FunkRock pillar. No doubt, this album is an absolute must-have. For a proper listen, and I say this especially to the newer fans, I advise you to completely erase from your minds everything about “Californication” and “By The Way,” or at least try to compare just the furious intro of “Suck My Kiss,” my favorite track, with any song from the other two albums, to realize the change (for the worse) that has characterized the Chili Peppers, increasingly driven towards commercial hits and chart-friendly tunes. “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” also contains two other gems from the RHCP discography, namely “Under The Bridge,” one of the most beautiful rock songs of the '90s, which has an incredibly captivating power, and “Give It Away,” a Grammy-winning song that with its chorus quickly became a worldwide hit (that’s the one they play at Moe's Tavern when they guest-star in The Simpsons).

Great tracks also include “Breaking The Girl,” “Sir Psycho Sexy,” “I Could Have Lied,” and the excellent title track. Surely, in my feared report cards (which Paolo Ziliani can't touch), I rate Flea as the “Man of the match,” who takes the center stage with his bass and blows everyone away with some simply divine compositions. I also like Anthony a lot, who perfectly interprets all the songs with his very peculiar voice. A great performance also from Chad on drums and my dear John Frusciante on guitar, who for some mysterious reason has always been a bit annoying to me. In conclusion, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the early Red Hot, who alone made a fortune out of a musical genre that, in my opinion, is now dead and buried.