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Rating: "I'm a Freakey Styley and I'm proud" sang in a spaced-out way a rather crazy Anthony Kiedis in the title track of this album that seems to flow in slow motion...
The year is 1985 and the Peppers are coming from an album that flopped in terms of sales and EMI is not exactly happy (following the commercial failure of this album as well, they will be passed to EMI MANHATTAN), so they think it’s best to comply with the Peppers' requests: the father of funkadelia George Clinton is recruited!! Additionally, due to internal disputes, guitarist Jack Sherman leaves, and the long-time friend, as well as the original guitarist of the Red Hot, Hillel Slovak, returns.
At this point, the game seems set, it will surely be a vigorous funky rock album!! But no... Our guys feel completely free and Clinton helps them express the best of themselves (after all, that’s what he’s there for), so the messed-up lives of Kiedis & Co. come directly into contact with the listener. It’s not a funky album in the strict sense, it’s something that goes beyond narrow classifications, because as I said, freedom reigns in this record. It all starts with "Jungle Man" which is nothing but the super creative talented Flea (born Michael Balzary). Here, this track musically makes us understand what you will breathe in this album: oddity.
Anthony's voice is a mix between singing and rapping, the bass is pure slap, the guitar is an essential rhythmic background and Cliff Martinez's drumming is almost tribal at certain points. Odd, especially the intermezzo that seems to pop out of nowhere. Then it's time for "Hollywood" which is a cover of the Meters (the original is called "Africa") and it is nothing short of sparkling especially for Anthony's charisma and the horns that make it all appear very James Brown; but there’s something that breaks the harmony: the bass!!! Yes, folks, here the bass captures everyone's attention for that crazy little riff that is particularly highlighted in the volume balancing. Then there’s "American Ghost Dance" that summarizes the first and second tracks of the album giving a bit of movement that seems blocked by a barrier giving the sensation of rigidity, the bass riff is phenomenal nonetheless. In my opinion, these along with "Freaky Styley" and "Blackeyed Blondie" are the manifesto songs of the album.
This album strikes for the variety of genres offered, ranging from funky to rap, from speed rock ("Catholic School Girls Rule" and "Battle Ship") to nursery rhymes ("Thirty Dirty Birds"), which, however, are characterized by an indelible stamp of oddity that is due, one must admit, largely to the use of drugs. It’s an album that one may like or not but is extremely interesting and unusual.
These were the Red Hot Chili Peppers of the time, and I like them a lot.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Hollywood (05:03)
Take me back
Hold my hand
All the way back
To the brotherland
Take me back
I want to go back
Take me back
And my funky ass band
All the way back
To the broherland
Take me back
I want to go
As fast as I can
Slidin' on back
To the brotherland
Now children
Hollywood...
I want to get up and go
With my funky ass jams
All the way back
To the broherland
Take me back
I want to go back
Hollywood...
Where the women
Is the women
And the man
Is the man
I want to go
As fast as I can
Slidin' on back
To the brotherland
Now children
03 American Ghost Dance (03:45)
Oh give me a home
Where the buffalo roam
And the death of a race is a game
Where seldom is heard
A peacable word
From the white trash
Who killed as they came
Though these words dig deep
They offer no relief
God save the queen
I am an indian chief
There is a secret I keep
It's called the talking leaf
And you better believe
That he speaks his beliefs
Like a rock that bleeds
A sea of grief
My talking leaf speaks of
A wounded knee creek
American ghost dance...
A new man who is with old ways
He walks the streets of life
But he's in chains
I'm alive he cried
I can feel the flame
Burning red inside
I am an indian brave
There is a memory
That lives in my blood
Of the brand you laid
On all you touched
But the burning flame
Turns to burning pain
Genuine genocide
And that's truly insane
So like a wild hurricane
I will dance on the grave
Of my race that died
When it should have been saved
American ghost dance...
04 If You Want Me to Stay (04:07)
If you want me to stay
I'll be around today
To be available for you to see
I'm about to go there
Then you'll know
For me to stay here
I've got to be me
You'll never be in doubt
That's what it's all about
You can't take me for granted and smile
Count the days I'm gone
Forget reachin' me by phone
Cause I promise
I'll be gone for a while
And when you see me again
I hope that you have been
The kind of person
That you really are now
You got to get it straight
How could I ever be late
When you're my woman
Taking up my time
Oh how could I ever allow
I guess I wonder how
I could get out a pocket for fun
When you know that
You're never number two
Number one's gonna be number one
I'll be good
I wish I could
Get this message over to you now
When you see me again
I hope that you have been
The kind of person
That you really are now
I'll be so good
I wish I could
Get this message over to you now
Get this message over to you now
I'll be so good
I wish I could
05 Nevermind (02:48)
Nevermind the Pac Jam
Nevermind the Gap Band
Nevermind the Zap Band
Nevermind the Funk Scam
Cause we're
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Nevermind the English bands
Nevermind the Synth Funk bands
Nevermind the Wham Wham band
Nevermind Duran Duran
Cause we're
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Nevermind the Soft Cell shit
That's strictly for the twits
Nevermind the Men At Work
Those tunes are for the jerks
Cause we're
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Nevermind Hall and Oates
Those guys are a couple of goats
Nevermind the Culture Club
That jive's just one big flub
Cause we're
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
07 Blackeyed Blonde (02:40)
Pumpin' the blood through the heart of New Orleans
She's the mystic heat of the Bourbon street dream
She's just made out of flesh and bones
But let me tell you little boy
You better leave her alone
Leroy Brown thought he was bad too
Till she left him floatin' in the old bayou
She's the kind of girl
She's built like a bomb
She's the blackeyed blackeyed
Blackeyed blonde, get down!
That blackeyed beauty with the golden crotch
French electric sex a cock shocking swamp fox
Heaten queen of sleeze she's hot to box
But let me tell you little boy
She'll clean your clock
A slick and sly spy
Stuck in the muck of the moat
Blew his mind to find a diamond in the boat
Double-o-dooms day for Mr James Bond
She's the blackeyed blackeyed
Blackeyed blonde, get down!
09 Battle Ship (01:53)
Three miles off the coast of Beirut
New Jersey's guns get ready to shoot
Take a walk down the firing room
Fire one it's shakedown cruise
Battleship, Battleship
See the sailor boys dressed in blue
Cheer the chance to make the news
Send the shell down the spiral groove
Bombs away it's a shakedown cruise Yeah
Battleship, Battleship
10 Lovin' and Touchin' (00:36)
Loving and touching and
Laughing and Squeezing and
Walking and Joking and
Smiling and Teasing
Loving and kissing and
Rubbing and scrubbing and
Styling and slumming and
Rolling and cumming
I'll hold you a lifetime
I'll love you forever
I'll make you my wife and
I'll never forget you
I'll give you my smile
On the face of your child
I will give you my love
I will give you my love
Loving and touching and
Loving and touching and
Loving and touching and
Loving and touching and
love.
13 Thirty Dirty Birds (00:14)
Thirty dirty birds
Sitting on a curb
Chirping and Burping
And eating
Dirty earthworms
Along comes Herbie
From thirty-third
And third
Saw the thirty
Dirty birds
Sitting on a curb
Chirping and Burping
And eating
Dirty earthworms
Boy he was
Disturbed
14 Yertle the Turtle (03:37)
On a far away island
of Salamasond
Yertle the turtle
Was king of the pond
A nice little pond
It was clean it was neat
The water was warm
There was plenty to eat
Until one day
The king of them all
Decided the kingdom
He ruled was too small
I'm a ruler of all that I see
But I don't see enough
And that's the trouble with me
With this stone for a throne
I am too low down
I cannot look down
Upon the places beyond
So Yertle the turtle king
Lifted his hand
And Yertle the turtle king
Lifted his hand
He ordered all the turtles
Onto one another's back
He piled them high
Into a ten turtle stack
I'm Yertle the turtle
The things I now rule
I'm king of a cow
I'm king of a mule
Then down from below
In the great turtle stack
Came a burp from a plain
Little turtle named Mack
Just part of the throne
This burpin' little turtle
Looked up and said "I beg
Your pardon king Yertle"
I've pains in my back
My shoulders and my knees
How long must we stand
Here your majesty
"Silence !" the king of the
Turtles barked back
To the bad burpin'
Little turtle named Mack
I'm Yertle the turtle
Oh marvelous me for
I am ruler of all that I see
Yertle, Yertle the turtle...
Yertle, Yertle the turtle...
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Other reviews
By SiRpSiChOsExY89
"Freaky Styley is undoubtedly the funkiest album by the Californian band."
"Hillel Slovak on guitar has given the Peppers’ sound an unmistakable mark, and the creativity and guitar riffs make the album a good funky work."
