Product Description

Ninth studio album from phenomenally successful stadium funk-rockers is a sprawling two-disc affair. Leaving behind theboyish tomfoolery and hard-living excess of old for tasteful musicianship and a gloss of studio sheen, here they turn in more of the effortlessly slick songwriting they presented on their last couple of albums. Recorded with metal legend Rick Rubin, it includes the single 'Dani California'.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Dani California
2. Snow (Hey Oh)
3. Charlie
4. Stadium Arcadium
5. Hump de Bump
6. She's Only 18
7. Slow Cheetah
8. Torture Me
9. Strip My Mind
10. Especially in Michigan
11. Warlocks
12. C'mon Girl
13. Wet Sand
14. Hey

Disc 2:

1. Desecration Smile
2. Tell Me Baby
3. Hard to Concentrate
4. 21st Century
5. She Looks to Me
6. Readymade
7. If
8. Make You Feel Better
9. Animal Bar
10. So Much I
11. Storm in a Teacup
12. We Believe
13. Turn It Again
14. Death of a Martian

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1031 in Music
• Released on: 2006-05-08
• Number of discs: 2

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

From the Label
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.

Customer Reviews

Music as it should be
If you have a turntable this is a modern classic, both musically and sonically. I bought the cheaper of the two vinyl versions and I must admit it was worth every penny. The sudden openness to the sound, the increased clarity and tautness of the instruments is amazing.
The quality of the recording and the dynamics just breathes new life into the music. It also shows what increasable musicians the Chilli's are. You will not want to touch the CD again after listening to this. Also the double gate fold sleeves with quality printing and a hard box outer really make this exceptional value for money. If I could give it 6 stars I would.
One down side no antistatic record sleeves.

They reach high... and fail
Those of us old enough to remember vinyl know that a double album meant 80 minutes of music - which was enough to get you spat at by punk rockers, often with good reason. So a double CD is the equivalent of a quadruple vinyl album. Not even Yes dared to do that. They'd have been lynched.

If you're going to unleash that amount of music in one go, you'd better be saying something pretty special. And the Red Hot Chilli Peppers simply aren't. I suspect they looked at the Smashing Pumpkins' extraordinary double CD "Mellon Collie..." from ten years earlier and decided that their status as this decade's top alternative band demanded a similar gesture. In so doing, they have badly overreached themselves.

Unlike Smashing Pumpkins (and I hasten to add that I'm a fan of both bands), the Chilis don't have a huge variety of texture. They have three basic song templates, and they don't seem to realise that making a double album requires them to do something extra with the format, rather than simply delivering twice as much of the same product.

Instead, you get a decent Chilis song, then another, then another, then another, etc, etc. Then, if you want, you can put the next CD on for more of the same. Rather than excitement, the effect on the listener is progressive numbness.

Instead of pushing their limits, with Stadium Arcadium the Red Hot Chili Peppers have defined those limits for all to see, emerging as something less than the band we thought they were.

Invest time in this album & you will reap the rewards
By The Way was always going to be a hard act to follow and Red Hot Chili Peppers have responded to the massive success of their previous album by releasing a huge 28-track double album which combines some of the best aspects of their three most successful albums and, although there is nothing on this album which you could pinpoint as a progression as such, it is a release of high quality and integrity - and it's very good indeed, even though it takes a number of listens to really absorb all of the songs. On the first few listens, this release lacks identity in places, but repeated plays rewards the listener by revealing Stadium Arcadium as an album with many layers and hidden charms.

The album belongs to John Frusciante - his superb guitar work dominates the whole of Stadium Arcadium which, with the exception of one or two tracks, is largely excellent, but the RHCP band dynamic is unmistakeable and delivers, on all counts, everything you'd expect from a Red Hot Chili Peppers album. A reasonable question would be to ask whether they could have released a world-beating single album instead of this rather long and varied double disc collection and the answer is probably yes... but I rather like being able to listen to this album repeatedly and to be able to get something new from it every time. It has greater longevity as a double and allows the freedom to express their perhaps less-commercial aspirations and some downright silliness, an unmistakeable, irrepressible and ever-present characteristic of the Chilis. This isn't the best album they've ever produced, but it isn't far behind it.

It's almost worth buying just for 'Wet Sand', one of their finest moments ever.