Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Would be four if not so long. Great album though.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik is a total nostalgia trip that pretty much defines the early '90s funk rock scene. The band is absolutely on fire here, Flea, Frusciante, and Smith are laying down these incredible, tight grooves that sound amazing, and even though 1991 was packed with heavy grunge, this album brought a fun, different energy that totally stands out. Classics like "Under the Bridge" and "Give It Away" show exactly why this record blew up.

That said, trying to get through the full 74 minutes is a bit of a marathon these days. The album definitely suffers from being a bit too long, and let's be real, Kiedis’s juvenile lyrics and awkward rapping haven't aged well at all.

Flea really outperforms the rest of the band here, why is a professional jamming out with some high school band? I don't really hear the Metal in Funk Metal here. The album is unnecessarily long as well, victim of the CD era. The hits are ok and some deepcuts are alright and a lot of it is ranging from fine to mediocre. Sounds like I hate it, but it wasn't all that bad.

A heavy funk sound with sprinkles of ballads and between. If there was ever a term called “frat-funk” this album might be it. It comes off as juvenile rather than sensual to me.

I can get behind the sound but it’s tiring like 30/40 minutes after that. I think the past few albums so far in this challenge have me stretching my attention span or seeing where it lies.

My roommates in college were both massive fans of Red Hot Chili Peppers—they would talk about their favorite guitarists, and refer to the band members by their first names, as if they were friends. They had a reverence for their musicianship, their songwriting, their ethos. Of course, I've always known RHCP, and have always liked them, but despite being in a prime demographic for loving Red Hot Chili Peppers, I've never been able to QUITE get into them. That remains true after listening to Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

I think it really comes down to Anthony Kiedis. Flea is an iconic bassist, John Frusciante's melodic guitar writing is stellar, and Chad Smith's such a skilled and charming drummer, that I can't help but like him. But Anthony Kiedis doesn't really bring anything to the table for me. At his best, he's a serviceable singer with a limited range. At his worst, he's a fuck boy rapper without the flow or charisma to pull it off convincingly.

But, all this said, there's no denying that there is a lot to love about this record, even if I don't personally love it. Rick Rubin is at his best as a producer here, and the band were really pushing their own creativity, sometimes to great effect.

I enjoyed this more than I thought. I was going to give it a 4. Then, I was thinking. Flea and Chad Smith seem like OK guys. What about the rest of the band?

-1

Yeah, idk.
It was pretty fun to listen to while playing some racing games, but it's just soo background music. It's too long, and the best part of it is probably Rick Rubin. Or flea.

😛😛😛

feels like it's stuck in time of a 13 year old edge fase

De hävdar väl att de är funkiga. Men varför svängt det inte då? Rytmsektionen är rejält undermålig (fruktansvärt tråkigt trummspel). Sånginsatserna är meningslösa. Samtidigt, vi har hört betydligt sämre alster inom eller i närliggande genres. Hjälper det då? Så klart inte. När de dessutom håller på i en hel evighet utan någon som helst variation zoomar jag ut och drömmer hoppfullt om morgondagens album.

As an RHCP fan, you can imagine how excited I was to get this! And this album is just as good now as it was. Pure dopamine and joy and also such emotional depth, which RHCP was always strong at underneath it all. Love love love them for life!

Its a fine album not the best from the peppers. Its just a lot of the same and it gets boring fats except for under the bridge of course that song carries the whole album.

John Frusciante coming into his own is really what elevates this material, and both Flea and Chad Smith are incredible musicians. But I don't connect with the the Kiedis scat-rap antics, songwriting and early funk dna like I did growing up. That made the majority of this album more grating and skippable than I was expecting upon revisit, so can't give this a great score. But it's not a 3 of mediocrity, it's a 3 of high highs and low lows.

I went into this thinking I’d prefer it to their overplayed later stuff but, although I still enjoyed it, I found a lot of it irritating. Especially the vocals. They did have an original sound at the time though.

1 hour 15! Why!

If I was going to pick one Red Hot chili peppers album to try to listen to it would have been this one. But given how much I hated californication when that came up a couple of months ago I didn’t have high hopes. I was pleased surprised though. Chad, flea and John get to shine on this one and even Anthony is at his least unbearable (still unbearable though).

I think there’s probably a 40 minute album in here that would get 4 stars from me. But as it is it’s a generous 3 stars.

5 great songs, 12 skips.

I love Under the Bridge. It alone almost made this a 4 star album, but it was just too long. With too much that was just alright.

Definitely overhated, but I can kinda see why

A lot of good songs on here that got my head bopping straight away, but this album is a bit of a slog. I probably could’ve been temped to give this a 4 if it ended after Under the Bridge

3.5

I guess I didn’t know what Red Hot Chili Peppers really sounded like? I’m not quite sure how that happened.

Unlistenable to be honest. I liked one track but then I went back and listened afterwards and I felt regret for even enjoying that