Wednesday 5 May 2010

Oh Yeah, I Forgot That Was Great - No.2: Blood Sugar Sex Magik

The portable music listening device is a wonderful thing, especially now that you can carry around enough audio goodness to fill your ears for about 45 days straight without ever having to listen to the same thing twice. Which is all well and good if it weren't for the fact that, when confronted which such overwhelming luxury of choice, this fella's brain does in fact go into total lockdown and become crippled by the inability to choose. When coupled with the fact that I tend to get obsessive about songs/albums that I like and listen to them repeatedly until I'm sick to the back teeth of them, it tends to mean that there are a large number of sadly overlooked items of joy lurking about in the electronic hinterlands.

So it's always nice to have that sudden urge to listen to something you haven't heard for ages, find it readily available at your fingertips (or earholes, I guess, I don't listen with my fingers like some weird man-grasshopper hybrid*) and discover that you still love it as much as when you first used to listen to it.

The latest rediscovery? The album Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It wasn't their first album (they'd produced four more before that) but, to my mind, it's their finest. It's the first one that drew my attention to them and I was utterly obsessed with it from first listen onwards. Funky and rocky, melodic and shouty, emotional and puerile, it's a great mix that swings from slower, tuneful numbers like Breaking The Girl to the rock majesty of Give It Away and Suck My Kiss.

Sure, they produced some great tracks before and after and I'm sure someone more musically minded could come up with a good reason why some of their other albums might be better but this is the one that always gets me listening all the way through (and I always like it when you get to the end of a song and are starting to mentally play the first few bars of the next track in anticipation in your head). In conclusion then, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is good and I like it. More valuable insights next time.



*Yes, I know they hear through their knees but it;s the same sort of principle. As you were, biology police.


2 comments:

Irish Gumbo said...

Hmmm...perhaps that's why my knees hurt after listening to so music...

My favorite song by RHCP is probably their version of "Higher Ground", but I agree with you on the album. Good stuff.

That Baldy Fella said...

Yep, love Higher Ground, too, but the album it's on isn't as much of a "must listen" for me.