Album of the weekend

Red Hot Chili Peppers-Californication

Some bands try to be reborn or change styles and it fails (think Kiss with Music from the Elder). Some bands stick with the same sound and it gets stale after awhile. You can't force a band to go from frat-boy party rock to a deep album dealing with topics like regret, innocence lost, addiction and loss. No one forced the Red Hot Chili Peppers to do an album like this, but they did and it came out fantastic.

The Chili Peppers were just that-a frat boy party band that only occasionally had a deeper, more introspective song like "Under the Bridge", and that wasn't until Blood Sugar Sex Magic-one of their later albums. Californication is filled with songs that really make you think-we aren't talking Bob Dylan here but I didn't think Anthony Kiedis had the ability to write songs like this. There is nothing wrong with being a party band and the Chili Peppers did it quite well-but they proved their emotional maturity with this album. From what little I know about the lifestyles of members of the band it's fairly auto-biographical as well. This is one of the rare times bands changed their styles and sound and it came out successful.