Customer Reviews

One Hot Minute

5 star:		(100)
4 star:		(55)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

For best Chili's cd. The two are also in my top ten albums of all time. This is the darkhorse of the Chili's album catalogue and seems to be the one that no one likes. I really don't see why. First of all, contrary to popular belief, Dave Navarro is an absolutely amazing guitarist. However, he gets bashed on because he's not John Frusciante. Why? No one cared that Frusciante wasn't Hillel Slovak! Secondly, people complain that this cd is too repetitive. Why?! This is perhaps one of the most diverse cds the Peppers have ever created. Flea sings on some songs including a solo piece. A New guitar player. Music borrowed from almost every genre and capitalized on. This cd spans alternative ( Aeroplane, Deep Kick), Metal (Coffee Shop, Warped), Modern Rock ( My Friends) Experimentation (Pea, Walkabout) and thats only like half the cd! This cd takes you on a musical journey and is lushly diverse from start to finish. If only they would've kept Dave for even one more album, that would have been incredible. But this is perhaps the Chilis at their creative peak, save BSSM. Absolutely essential listening.

Ragging on this album just because of Dave Navarro's presence is unwarranted. Face it: The Chili Peppers have seen various different guitarists in their albums, and each compliments Flea's bass and Kiedis' vocals in a suitable manner. Navarro just happened to be heavier.

This album IS, in my a opinion, a strange detour from the line of continuity that the Chili Peppers had been following. The first album was patchy funk affair nurtured under the hollow production imposed by GoF's Andy Gill. The second album saw a lazy, fun sort of funk come to the fore under the auspices of George Clinton. With "The Uplift Mofo Party Plan," there was a move towards trebly funk rock. 1989's "Mother's Milk" was a great blend of powerful funk rhythms and massive guitar overdubs. The sound was rather balanced by the sheer intensity of it all, and the production made it all enjoyable. The next album, "Blood Sugar Sex Magik," brough the production back to a more stable level. It was here where the care-free funk and the unique guitar work were allowed to flourish in their own manner. And the results were great.

But "One Hot Minute" sees the production values take an abrupt dark shift. The general atmosphere of the album is one of hazy psychedelia meshed with overly dark sensibilities. Songs like Warped, Deep Kick and the title track best exhibit this foray into the dark side. The psychedelia comes to the fore on both the funky numbers (Walkabout, Falling into Grace) and poppier tracks like Airplane. Both of these types of songs inhabit a barely lucid realm that's totally different from the band-in-a-room sound on the previous album. Sometimes, the darkness and the psych can both manifest themselves within the confines of a particular song. All of this can be rather unsettling for those accustomed to a funky, happy-go-lucky sort of juvenile sound.

The songs themselves are much more difficult to swallow than the tracks on previous albums. Those albums had a lot of filler and throwaway tracks, while all of BSSM could be enjoyably absorbed in a single sitting. With "One Hot Minute," however, the overbearing heavyness makes it hard to listen to the album over and over. Navarro's guitar sound is just too heavy in many ways, and it drowns our Flea's characteristic bass in many instances. The vocals on the tracks rely more on attitude than content (as always with Kiedis), but there's a certain straightforward approach here that stands in contrast with the more playful mannerisms of previous album. The various songs can be instantly catchy or tough to assimiliate, but very few are actually terrible. For instance, the title track descents into unnecessary repetition which just hurts its value in the end. But, for the most part, the tracks are all quite solid in their own right.

This album seems to head down a direction that defies the route that the Chili Peppers seemed to have been following. The production and the songs, coupled with the heavier guitar sound and vocal approach, made it tough to stomach this piece of work. In retrospect, however, it manages to stand on its own quite well. It's not a dud; it's just an odd digression that will take some time to reconcile and appreciate.

One Hot Minute may be the Red Hot Chili Peppers most puzzling release, but at the same time, it is their most skilled album, which is pretty much why many people did not like it. That, and of course the John Frusciante bias.

Deviating from the John Frusciante melodies of 1989's Mother's Milk and 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the Dave Navarro era of the Red Hot Chili Peppers focused mainly on song movement, skill, rhythm and power.

Unlike the rest of the Red Hot Chili Peppers catalogue, melodies on this album is all but non-existent, and all four members from Anthony Kiedis' vocals, to Flea's textured bass, to Navarro's surging guitar, and Chad Smith's well timed drumming strove more to create more driving rhythms based in psyhedelia ("Aeroplane", "Transcending", "Tearjerker", "My Friends"), blues (Flea's solo "Pea"), funk ("Shallow Be Thy Game", "Aeroplane", "Falling Into Grace", and "Deep Kick"), jazz ("Walkabout"), and metal ("One Big Mob", "Transcending", "One Hot Minute", and "Coffee Shop"). However, at times efforts floundered and some of the songs, most notably "One Big Mob" and the title track, end up much longer than needed. Nonetheless, One Hot Minute is a rather cohesive album.

As for the chemistry issues people always claim, the fact those criticisms draw mainly Navarro's entry into the band being compared to Frusciante's entry is highly unfair. Frusciante was well familiar with previous guitarist Hillel Slovak and took after him quite a bit (as you hear on Mother's Milk) as for Navarro he did not draw on much from his predecessor, but from his days with Jane's Addiction.

So in closing, if you want to look at it in terms of songwriting, it may be not as good as its predecessor, but understand, this was Navarro's first and only time with the band and he did not do much to be like Frusciante. If you want to look at this in terms of skill, riffs, and power, than this probably has the best out of all of the Red Hot Chili Peppers albums.

KEY TRACKS: "Aeroplane", "Warped", "Coffee Shop", "Shallow Be Thy Game", "Transcending", "Falling Into Grace", and "Walkabout".

I was excited when I first heard that Dave Navarro was joining the Chili Peppers. It seemed like a dream-team fusion of two of my favourite bands. I hoped that this new entity would be 3/4 Chili and 1/4 Jane. Unfortunately what surfaced was more 3/4 Jane and 1/4 Chili. Now, this compound was wonderful when Flea joined Perry, Dave, and Stephen for a late-'90's Jane's reunion. His funky bass was a great addition to that mix. But it doesn't work here, for several reasons.

First, the Chili rhythm section is wasted as a quasi-metal outfit. Jane's was great at that, deconstructing the power-chord to the point where it resembled art. But Flea and (drummer) Chad Smith, while occasionally high energy and hard hitting, are at their best in plush polyrhythms. Former (and now current) guitarist John Frusciante fit in perfectly in this regard. But Navarro, a great textural guitarist, is not usually counted on to carry a groove ("Stop!" notwithstanding). I should have known trouble was a-brewing when in pre-release publicity interviews, Dave professed a profound distaste for funk. Oh no! He does give it the old college try. Listen to his laid back staccato rhythms on "Aeroplane", or the jazzy wah-wah work in the addictive "Walkabout". But for the rest of the record, he just doesn't seem willing to try any more of these compromises.

Second, Anthony Kiedis is no Perry Farrell. That's not a slight, mind you. Anthony does what he does better than anyone else. He can deliver simple soulful singing on one song, and credible party rapping on others. But he doesn't have the vocal chops to do what Perry Farrell does. Perry's voice is an ethereal instrument, and his melodic phrasing is always unexpected. Anthony tries to emulate those qualities here ("Warped", "Deep Kick", "Shallow Be Thy Game"), but it's just not in him. This even leaks into the songs of conventional melody. There are specific points in both "Tearjerker" and "Transcending" where he's unsure of how to phrase his lyrics. He seems uncomfortable throughout the whole record.

There are some great moments here, though. "Aeroplane" is an ecstatic song, held together by a wicked Flea groove. The acoustic guitar from 'BloodSugarSexMagik's "Breaking the Girl" makes a welcome return on "My Friends". "Tearjerker" is a touching profession of love (to Kurt Cobain, I believe). As I said before, "Walkabout" is an interesting, funky workout for all involved. It's probably my favourite track here. And "Transcending" is mostly beautiful. It begins with a spiraling bass line, and has some nice overlapping vocals in the middle section. But it breaks down during the coda; an off-putting right turn into metal riffing.

I love the Chilis. I'm glad John is back with the band. I now know that the Dave experiment was a tad misguided, a case of friends not meshing musically. However, I do enjoy most of this album. If anything, it's an interesting experiment. One that produces some fine moments, but others that just don't work.

Many people slag down RHCP's 1995 album because it interrupts the chemistry between the band's now-classic lineup of Flea, Anthony Keidis, John Frusciante, and Chad Smith, replacing heroin-addled guitarist Frusciante with former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. It's true---this album doesn't hold the same sense of fun and musical kinship that Mother's Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik did. However, One Hot Minute is certainly no slouch in the great Chili Peppers legacy. Though gone is the bombastic funk that made the sock-sporting Red Hots infamously raucous and the apple of George Clinton's eye, One Hot Minute takes Dave's hard-rock roots and puts them to good use, crafting a whole album of great, trippy, dark rock songs. There's the gloomy "Deep Kick," made distinguishable via its weird spoken-word intro; the moving Kurt Cobain ode "Tearjerker"; the weird, dark funk-rock ebb and flow of "One Big Mob"; and the acoustic-based, gorgeous balladry of "My Friends". "Warped" and the title track ultimately go nowhere, but "Aeroplane" is a ridiculously fun romp and Flea's solo piece "Pea" will have you in stitches.

With Dave Navarro at the guitar helm, "One Hot Minute" is the one Chili Peppers album that is much different than the rest. Here, there is a guitar-driven alterna-rock band that put together a great batch of songs, yet except for Anthony's distinctive vocals, it's hard to tell these guys from a lot ot bands who put out great albums in the '90's. This is a minor complaint, though, because when it all comes down to it, it's the songs that matter, and OHM has plenty of good ones. "Aeroplane", "My Friends", and "Tearjerker" are midtempo pop-rock tracks that go down smooth, and "Warped", "Coffee Shop", and "One Big Mob" are aggressive harder rock that shows us all why these guys are so influential today. "Pea", Flea's short, bass-driven vocal attack holds its own; "Transcending", a tribute to River Phoenix, is a heartfelt number that is a good closer; "Deep Kick" is a great epic spoken-word/hard rocker where Anthony tells the story of him and Flea growing up with a sweet outro by Flea; "Shallow Be Thy Game" is the kind of funk-rock we've all come to expect from these guys, and "Walkabout", my favorite cut on here, is a fun little number with great guitar parts, and interesting lyrics with a slight outback theme. There really aren't any weak tracks on here, it's all quite good, and that's reason enough to check this album out, even though it doesn't always sound like the guys who brought us "Mother's Milk". It's a new direction, and it's a good indication of where they went with "Californication", a nice mix of all of the styles they have explored.

I must admit, I like the Chili Peppers a lot more with John than I did with Dave Navarro, but in it's own right, this is an incredible album. It contains some interesting twists in the Chili Peppers' sound. There are more rock, guitar driven songs on here than on other Chili Peppers albums, due to Dave's style. A must buy for any Red Hot Chili Peppers fan.

This might not have been the greatest of their albums, but it's defenitely not a bad album at all. I actually think that "One Hot Minute" is a near great album. One big change was that guitarist John Frusciante had left and was replaced by Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction, musically this album wasn't perhaps as hard as the previous albums either, Infact many of the hits here were rather slow or midtempo songs. A new direction perhaps, but we've seen the Peppers changing style later on aswell and it still sounds cool and fresh in my honest oppinion.

"Shallow Be Thy Game" and "One Big Mob" sound like old-school peppers. "Warped" is heavy metal with fast riffs, perhaps under the influence of Navarro, same with "Coffea Shop" and "One Hot Minute". "Aeroplane" a big single hit is a catchy rocky midtempo song. "My Friends" is slow and beautiful aswell. Another big hit. "Walkabout" is very funky, just like in old days. "Tearjerker" could have been a chillout song, cause it's a slow, touching ballad. "Transdending" is a midtempo song and a good closer, got some very nice riffs aswell.

This album may not sound like the old days but it got alot of diffrent influents, few songs sound alike and it got absolutely no fillers. Not liked but die hard peppers fans but very underrated full of interesting songs. Recommended.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band that means so much to me. I've only been listening to their music as a fan for the past two and a half years, since I bought "By The Way" in January 2003, but in that time they have easily become my all-time favourite band. There's something about the music they make, coupled with Anthony Kiedis' voice that sends me to a special place. I know this might sound stupid, but I used to listen to their albums when I played Grand Theft Auto on my PlayStation 2, and I think something about that combination of music with something visual brought out the true beauty of the music. Yeah, it sounds strange, that a video game would make me realise this.

Four years had passed from 1991's breakthrough classic "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" and 1995's "One Hot Minute." The popularity of the band had waned somewhat, but the expectation for new material was still very high. John Frusciante had departed the band in between the release of both these albums, and Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro stepped up to fill his shoes. Fans were a bit disappointed, which has resulted in this album receiving harsh reviews. I personally really like this album. It's different to their other albums, which is not always a bad thing: variety is what keeps a band fresh. Navarro left the band in 1997 after "creative differences," and I'll be the first to admit it was better when John came back for 1999's "Californication."

The album opens with the heavy rock anthem "Warped." This song begins as though it is miles away with a drum beat travelling faster and faster to your ears. Kiedis' vocals are warped to give a distorted effect before the guitars and drums storm in after 46 seconds. The beat in this track is so heavy and travels like a tidal wave through the entire length of the song. The chorus is powerful and makes for a great driving anthem! "Aeroplane" is the album's lead single and one of the best songs that they have ever done! The tranquil intro soon turns into a VERY funky piece of rock. The guitar in this song is amazing and although the lyrics are rather meaningless, Kiedis' vocal delivery is beautiful. "Deep Kick" is the longest song on the album, and begins with a very long spoken intro. It's a poem really, and I think it works quite well. I'm just not too fond of the actual song once the music kicks in. "My Friends" is a beautiful ballad. Anthony serves up a very nice vocal delivery here, with the band harmonising to great effect. The song is quite sad and emotional as Kiedis' sings about how much his friends mean to him.

"Coffee Shop" is quite a short song that a lot of people hate. However, I adore it, I can't get enough! Yes, it's a bit outrageous and crazy, but that's what makes it so wonderful. Kiedis' vocals are just hilarious on this track, and the way they change at the end of each line has me in giggles every time I hear it! "Pea" is Flea's solo song that I think is quite underrated! Okay, this song is pretty bad, but the message is great. I love the way Flea takes down a big, tough, macho homophobe in just a few lines! "One Big Mob" is a song that I'm only rather partial to. It's not great, but then it's not that bad either. It begins very heavily with lots of manly chanting! I think this sounds great, then for the song to slow down and become really peaceful, only to fire up again towards the end makes for a wonderfully arranged piece, quite different to the other songs on the album. "Walkabout" begins with some great guitar work, before slowing down and transforming into a really nice ballad. The guitars and drums are still present in the background, but Kiedis' vocals make for a very cool chillout track. "Tearjerker" is one of the best songs on the album. It's quite a nice ballad with some great guitar work that creates a relaxing atmosphere. The lyrics in this song make love seem so simple and get down to the basics of how Kiedis is feeling. He bares his soul here, and the chorus is a revelation.

The album title track, "One Hot Minute," is a bit overblown in my opinion. It starts off quite well, but I think the guitars and vocals don't quite work well together in this song. Still not a bad effort though. "Falling Into Grace" opens with some weird, guttural noises and is quite funky in its approach. I like the chorus with Kiedis' vocals in an almost falsetto style. He's also backed up beautifully by the female backing vocals of Kristen Vigard, who helps to harmonise the melody of the vocal arrangement. "Shallow Be Thy Game" begins with drums that get louder and louder as the seconds progress. Suddenly, it's easy to see where the intro to "Can't Stop" may have come from! "Transcending" closes the album out after 13 songs, and is a tribute from the band to the late River Phoenix. The bass and guitar line work in perfect synchronicity in this gorgeous song, before it speeds up and gets louder to play out a great ending to sixty red hot minutes.

OVERALL GRADE: 9/10

This album isn't perfect, but then not many are. A lot of people who are supposedly long-time Chili Peppers fans don't like their new sound, as expressed on "By The Way." This is the album that got me into the band though, so I can hardly say I dislike it. By starting from their more recent material, I've worked back in time with their albums, listening to their older material and ultimately finding it more difficult to get into. This is because of the evolution in their style. Albums like "Californication," "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" and "Mother's Milk" are incredible pieces of rock art. "One Hot Minute" is a level down from this, but it's still a great rock album and I admire the band's willingness to experiment and evolve over time.

When I first bought this album I would have been on board with those RHCP fans who were disappointed with it. It certainly is a very different album for them, and as discussed in previous reviews, this is because of Dave Navarro's apperence as lead guitarist. This may have been a sort of culture shock to die hards who wanted the standard RHCP sound. However upon repeated listens ( which I'm sure some fans haven't done ) this album is actually VERY GOOD. If you are considering buying it and you own BSSM or Mother's Milk and expect more of the same you too will be disappointed. It still sounds like the Peppers with Anthony K. & Flea, but the funk is less visible and replaced with more rock. This however does not make it a bad album. Unless you feel the bands you like should never expierment and therefore NEVER GROW.