Pop music CD's the bread & butter of the music industry. Once in a while there comes along a pop music CD that I really like. You can't escape from pop music if you listen to the radio (unless it's MEGASMEGDEATH FM of course) so understandably some tunes you just end up liking whether you want to or not !!
I'll be reviewing all the new music cd's I listen to, so watch this space!!
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS - Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits attempts to sum up the history of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but its focus is firmly in the second half of their career. Early on, in the late 1980s, the Chili Peppers were an LA band who played a unique fusion of punk and funk--four guys, united by a love of partying and playing music. But they had a problem: although they were developing an underground following, nobody was buying their albums. Their first three albums failed to set the charts on fire, though they finally had a bit of a breakthrough with 1989's Mother's Milk. It wasn't enough--their label, EMI, dropped them.
EMI's A&R department must be kicking themselves now because the Red Hot Chili Peppers have since gone on to become one of the most popular bands in the world. Their next album. Blood Sugar Sex Magik, was a massive, worldwide hit, containing such huge singles as "Give It Away" and "Under the Bridge". It's follow-up One Hot Minute was frankly a bit poor, but it hardly stalled their upward trajectory.
These funky punks had matured and they found a whole new audience on albums such as Californication and By the Way. On them, there's the perfect marriage of playful innuendo, blistering musicianship (Flea is--quite rightly--considered one of the finest bassists in rock) and thoughtful songwriting. Greatest Hits focuses on these later years of the Chili Peppers' career (only the Stevie Wonder cover "Higher Ground" predates Blood Sugar…). It may not please all of their fans, but it's certainly a great starting point for the casual listener.
Not many artists can boast a Best Of album by their 21st birthday, but then not everybody logs a Lolita-ish hit at age 13, as the precocious Leann Rimes did with the retro "Blue" in 1996. In many ways, that auspicious debut was her finest hour, full of hypnotic, yodel-laced magic and savant-like promise.
Since then, she's recorded a fair amount of bankable pop ("One Way Ticket", "Can't Fight the Moonlight") and a seemingly bottomless well of tripe ("You Light Up My Life", "Written in the Stars" with Elton John). It all sits back-to-back on this collection of familiar tunes, braced with new audio recordings: "This Love" and "Last Thing on My Mind".
Alas, of the new songs, they point up the weakness of much of Rimes' career; her connect-the-dots emotionality. Best advice: put the player on "repeat" and enjoy the royal "Blue" treat that got this career rolling, before the aerobicised videos and the embarrassing lawsuit.
At a time when experimentation is taboo in most overground rap, that's all Outkast seem intent on executing. Firstly, the double CD Speakerboxxx/The Love Below has no cohesive link, other than the fact that it sounds like a pair of solo albums stitched together to demonstrate exactly how Andre's yin works to augment Big Boi's yang.
Andre 3000's The Love Below disc rates as the more eclectic of the two, given that, on it, he's turned in his emcee credentials to become a full-on funk-soul-jazz vocalist who mostly sings about items of love ("Happy Valentine's Day"), carnal lust ("Spread") and female adoration ("Prototype"). Minus the big band schmaltz of "Love Hater" and cheesy cover jobs ("My Favorite Things"), Andre's disc is great.
As is to be expected, the Big Boi disc is less arty, more gangsta and worldly, and features the less-progressive guest raps of ATL crunk purveyors Lil' Jon and the Eastside Boyz ("Last Call") and Jay-Z, who rhymes the hook on "Flip Flop Rock". Unlike Big Boi, Andre keeps his collaborations to a minimum, once crooning alongside Norah Jones on the cool yet sappy "Take Off Your Cool", and once with Kelis.
Boi fulfils his Dungeon Family duty with flying colours by flipping some dirty southern up-tempo raps over electro beats on "GhettoMusick". By the time Cee-Lo sermonises on "Reset", Speakerboxx and Love Below rate mostly as majestic and inspiring, with the remaining 23 per cent being just plain incredible.
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS - Greatest Hits
