t is very sad that a band who were once vibrant and youthful, as the Red Hot Chili Peppers indeed once were, become old and crotchety. Who would ever have thought that it would happen to a group of guys who did nothing short of excess? The ones that performed wearing only socks to cover their genitalia. Or, the madmen that delivered the inspired cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” and asked its listeners to “Suck My Kiss”. Or, the ones that spoke eloquently of the harrowing darkness of heroin (ab)use on “Under The Bridge”. Who would have ever believed that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would become light rock?


Well, on their latest release, By The Way, they fall hard and fast into that category. Not long after the initial goosing of the title track/first single, is the realization that something is truly wrong in Pepper-ville. Song after song struggles limply along from start to finish. No exuberance, no pyrotechnics of guitar or bass, no primal drumming from the otherwise excellent stickman Chad Smith. Nowhere is there a sign of the rousing, tribal joy of playing that propelled the rest of their albums. It is as if the band had hired Peter Cetera of Chicago-fame to produce this lackluster effort instead of ZZ Top wannabe, Rick Rubin. You could plug most of these songs into any radio format that would feature the likes of Celine Dion or Billy Joel with nary a raised eyebrow.


Spit-shine production, passionless instrumentation, (extremely) laid back grooves and laughably awful lyrics all conspire to do this once explosive band in. The reckless spirit of recordings past is surgically removed (or Pro Tools-ed out) for Top 40 consumption. What the band strived for on the conceptualized Californication, now smacks of superficiality and shows the band in a creative free fall.


Nowhere on the album is this more evident than on the god-awful “Cabron”, though. Wildly flamboyant flamenco-style guitar by John Frusciante (the main creative force behind this train wreck) leads into a wedding band rhythm shuffle, which could have come from a Casio keyboard for all anyone knows. Singer Anthony Kiedis’ hammy antics kick into overdrive with his pseudo-Spanish accent. A sampling of the lyrics: “I come around and make these get down have a barbecue / Let’s keep the moon awake and do electric boogaloo”. Electric boogaloo?


What is ultimately most frustrating about this particular band’s descent into the quagmire of banal, lighter-waving power ballads is that they truly never seemed destined for it. They were an unstoppable force of fire (sometimes literally-whether it be the flaming hats they wore onstage or the fire that broke out during their cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” at Woodstock ’99) and fury. This is truly one of the most stunningly awful albums released by a major band ever. Is this an indication of the band’s future? That is indeed the question.