The Friday Canon

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It wasn't Simply Red. Sorry.


You have SEVEN ticks from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' surprisingly large range of UK Top 40 hits. Use them wisely.

[Poll #995309]

Normal canon service is resumed next week!

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think if I had to summarise why I don't like them, I'd go for the word "strained" - the flightless funk, the overstretched imploring voice, the occasional stabs at meaning or poetry in the lyrics, the melodies that sit around in my head without ever giving me joy or surprise or energy.

None of these are 'facts' about RHCP but they're what I hear in the music and what repels me in it. And there's the ubiquity and the critical approval (which even then is slightly shrugging). There's a bit of the careerism of bands like Prml Scrm or the Manics too, professional rockers hard at work. Actually they really bring out the worst kind of music snobbery in me - I simply can't *believe* the people who like them do, or have heard other alternatives. :(

[zenith.livejournal.com]

It's also the fact that... even bands like Tool or A Perfect Circle and all that nonsense have some kind of genuine "kids who probably get picked on at school like them" thing going for them. RCHP are alterna-jocks. What is worse than an alterna-jock?

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

I totally, genuinely like a bunch of the 90s songs--I was disappointed that "Soul to Squeeze" wasn't a UK hit, given that a) it's great, and b) it gets played on the radio all the time on US modern-rock stations. But then I haven't even heard of any of the ones after "Californication" except for "Dani California" (which I can't even hum) and "Can't Stop," which I actually like but forgot what it was since I never really knew the title. But these were the songs I grew up with, or grew into music with. And I still like them!