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A good collection of singles, but flawed
Date of Review: Jan 6, 2004
The Bottom Line: The casual fans of the singles will get a hit, but other more devoted fans should by it for the remastered greatness.
We can't avoid the obvious fact: The Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of the greatest bands out there. Their style and mixing different types of music is completely original and fresh.
These guys started way back in the early 1980's, and they've created hundreds of songs since then. Up until this CD, their previous one was By the Way, which disappointed me immensely. If I had to rate each song on this CD, on a scale of 1 to 5 (five being the highest) my list would be as follows:
Under the Bridge (Blood Sugar Sex Magik): 5
Give it away (Blood Sugar Sex Magik): 4
Californication (Californication): 4
Scar Tissue (Californication): 3
Soul to squeeze (Unreleased): 5
Otherside (Californication): 5
Suck my kiss (Blood Sugar Sex Magik): 5
By the Way (By the Way): 4
Parallel Universe (Californication): 5
Breaking the Girl (Blood Sugar Sex Magik): 4
My friends (One Hot Minute): 5
Higher Ground (Mother's Milk): 5
Universally Speaking (By the Way): 2
Road Trippin' (Californication): 4
Fortune Faded (Unreleased): 4
Save the population (Unreleased): 4
The best album probably ever produced by them would be Blood Sugar Sex Magik, back in the early 1990's. Thankfully, we have four songs from there, and everyone rightfully belongs except for "Breaking the Girl". I didn't really think that song was that great, compared to some of the other songs, such as "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", or "Sir Physco Sexy". That song rocks.
One Hot Minute was desperately underused; only ONE song was used, which disappointed me extremely. Although "My Friends" is a great song, what about "Walkabout?" Where's my "Pea" or "One Hot Minute?"
Luckily, there's only two songs from the album By the Way, which I think is their worst album. The song "Universally Speaking" should have never made it; that song is garbage. I would've preferred "Can't stop."
Californication boasts some great songs, but there's way too many of them. Should've dropped "Road Trippin'" and added something from One Hot Minute.
Other songs include their very early song "Higher Ground" (from the album Mother's Milk, another good album not appreciated enough) and "Soul to squeeze." As for their new songs, "Fortune Faded" and "Save the Population," they're pretty good, and still shows they have the creativeness left in them, but it sounds too much like By the Way than their much better, old stuff.
Overall, if you're a casual fan you'll undoubtedly fall in love with this album. However, for a fan like myself, I was kind of disappointed.