My 30 Best Albums of the Decade: #2

And then there were two. Interestingly enough, both share a common denominator. Which will be revealed tomorrow.

#2. Stadium Arcadium - Red Hot Chili Peppers

For a band that pretty much spans my entire music-listening life, I never really connected with the Red Hot Chili Peppers for some reason. I always enjoyed them, I owned a few of their albums and was familiar with basically of their work, but they never reached that level that other artists in my collection did throughout the last quarter century. While “Blood Sugar Sex Magik was probably one of my 10 most-played albums in high school, they still never hit the mark. I always loved a little bit of their CDs, but not really the CD as a whole.



Then came Stadium Arcadium.

It was if they took that “little bit” that I loved off each CD and rolled it into one massive double disc of near-perfection. From track 1 of disc 1 (“Dani California”) to track 14 of disc 2 (the quirky “Death of a Martian”) the band strikes gold all the way through. Really, I could go into what I love about each song but there’s twenty eight of them. Lets just say that there’s something for everyone’s taste.

Furthermore, the album tends to stand out as a whole rather than a sum of its parts. They keep their vintage sound but it’s enhanced with a more mature production and lyrics that are keenly aware of where they stand in the here and now. Probably no more than in their release and slightly overplayed “Snow”.

Now, there’ve been more than a few songs that have induced drunken sing-alongs in my life. Whether it was “American Pie” while I was 17 and drinking in the woods, or I was 19, “Me and Bobby McGhee” in a dorm room, or my early 20s (ok, and late 20s. and early 30s) and the tools of humiliation were a karaoke machine and “Friends and Low Places”, drunken singing has always been a most favored pastime of mine. Panda Guilt be damned. And yes, I’ve left a certain showtune off this mini-rundown on purpose.

But that summer of 2006 (probably the best year for music this decade by the way). I can’t ever recall a more passionate bellowing of a tune than “Snow” that year. Full details, as usual, are a little foggy. But we were in a friend’s living room and I believe it was actually the last time that the cops were called on us. (Which would make it over 3 years, which HAS to be a personal record – that, or I have deaf neighbors). It’s got a very accommodating beat, but more than that, some very resonating lyrics.


Too often critics and listeners alike are quick to proclaim an accomplished artists’ later work a “masterpiece” or “vintage”. We’ve been seeing that with Bob Dylan for the last 12 years. While I thoroughly enjoyed Modern Times and Time Out of Mind, let us not kid ourselves. As good as they are, they’re not Blood on the Tracks. They’re not Freewheelin and they sure as hell aren’t Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb was quality U2 that shared similar traits with their early recordings. That doesn’t mean it was on par with The Joshua Tree.


Stadium Arcadium is different. Stadium Arcadium is not only “vintage” Red Hot Chili Peppers, it’s the definitive Red hot Chili Peppers. It’s the work of a band comfortable with their place in Rock History. I’d call it the culmination of a quarter century of the highs and lows that any band that’s been together that long experiences, but that would be unfair. Who knows, it may be topped. When you can cut an album this good at this stage of your career, no achievement is off the table. The only thing I’m taking off the table though, is saying that I’ve never really connected with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.