FEATURE:
If You Have to Ask
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik at Thirty
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QUITE a few classic albums…
have a release date of 24th September. 1991 is a year where several arrived on that day. Among them is Red Hot Chili Peppers’ fifth studio album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. With production by Rick Rubin, its musical style differed notably from the band's previous album, Mother's Milk (1989). The biggest differences are a software sound and greater songwriting input from guitarist John Frusciante. To me, Blood Sugar Sex Magik is the best album from the legendary Los Angeles band. It contains many of their greatest tracks – including Under the Bridge, Give It Away, Suck My Kiss, Breaking the Girl and If You Have to Ask. Chili fans may argue as to where Blood Sugar Sex Magik ranks in their discography. I would put it at the top because it has the most memorable songs. I think the band are at their peak in terms of inspiration, chemistry and consistency. Thirty years from its release, Blood Sugar Sex Magik remains fascinating and utterly compelling. I am keen to drop in a couple of reviews for the 1991 album. So many critics have provided glowing commentary (though there are a few mixed reviews). Before I get there, CLASH wrote about Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 2016. I have selected a few passages. I am also interested knowing the inspiration behind my favourite song from the album, Under the Bridge:
“As founder of Def Jam Records, Rick Rubin was a producer that effortlessly and effectively straddled a broad spectrum of tastes, as competent with Public Enemy, Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C. as he was with Slayer, The Cult and Danzig. His own predilection for musical amalgamation was most notably fulfilled in the pioneering fusion of rap and rock that saw the pairing of Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith revitalise the latter’s career with an innovative reworking of their ‘Walk This Way’ hit. Having long been aware and a fan of the Chili Peppers - especially their shared musicianship - Rubin was keen to work with them, while the band themselves appreciated not only Rubin’s esteemed discography to date, but his instinctive working methods that suggested he could be the conducive and considerate conductor they were looking for. “If Baron von Münchhausen had ejaculated the four of us, being the Red Hot Chili Peppers, onto a chess board,” Anthony Kiedis would say during the recording of ‘BSSM’, “I think Rick Rubin would be the perfect chess player for that particular board.”
Though the songs themselves had been written during recent tours, Rick and the band gathered for preliminary sessions to focus the ideas for what would be destined for the next album; the impact of Rubin’s constructive role was immediately apparent in Flea’s economy of notes - playing for the song, rather than flaunting his four-string dexterity - and the growing confidence and advancing capabilities of Frusciante. “John really found himself as a musician during that era,” Kiedis told Clash. “He was always this kind of uncontained storm of intelligence and talent and desire. No one worked more hours in the day at practising their instrument and learning about music than John, but he was kind of undefined during ‘Mother’s Milk’, and I think that experience of working with a producer who wanted him to be a certain way, that wasn’t necessarily who he felt he was, drove him even deeper into wanting to express the true nature of his music. And I think that sort of blossomed deeply in ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’, where he just found his voice as a guitar player and a singer; he let it show.”
The band decamped with Rubin to a mansion in the Hollywood hills, which was turned into a giant live-in studio. Reportedly haunted, it’s also supposed to have housed The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix; a perfect setting, therefore, to channel the gods and create music in. “Where we recorded really relieved a lot of the tension that usually happens when you do a record,” Flea admitted in 1991. “When we recorded in this house we were also living together, which made for a really relaxed environment, and that was the key to the album. The key to being a great band or a great musician is to be able to relax enough so you can be aware of what’s going on around you and it can flow through you and you can pick up all the energy.”
It was in this familial atmosphere that the songs for ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ were put to tape. Footage from the sessions, filmed by Flea’s brother-in-law, was eventually released as a short film (or “cockumentary,” as Kiedis once quipped) called Funky Monks. It reveals, in black and white, the evident camaraderie of the quartet (and crew), the individual contributions of each member to different tracks, their listening habits (including Led Zeppelin and The Velvet Underground) and the inner thoughts of each Pepper, courtesy of intimate interviews, which reveal their feelings throughout the whole creative process. “We’re making an amazing, ground-breaking, revolutionary, beautiful, artistically-heightened, incredible record,” John enthuses to camera, his positivity reflected by all throughout.
For over 30 days, the band ensconced themselves in the studio (with Chad opting to commute from home), putting together the songs that would fill the album. The 17 tracks that made the cut, borne from closeness and friendship, and enhanced by recent and relentless touring, convey every facet of the Chili Peppers’ musical and personal characters”.
“The tender admissions that became ‘Under The Bridge’ were never written with the intention of being recorded by the Chili Peppers; Anthony’s distressed ruminations were a private study of the solitude and despair he found himself immersed in during the period of sobriety, prompted by the death of Hillel, that curtailed his own persistent drug habit, and was considered too candid for public consumption.
Finding the poem in Anthony’s notebook, Rick Rubin urged him to develop it with the group, insisting he introduce it to the very people that were partly responsible for his feelings of isolation.
Abstaining completely from anything that might prove a temptation, Anthony withheld a “militant” stance about his friends refraining from indulging in his company and, given Flea and John’s closeness was enhanced by their predilection for getting stoned together, Anthony felt himself almost being ostracized from his most immediate group of friends. “One day I showed up to rehearsal,” Anthony recalled in Scar Tissue, “and Flea and John were blazing on pot and in a ‘Let’s ignore Anthony’ state of mind, and I experienced this melancholy sense of loss that John was no longer in my world. I could tell from the way he was looking at me that we weren’t really friends anymore, other than the fact that we were in a band together and respected each other on that level.”
Dejected and downcast, Anthony drove home from that rehearsal with his mind reeling through other relationships that were broken or ruined by his addiction, with one particular regret deepening his misery; that he’d neglected and taken for granted the keen affections of ex-girlfriend, Ione Skye. “[I] had this beautiful angel of a girl who was willing of give me all of her love, and instead of embracing that, I was downtown with fucking gangsters shooting speedballs under a bridge.”
“What I was referring to in the song,” he would reveal in Funky Monks, “was a point in my life about five years ago. All I had was this connection named Mario, who was Mexican mafia, ex-convict. And one particular afternoon, it was very hot in the middle of the summer, and I’d been up for days, and he and I found what we’d been looking for. We went to this bridge that was downtown in the middle of Los Angeles in this ghetto, this freeway bridge, and a little passageway you had to go through to get under the bridge, and only certain members of this Mexican gang were allowed to go in there. And we lied just so we could get in there and do what we wanted to do… And that’s always stuck in my brain as a low point in my life.”
Wallowing in this alienation, he sought solace in the comfort and company he found in Los Angeles, personifying the city to render it his best - and only - friend. “Even if I was a loner in my own band, at least I still felt the presence of the city I lived in,” he wrote, acknowledging these sentiments impeccably in the first verse: “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner / Sometimes I feel like my only friend / Is the city I live in / The City of Angels / Lonely as I am / Together we cry.”
More than just a harrowing flashback, by recognising his rock bottom, Anthony turns ‘Under The Bridge’ into a determined statement of resolve to never again sink to depths of depravity that would endanger not only his own life, but affect the lives of his loved ones. “I don’t ever want to feel / Like I did that day,” he affirms.
Once presented to John, the guitarist attempted to apply a heartening major-chord sequence to counter and juxtapose the somber tone of the lyrics. The resulting intro, now considered a classic piece of guitar work in its own right, was inspired by David Bowie’s ‘Andy Warhol’, while the song’s pensive E-major-7th that rings off each verse was ripped off, quite appropriately, from ‘Rip Off’, by T-Rex. Here’s John revealing his sources:
John Frusciante on the guitar inspirations for ‘Under The Bridge’
Throughout ‘Under The Bridge’, each musician is respectful of the song’s introspective nature; Flea is understated yet warm and rounded, while Chad’s rimshots are gentle yet insistent. As the song reaches its climax, a choir - John’s mum and her friends - echo the chilling refrain, “Under the bridge downtown / Is where I drew some blood,” their heavenly sound punctuating Anthony’s spiritual awakening and suggesting salvation is close at hand”.
I have great affection for Blood Sugar Sex Magik. It is one of the greatest albums of the 1990s for sure. Although a few critics were a little mixed towards the album, most were very positive. With the weight and quality of material on the L.P., it is small wonder Blood Sugar Sex Magik is seen as a classic. This is what AllMusic said in their review:
“The Red Hot Chili Peppers' best album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik benefits immensely from Rick Rubin's production -- John Frusciante's guitar is less overpoweringly noisy, leaving room for differing textures and clearer lines, while the band overall is more focused and less indulgent, even if some of the grooves drag on too long. Lyrically, Anthony Kiedis is as preoccupied with sex as ever, whether invoking it as his muse, begging for it, or boasting in great detail about his prowess, best showcased on the infectiously funky singles "Give It Away" and "Suck My Kiss." However, he tempers his testosterone with a more sensitive side, writing about the emotional side of failed relationships ("Breaking the Girl," "I Could Have Lied"), his drug addictions ("Under the Bridge" and an elegy for Hillel Slovak, "My Lovely Man"), and some hippie-ish calls for a peaceful utopia. Three of those last four songs (excluding "My Lovely Man") mark the band's first consistent embrace of lilting acoustic balladry, and while it's not what Kiedis does best as a vocalist, these are some of the album's finest moments, varying and expanding the group's musical and emotional range. Frusciante departed after the supporting tour, leaving Blood Sugar Sex Magik as probably the best album the Chili Peppers will ever make”.
Prior to rounding up, I want to highlight one more review. The BBC provided a detailed review of an album that, thirty years after its release, remains hugely important and impressive:
“These days, admitting to liking the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers release is akin to holding your hands up and saying "Yes, I love the new Maroon 5 album, what of it?". Consider if you will their last album offering - 2006's Stadium Arcadium. The title alone should have been more than enough to put us off. But chuck a bunch of mediocre 'radio-friendly' tracks into the mix, and the whole affair is disappointingly average. In recent years then, it's been easy to forget just how flipping good the Chilis used to be.
But cast your minds back to 1991 and the release of the band's fifth album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The line up had changed prior to recording commenced following deaths and departures from the band, and Rick Rubin had been brought in on production duties. The result is an album that is frequently heralded as one of the defining albums of the 90s and one which far exceeds anything else the band have ever produced.
The funk/punk style and Keidis's 'rapping' that had permeated previous RHCP album's is most definitely still there, but mixed with it is a strong melodic feel which adds a different dimension to the tracks. There's a structure and thought process to the songs that hadn't existed before. And even at a just-about-fittable-onto-a-CDR duration, the quality of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" doesn't waver for a single one of it’s 74 minutes.
The album is largely about sex - as the title might suggest. Tracks such as Suck My Kiss, Sir Psycho Sexy and Give It Away are dripping with not just innuendo, but out and out, unadulterated sexual imagery. And it's this raw, straight up, no holds barred sexuality that gives the album such impact and distinctiveness - more so than any of their subsequent works. OK, so maybe it would sound weird now to have a 45-year-old Keidis asking you to suck his kiss (although arguably, there are many who would still like to). But when he did it in 1991, it really did hold such an irresistible clout. And despite being cited as an inspiration to countless artists since its release, the brilliance of Blood Sugar Sex Magik is that no-one else has managed to do anything quite like it – and frankly, that’s just the way it should be”.
A happy thirtieth anniversary to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Also on 24th September, 1991, Nirvana released Nevermind. It was a terrific day for music fans. Maybe there was something in the air, or it might have been a particular time when bands were summoning this timeless music! In terms of the gold from the 1990s, there is no denying that Red Hot Chili Peppers Blood Sugar Sex Magik of 1991 is one of the…
BEST of the decade.