Warped: Red Hot Chili Peppers in the Mid-90s – a Retrospective

*Yo, this be Reuben. I did a big phat retrospective article on the Red Hot Chili Peppers – mine and Milo’s one true love they be – back last summer as a piece of extended project work stuff for my A-Levels which I put an absolute heck load of effort into – with references n’ all 😱. It’s a longboi taking a look at One Hot Minute and the years in general when Dave Navarro was in the band – because that time period really interests me for whatever reason. Thought I’d share it witcha, din’t I.*

We all know the Red Hot Chili Peppers for their Dani Californias, Can’t Stops, and Under the Bridges, but few would know the likes of Warped. Take the band’s sixth record for a spin, and you will find the intriguing Warped and 12 other tracks on One Hot Minute[1]. Experience the thick, effect-laden guitars of Dave Navarro, and see the Hollywood jokers delve into a moment of darkness and sincerity, addled by heroin. Opening with aforementioned lead single Warped, a decrepit and boundlessly energetic Anthony Kiedis cries for help dressed in little but black tight leather trousers and wrist-length gloves[2], about his “night craving” which “sends [him] crawling”, “begging for mercy”. Released 22^nd September 1995, the album stood to many as a limp sequel to the band’s breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik[3], and is considered a poor moment in their history. Even so, this difficult sixth album deserves a second chance.

This mid-90s slur is short in the grand scheme of the band’s history, having spanned 1983 to 2018, growing from high school delinquents playing in “the Rhythm Lounge to approximately 30 people” as Tony Flow and the Masters of Mayhem to the “Rock and Roll Hall of Famers with a string of successful albums”[4] as they are now. In the UK 2002’s By the Way[5] charted number one in the Official Albums Chart, selling 6x Platinum[6]; 1999’s Californication[7], 2006’s Stadium Arcadium[8] and 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik have hit similar heights. The band is still relevant today, having headlined Reading & Leeds Festival in 2016 among others, and has released two successful albums in this decade – I’m With You[9] and The Getaway[10]. In the UK alone, the band’s singles have spent 70 weeks in the Top 40, while they’ve released eight Top 10 albums, with four of those topping the charts[11].

Coming from the back-streets of mid-80s Hollywood, the Chili Peppers drew together the musical styles of a wide pool of influences ranging from L.A punk acts like Black Flag and classic funk such as Sly & the Family Stone[12], into a unique and recognisable sound. Punctuated by Flea’s unmistakable bass playing, the band had an infectious energy which was unleashed to Americans on television for the first time on Alan Thicke’s ‘Thick of the Night’, March 16^th 1984[13], five months before the release of their debut, eponymous album. The performance provides a perfect example of the band’s raw energy and talent: what saw them arguably “ignite the rap-rock revolution”[14] that was to come in the following decade.

Right to left: Hillel Slovak, Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Cliff Martinez

Their self-titled debut record didn’t quite hit the dizzy heights that their following albums would, ending up one place outside the Billboard 200, but with their unstoppable flow of energy they jumped through the 80s with their funk-drenched sophomore effort Freaky Styley[15] and their heavier third album, Uplift Mofo Party Plan[16]. They had little charting success with these records but did bring together a strong following and reputation within L.A. One of their biggest fans in Hollywood, a certain John Frusciante, eventually ended up joining the band when guitarist and founding member Hillel Slovak tragically died of a heroin overdose. Having been a huge influence on vocalist Anthony Kiedis, Flea and the band’s original sound, Slovak’s death shaped their future, causing the band to take their music a little more seriously.

Perhaps consequently, after numerous line-up changes, in 1989 the Red Hot Chili Peppers finally found the success they deserved with their fourth record, Mother’s Milk[17]. The stars seemed to align as with their new drummer Chad Smith and the eclectic and massively talented 19-year-old Frusciante on guitar, the band’s classic line-up was realised, and they began to mould their most recognisable sound as they finally let their Jimi Hendrix inspiration loose in their music – with “more emphasis on melody than on grit”[18] – while keeping their strong punk-funk roots intact. The album peaked at 52^nd on the Billboard 200[19] – while Stevie Wonder cover and leading single Higher Ground saw them make their breakthrough on MTV. The album garnered a lot of critical acclaim too, as Allmusic writer Amy Hanson claimed the album “turned the tide and transformed the band from underground funk-rocking rappers to mainstream bad boys with seemingly very little effort”[20].

After their first taste of success, the Chili Peppers bounced into the recording studio again to start working with big-hit producer Rick Rubin on their next album, after signing a huge record deal with Warner Bros. This next album would prove to skyrocket them into the mainstream and put them atop the throne of alternative rock. Still boundlessly energetic and youthful, but with an ounce of maturity, the crudely named Blood Sugar Sex Magik would prove to be their most important album, for the first time treating listeners to Kiedis’ softer side and chantable melodies in leading single Under the Bridge (which “unexpectedly drop-kicked the band into the Top 10 [of the Billboard Hot 100]”[21]) alongside Breaking the Girl, which hit the nail on the head as the band truly found their feet. Yet still, it remains bombastic and in-your-face, pleasing skaters and their younger audience as the majority of the album is unrelenting funk rock. They still “stretched cotton socks over those same dicks and jumped around on stage without fear of gravity”[22] as they did in the beginning, but now they had a new-found musical and emotional maturity that would only grow. Blood Sugar Sex Magik showed a band who were on top of their game, a fantastic album that to many remains their strongest moment.

The Chili Peppers at the MTV Music Video Awards 1992, Giving it Away.

Following the success of the album, the band bounced into a huge world tour, which they originally planned to span three years[23], with opening acts such as grunge upstarts Pearl Jam and Nirvana. However, as the Red Hot Chili Peppers played in front of larger and larger audiences, tensions began to escalate, particularly between Anthony Kiedis and John Frusciante, and as the pressures of the touring increased, Frusciante began to take to heroin and cocaine for relief, leading to struggles with addiction. Eventually, the tension and the pressure evidently became too much for the guitarist, as he quit the band midway through the Japanese leg of their tour in 1992[24]. The Chili Peppers were forced to cancel the rest of the Japanese shows and the entire Australian leg of the tour, and “nearly imploded”[25]. After a tumultuous year with new boy Arik Marshall as guitarist, the band replaced him with Dave Navarro. It was mid-1993, and it was the beginning of the Chilis’ new era.

Spanning 1993-1998, this was seen by many as the band’s transitional period, between John Frusciante’s two tenures as guitarist. Fans of the band were given the fantastic, universally popular Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991, and the similarly successful Californication in 1999, but between these two records lay a mysterious, strange jewel in 1995’s One Hot Minute, the middle-man between the Chilis’ two 90s titans, a stylistically and spiritually different album, riddled with heroin, misery, and creative compromise. New guitarist Dave Navarro, nipples pierced, eye shadow applied, was the main perpetrator.

Navarro was previously of alternative rockers Jane’s Addiction, who pioneered the sprouting genre in the late 80s-early 90s alongside the Chili Peppers, while the two bands were friends and played bills together. Despite the two bands being a natural pair in the L.A scene, Addiction were a darker beast, and Navarro came from a very different musical background to the members of the band he had just joined. Flea would say that Navarro would “often play some ’70s rock song, and most of the time [he didn’t] even know who did it, but [he’d] start playing along”, even though he thought it was “ridiculous”[26]. This was because the Chili Peppers were influenced by that heady mixture of funk-punk, whereas Navarro found inspiration through classic rock like Led Zeppelin, and alternative outfits such as Joy Division[27]. This dramatically different pool of influences inevitably led to numerous creative differences during the recording of One Hot Minute.

As a result, writing and recording the record was a far less natural experience than it had been with Frusciante, and it took far longer to record it than the band had been used to. It is difficult to doubt the quality of Dave Navarro’s guitarwork, as it can be seen in Jane’s Addiction’s works throughout their career, especially in songs such as Three Days on their 1990 LP Ritual de lo Habitual[28], which is perhaps one of the greatest guitar albums of the 90s. But one could gauge through listening to his work on this album alone that he would not be a natural fit for the Chili Peppers’ bombastic sound. Navarro was, and still is, a guitarist who relies on heavy use of pedals and effects, with intricate chord progressions, flashy guitar solos and psychedelic, branching leads used frequently in his arsenal, and although immensely skilful, not quite the scratchy, raw guitarwork that the Peppers had been used to through the funk-punk influenced leads of their previous guitarists, who, if not Hillel Slovak himself, had all been influenced by his funk-punk style[29]. Navarro, too, is a very studio involved, methodical musician, who would put “15 tracks of guitar on every tune, and weed through it in the mix”[30], with a degree of perfectionism. The Chili Peppers were a band who liked to naturally record music and keep it raw, not doing too many takes or overdubs, so this would be a difficult marriage to say the least.

Dave Navarro as part of Jane’s Addiction. (right)

Nonetheless, it was not just Dave Navarro’s style that caused difficulty in the recording process of the new album. The other primary issue was heroin. The band’s frontman Anthony Kiedis had a history of struggling with drug addictions throughout the 80s, and by the time the Chilis had begun working on One Hot Minute he was suffering from possibly his worst addiction yet. Heroin and cocaine had a huge effect on the band throughout their history; addiction to both drugs was a significant factor in Frusciante’s departure in 1992, and during Navarro’s stint as guitarist in the band, Frusciante “almost killed himself”[31] as he lived in squalor in his graffiti-covered home in L.A – best portrayed by Johnny Depp and Gibby Haynes’ 1993 documentary video Stuff[32] – while Hillel Slovak’s untimely death in 1988 was due to an overdose. Kiedis, prone to addiction, used an addictive sedative after a dental procedure in 1994, after having managed to remain sober for more than five years, and had relapsed into heroin addiction.

While heroin use hit a general resurgence in the 90s, the Chili Peppers were one of the bands worse hit by it in the period, and the drug was integral to One Hot Minute, for better or for worse. Throughout the album, Kiedis’ lyrics tackle the melancholic, remorseful feelings clouding his thoughts during the recording process, caused by his addiction to the drug, with themes morphing from sex, crudely written innuendo and general protest to introspective and desperate cries for help as Kiedis attempted to deal with this. Listeners would no longer be treated to an eruptive mix of “erotic shock” and “exploding egos”, but would instead be given a selection of “melancholy babies” and pleasures “spiked with pain”, while the singer wrote that he couldn’t find any “words, [he knew] of to express this emptiness”.

This dark lyricism is punctuated by the record’s heavy, thick sound, which incorporated heavy metal style riffs and a dosage of psychedelia, as the band, through Navarro’s influence, explored darker music to fit the morbid mood portrayed by Kiedis’ lyrics. This radically changed style saw the Chili Peppers’ music become more complex after taking a deliberately minimalist approach in Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and it does this to intriguing results.

In One Hot Minute’s gothic album art, a striking image is portrayed through the dark colour scheme, contrasted against a pleasant image, as the pixie and the girl happily play before a foreboding black offset. It ties together the music inside the CD case, so even before giving the album a listen, listeners know that this it will be different from the Chili Peppers they know: here we see an untamed beast waiting to be unleashed.

Opening track Warped sets a powerful tone. Warbling vocals croon atop a backdrop of rumbling, building bass and abstract guitar stings, only to be kicked head first into a dirty power-chorded riff and offbeat, slammed drums, as Kiedis’ vocalised desperation floats over the top of the infectious beat. It’s psychedelic heaven, simply put. Throughout the entire album, listeners are thrown into heaps of muddy riffs and convoluted drumbeats, as Navarro’s branching, delay-heavy guitar solos flood over the levees that are Flea’s unrelenting slapped basslines. One Hot Minute is loud.

Throughout the record, despite struggles in production, the band is on top form, creating a truly powerful sound that had never quite been associated with them. Chad Smith’s drum work is sophisticated, energetic, and convoluted, with his most mature and accomplished recordings on the instrument – deep cuts Deep Kick and One Big Mob show the best he has to offer. Flea, the other half of the Chilis’ rhythm section, for the most part ditches the minimalist approach he moved for in Blood Sugar, but remains sophisticated, whilst the flashy, slapped approach that defined his playing style in his early days is brought back to the fore – most clearly seen in Coffee Shop, an entertaining and brilliant bass performance.

The guitars, on the other hand, are not far from the sheer velocity and skill of John Frusciante’s earlier work with the band, and Navarro manages to meld genuinely heavy power chords and psychedelic leads with the Chili Peppers’ established funk rock sound. With his branching, heavily delayed guitarwork in Warped and his intricate, butter smooth progressions in Tearjerker, listeners are given strong reminders of his work with Jane’s Addiction, and guitar fans the world over are given work to gawp at. This pronounced and unique style, however, is contrasted by scratchy inputs in tracks like Shallow Be Thy Game and blissful solos like the one towards the end of third single Aeroplane, both reminiscent of Frusciante’s work with the Chilis. Conclusively, while Navarro brands the record’s overall sound with his wall-like guitars and his musical influence, he still manages to fit as the guitarist the band wanted to work with. This cohesion is integral to the album’s sound and its success as a piece of music: while at many points it seems an interesting mix of Jane’s Addiction and the Chili Peppers’ respective sounds (imagine a Jane’s Peppers, if you like), there are points in the record that can please any fan.

In many respects One Hot Minute plays like a natural progression from its ultra-successful predecessor. Some may argue that the magic of golden boy Frusciante was missing, but while in some ways radically different, it remains, integrally, filthy. The entire hour-long run time slings a wide-ranging collection of dirty riffs, to the backdrop of Smith’s slammed drums – all to a solid, danceable rhythm. Blood Sugar Sex Magik, for the majority of its runtime, just like its successor, did exactly the same thing, but with less manipulation. Rick Rubin again produced this new album, taking the riffs, and making them louder, while keeping a similar feel to the previous album’s sound. The sprouting funk metal roots had been planted in songs such as Naked in the Rain and Blood Sugar’s titular track, and they naturally grew into the kind of sound one can hear in One Big Mob or Shallow Be Thy Game.

Nonetheless, the purely metallic sound heard so loudly in the title track and Warped, namely, may have come as a shock to Chilis fans. It is this introduction of full-blown funk-metal, alongside the sombre tone in Kiedis’ lyrics and the song’s minor tones, that is most important in making the record so unique. Never before had the band sounded so depressed. They had never caused mosh pits like this. This confused marriage of Jane’s Peppers and heroin, while intriguing, showed a natural progression in maturity, too. Anthony Kiedis didn’t just sing about sex anymore. He was becoming more and more reflective, which gave his lyrics room to blend beautifully with the music, which with Navarro as axeman, had a fitting injection of black mascara and nail varnish.

Unfortunately, this odd combination wouldn’t resonate with every listener. If Blood Sugar was their first album in the limelight, One Hot Minute was most definitely a difficult sophomore set. In its early days, it was met with mixed critical responses. Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne wrote with an air of half-mocking cynicism, as he suggested “it’s the post-Clarence Thomas hearings Kiedis, a caring man for the mid-’90s trying to get in touch with his feminine side (and maybe score along the way)”, and suspecting his “sensitive-guy lyrics” may have just been “a con job”, while his “attempts at cosmic philosophy often trip up on hippie-dippie sentiments”. Browne also writes that opening track Warped falls “back on tired frat-funk flop sweat”, a single that’s “all-moshed-up-with-nowhere-to-go”[33]. Less cynical, more purely critical, AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine lamented that Navarro’s “metallic guitar shredding…tends to make [the album’s music] plodding”, while stating that the “melodies are weak and the lyrics are even more feeble”[34]. Finally, popular rock music critic Robert Christgau simply gave the LP a ‘dud’ rating[35]. This criticism and a considerable backlash from a group of disappointed fans has since caused a portion of music writers to dub it a “guilty pleasure”[36].

There was some positive reaction to the record in 1995, though. Browne may have criticised too, but he did have good to say about the band’s sixth album, including the sentiment that “One Hot Minute wails and flails like a mosh-pit workout tape, but it also has moments of outright subtlety and maturity”, in the end giving it a respectable B+ rating[37]. Furthermore, Rolling Stone gave a positive review, with Diana Darzin praising the Chili Peppers for their “seriousness” which is “more liberating than any misadventure”. Darzin, most strikingly, writes that “One Hot Minute is a ferociously eclectic and imaginative disc that also presents the band members as more thoughtful, spiritual — even grown-up. After a 10 plus-year career, they’re realizing their potential at last.”[38]

The album has scarcely received high praise, however, as evident flaws are recognised by most; with Flea’s unpleasant singalong Pea sticking out like a sore thumb at track six – with favourably received and better fitting B-sides Bob and Stretch You Out being left off the album’s final cut – while Kiedis’ vocal delivery is admittedly limited at times. Nonetheless, some of the criticism comes across as unfair, considering the musical quality of the record – it’s easy to say that the lyrics are “feeble”, but there is little justification as for why. There is somewhat of a prejudice towards the album which is usually rooted in its lack of Frusciante. Conclusively, although perhaps unpolished, One Hot Minute is a strong album, and one that deserves more than one chance. Not only is it intriguing, it is also an album that, with time afforded to it, can be a fantastic, rewarding listen, one with an effective atmosphere, pumped with energy, emotion and genuine power, one that shows the Chili Peppers unafraid to dabble in acoustic melodies and sentimentality, while at the same time at their most heavy. It’s thirteen tracks of non-stop riffs and psychedelic stabs in an infectious, gloriously filthy stream of funk metal. It simply cannot be discounted as “feeble”, in any sense of the word.

In terms of One Hot Minute’s significance and credibility when measured against other albums by the Chili Peppers, however, it is low in the pecking order. Its mixed reception from fans and critics alike brings it similar ratings to current guitarist Josh Klinghoffer’s debut album I’m With You (2011) and the band’s first album, and it doesn’t compare fairingly to the band’s widely considered best albums, being Mother’s Milk, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication, By the Way, and Stadium Arcadium[39][40]. Those five albums mentioned are all of John Frusciante’s with the band, with him being generally the most popular guitarist. Indeed, it is agreeable that in those five, we have the Chili Peppers’ greatest albums, and it would always be difficult for such a debauched album as One Hot Minute to stand a strong chance against them. As aforementioned, it acts as something of a difficult second album to Blood Sugar, and as a predecessor too, to Californication, it is often overlooked, as something from a completely different era: the new fans brought in by the soft and catchy melodies akin to a Californian beach on this post-millennial record just wouldn’t buy into its weird 1995 precursor.

Commercially, it is a fairly similar story for the Peppers’ sixth album. The merchandising and promotion was similar enough to what the band had been doing in ’91. They retained the same red, black and white colour scheme that was used in Frusciante’s debut records; and the Chili Peppers were still the “naughtiest boys in rock” with a “jacuzzi in [their] pants”[41], posing topless on the cover of Rolling Stone[42] and making sexy music videos. So, what was different? Dave Navarro, and his influence on the band’s sound, was unfamiliar territory. True too, it had taken the band four years to release another album after their success in the early part of the decade, so only once the smoke had cleared had they brought out a new album. Some potential buyers of this new album may have also been dissuaded by the Chilis’ strange Woodstock performance in 1994, one of their only major shows before the release of the album with Navarro as guitarist, in which the band infamously wore lightbulb suits. These factors, coupled with some poor reviews, made album sales drop significantly, with One Hot Minute selling the least of any of their albums worldwide spanning the 90s and 2000s apart from 2003’s Greatest Hits[43]. The following One Hot Minute Tour which the band embarked on in September 1995 and finished in July 1997, was par for the course for a band of their stature, and fittingly wasn’t any progression from their last major headline tour.

The Chili Peppers at this time were still competing with the other big boys of alternative rock and weren’t much less big of a deal than they had been following the success of One Hot Minute’s famous predecessor, but had fallen behind. Firstly, during Navarro’s stint as the Peppers’ axeman, Pearl Jam had moulded themselves as alternative rock marvels after exploding out the grunge scene, and released 1993’s Vs.[44], Vitalogy[45] a year later, and No Code[46] in 1996. All three peaked at number one on the Billboard 200[47], higher than One Hot Minute’s fourth[48], while Vs. in particular garnered huge attention as one of the most successful albums of the decade. On the other hand, The Smashing Pumpkins, excuse the pun, smashed the L.A funk-rockers’ album sales as they released their two most recognisable and successful albums in 1993’s Siamese Dream[49] and 1995’s Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness[50]. Also originally birthed from the grunge movement, the Pumpkins were in a similar boat to Pearl Jam, and both albums released during Navarro’s tenure outsold One Hot Minute[51]. R.E.M, another significant alternative act of the 90s, sold more copies than the Chili Peppers with two successful albums, including 1994’s Monster[52], while Green Day, pop-punk upstarts providing a new direction for rock fans, outperformed One Hot Minute with the ground-breaking Dookie[53][54][55]. Thus, the Chili Peppers, though still strong competitors, were slipping behind their rivals – they’d lost their place on the throne.

Musically, too, the Chili Peppers were not quite so unique as they once were to the public eye. Faith No More had been a rival to the band for a while, with an ongoing dispute between the two singers Anthony Kiedis and Mike Patton fuelling the rivalry[56]. However, with Blood Sugar’s huge success in ’91, the Chili Peppers commercially blew their rivals out the water, so they weren’t considered a threat despite 1989’s The Real Thing[57] being a bigger hit than the Peppers’ Mother’s Milk.

Mike Patton, probably about to poop in Axl Rose’s orange juice.

Even so, Patton’s band of Californian weirdos managed to bring together a lot of attention with their 1992 splash hit Angel Dust[58], which is seen as one of the most influential rock albums of all time[59]. And with the Chili Peppers’ success fading and Faith No More releasing another similarly successful album in 1995’s King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime[60], they were stealing some of Flea and the gang’s limelight. If what the Peppers were doing in the mid-90s was alternative metal, they were not the only ones doing it. Alongside Faith No More, of course, stood Rage Against the Machine, who released their sophomore set in ’96, the massive Evil Empire[61]: who were making a huge name for themselves melding rap with metal like the Chilis had.

Nonetheless, perhaps less unique than they had been or quite so popular as they were in the early 90s, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were still a big name and a force to be reckoned with. They remained in the mainstream of music and were still recognised as one of the biggest bands in the world. Had One Hot Minute been a true failure, it would not have sold as many as 5,850,000 units worldwide[62], whilst maybe they would have faded into obscurity once Frusciante did return in ’98. But they had too much staying power, and however odd an album One Hot Minute may have been, the Chili Peppers were far too big for it to let them slip through the cracks of mainstream into mediocrity. They still had boundless energy and few bad reviews and disappointing sales wouldn’t stop them, however much it seemed Dave Navarro tried to sabotage their success from the inside out with his heavy metal riffs. Contrary to much contrary belief, Dave Navarro did broaden the band’s musical horizons and showcased some of the greatest guitarwork the band had to offer.

Ultimately, however, Navarro was fired from the band in early 1998 after failed attempts to put together a seventh album, fittingly in part due to heroin’s influence, and the Chili Peppers’ time wallowing in its own self pity in a dark corner of its own making had ended. A new era would begin, of brighter pastures and kinder guitar turns, but such an intriguing time as Navarro’s should not be forgotten. Listen to One Hot Minute, and take a ride into the “brink of emptiness”, watch as Navarro and Kiedis share a kiss[63], and indulge in its whirlpool of solemnity, self-destruction and psychedelic rhythms. The truth is, conclusively, that this album deserves a second chance, and as Kiedis would say, “truth belongs to everybody”.

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RHCP ELSEWHERE ON S.A.T:

Top 25 Red Hot Chili Peppers Songs – Milo & Reuben

RANKED: Red Hot Chili Peppers Albums – Milo

Reviews: – The Getaway
                  – Blood Sugar Sex Magik
                  – One Hot Minute

MMMs: – Knock Me Down
               – If You Have to Ask
               – Walkabout
               – Warm Tape

RRR: Parallel Universe (RRR was a thing!??)

Bringing redundant opinions for scrollers everywhere,

Reuben.

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[1] One Hot Minute, 1995, [CD], Los Angeles: Warner Bros.

[2] Red Hot Chili Peppers – Warped [Official Music Video], [online video], 26 October 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmyuJZH3RAc, (accessed 3 June 2018)

[3] Blood Sugar Sex Magik, 1991, [CD], Los Angeles: Warner Bros.

[4] C. Childers, 33 Years Ago: Red Hot Chili Peppers Release Their Self-Titled Debut Album, Loudwire, [website], 10 August 2017, http://loudwire.com/red-hot-chili-peppers-self-titled-debut-album-anniversary/, (accessed 6 June 2018)

[5] By the Way, 2002, [CD], Los Angeles: Warner Bros.

[6] British Phonographic Industry, [website], 2018, https://www.bpi.co.uk/award/1141-982-2, (accessed 6 June 2018)

[7] Californication, 1999, [CD], Los Angeles: Warner Bros.

[8] Stadium Arcadium, 2006, [CD], Los Angeles: Warner Bros.

[9] I’m With You, 2011, [CD], Los Angeles, Malibu: Warner Bros.

[10] The Getaway, 2016, [CD], Los Angeles: Warner Bros.

[11] Official Charts Company, [website], 2018, http://www.officialcharts.com/artist/15644/red-hot-chili-peppers/, (accessed 5 June 2018)

[12] G. Prato, Red Hot Chili Peppers Artist Biography, Allmusic, [website], 2018, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/red-hot-chili-peppers-mn0000883318/biography, (accessed 6 June 2018)

[13] D. Lifton, Watch the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ First TV Appearance on Alan Thicke’s ‘Thicke of the Night’, Diffuser, [website] 13 December 2016, http://diffuser.fm/red-hot-chili-peppers-alan-thicke/, (accessed 6 June 2018)

[14] J. Stafford, The Story of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Self-Titled Debut, Diffuser, [website], 10 August 2015, http://diffuser.fm/31-years-ago-red-hot-chili-peppers-release-their-self-titled-debut/, (accessed 8 June 2018)

[15] Freaky Styley, 1985, [CD], Detroit: EMI

[16] Uplift Mofo Party Plan, 1987, [CD], Los Angeles: EMI

[17] Mother’s Milk, 1989, [CD], Los Angeles: EMI Records

[18] Nagrarok (user), Red Hot Chili Peppers Mother’s Milk, Sputnik Music, [website] January 22^nd 2010, https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/34596/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-Mothers-Milk/, (accessed 8 June 2018)

[19] Mother’s Milk, Billboard, [website], 2018, https://www.billboard.com/music/red-hot-chili-peppers/chart-history/billboard-200/song/309681, (accessed 7 June 2018)

[20] A. Hanson, Mother’s Milk Allmusic Review, Allmusic, [website], 2018, https://www.allmusic.com/album/mothers-milk-mw0000201692, (accessed 8 June 2018)

[21] D. Fricke, ‘The Naked Truth’, Rolling Stone, 25 June 1992,  https://web.archive.org/web/20071013081112/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/redhotchilipeppers/articles/story/5938432/the_naked_truth, (accessed 11 June 2018)

[22] J. Gordon, Red Hot Chili Peppers Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Pitchfork, [website], 31 July 2016, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22107-blood-sugar-sex-magik/, (accessed 11 June 2018)

[23] Blood Sugar Sex Magik Tour, Revolvy, [website], 2018, https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Blood+Sugar+Sex+Magik+Tour, (accessed 23 June 2018)

[24] T. Karan, 23 Years Ago: John Frusciante Quits the Red Hot Chili Peppers (for the First Time), Diffuser, [website], 7 May 2015, http://diffuser.fm/john-frusciante-quits-red-hot-chili-peppers-anniversary/, (accessed 21 June 2018)

[25] E. Fulmer, Red Hot Chili Peppers One Hot Minute 20th Anniversary Retrospective, Alternative Nation, [website], 15 September 2015, http://archive.alternativenation.net/red-hot-chili-peppers-one-hot-minute-20th-anniversary-retrospective/, (accessed 23 June 2018)

[26] E. Fulmer, Red Hot Chili Peppers One Hot Minute 20th Anniversary Retrospective, Alternative Nation, [website], 15 September 2015, http://archive.alternativenation.net/red-hot-chili-peppers-one-hot-minute-20th-anniversary-retrospective/, (accessed 23 June 2018)

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