Red Hot Chili Peppers - Califonication

Tonight, we tackle Californication. No, not the weird David Duchovny series, the Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Spoiler alert, it's Anthony Kiedis's version of The Fine Art of Surfacing. The Amateur Internet Interpretation squad does a fairly good job for a change, but only because the topics are well understood. See, AK uses a lot of oblique references in his lyrics, but we have a clear ledger of chronological happenings for comparison. Essentially, we know who and what he's talking about, so it's easy to play connect the dots. What people tend to forget is that this is RHCP version 4.0. If RHCP were a Linux flavor, this one would be called "Andy Albatross." 

Right from the start, though, there's an interpretational trap, and a lot of people completely ignore the fact that the title actually has 2 meanings. First, the portmanteau is obvious: California + Fornication. Second, the suffix "-ication" tends to imply the process of becoming (scarification = becoming scarred, stratification = the accumulation of strata, etc.). They both work together to create the concept of being indoctrinated into the self-indulgent hedonistic fantasy of celebrity that California markets to the world. As Axl might say, it's an illusion. Luckily, RHCP didn't work too hard for their illusions, just to throw them all away. That's not to say it's bad, it's just that it's 1999, and somehow John Frusciante is not only not dead, but back in the band. Obviously, he left for a second time in the future, but right now we're supposedly listening to the "mature" RHCP right in the middle of Alternative Rock's second hot minute in the mainstream. It's downright somber at times. Mostly that's down to John who was now living his third life as the Grover Cleveland of RHCP guitarists. Actually, he came back a 3rd time in 2019, but that's not the point. The point is that he inherited Hillel Slovak's Funk-punk position, freaked out and somehow survived his speedball free fall into the abyss, and came back as what he really is, an experimental rock guitarist reinheriting Dave Navarro's shift to harder rock and metal, before quitting again to go back to his objectively bizarre solo material.

All that said, this is still very much a RHCP album, chock full of sexual innuendo, pop culture references, and fuzzed up Flea basslines. We should press play.

Oh yeah, i forgot, this thing is Rick Rubin loud. We'll just turn the main volume down to 78% or so. Some glorious noise rock, space funk, even the slow pieces are really pretty. Lyrically it's all over the place, but it really boils down to stories of losing your way on the quest for the Hollywood version of the American Dream. Not sure how that song about his fling with Sporty Spice fits into that, but that's summer time backward, i guess.

The point is that the Hollywood version isn't real. Reality is much dirtier, more heartbreaking, nothing goes as planned. Christgau's one star write-off is more vulgar than the actual album, or any of their others. Sex isn't offensive in and of itself. As for the whole thing not being juvenile macho funk-hop, it's totally here, just not the whole thing or singles material. As an album by a super famous rock band at the end of the computer-code century, this is pretty exciting and adventurous. 

Obviously, we have to go back and hear Blood Sugar Sex Magik at some point. For the moment though, let's all agree to take a break from the fantasy version of what life should be like, and go get lost in the actual world full of actual people who realize you can't avoid the closing credits forever. Let's go get lost, let's go get lost....