Stadium Arcadium

Great album, great band

I don't know what got me back in to RHCP after ignoring them for years, but here I am and loving it. When I was but a slip of a 20 year-old boy 'Californication' absolutely soundtracked that particular summer. I wasn't very impressed by 'By The Way' at the time - very one note and a friend at the time absolutely played the thing to death around me. This album seemed like an absolute return to form that pulled together the best bits of those two cuts. The CD/digital version however is brickwalled in mastering. Everything is pushed to the red and it can be a fatiguing listen. Not as bad as Californication, but another casualty of the loudness wars. Anyway my resurgent interest in the band has coincided with getting a nascent vinyl collection going. I was dismayed to find that this was apparently out of print and remaining copies were priced stupidly as a result. Then I got to reading about the acclaimed Steve Hoffman remastering of the LPs which supposedly completely unlock the potential of the album. I got to thinking, 'well, you're actually buying 4 LPs really, so is it that bad?' I found a few copies of Ebay for £79.99. I went back the day after (payday!) ready to buy and what do you know? One left, and the seller scalping at now twice the price. Amazon had ONE left at £99.99. I hated myself, but I did it and am on side 3 as I write, and the guitar solo to 'Strip My Mind' is the greatest sounding thing to ever come out of my speakers. This remaster is beyond great. It's stupidly good. Easily my best sounding LP and I'll be very, very pleased if my listening tastes align with work Hoffman has done again. In short, if you like the album and can find this at anything short of £100, I'd buy it if you can afford it, so long as you can be sure it's the Hoffman version (there is another one out there). You may not be able to again. That said, now as I have, my luck dictates that it'll probably be re-pressed at forty quid next month. If so, you're welcome! A quick note on packaging, this comes in a sturdy hard outer sleeve with two gatefold sleeves for 'Jupiter' and 'Mars'. Lyrics are printed on the gatefolds with no inserts. The vinyl is in nice anti static plastic, typically I replace the inners but these are fine to keep.

On time! Everything Ok!

Whilst part of me wishes that they had compressed the best songs into one disc this is still a superb album. It has everything that makes the Chilli’s my favourite band. It’s full and attitude and energy, creative and sophisticated song writing and some fantastic guitar work. As well as the singles there are some incredibly underrated songs on here including the bittersweet U2 Sounding Desecration Smile, which along with She’s Only 18 was written about the break up Anthony, was going though at the time. Another favourite is Animal Bar, which is about a isolated town in Northern Australia. Flea’s bass is absolutely killer and the song so melodic and cinematic. Admittedly about a quarter of the songs here are just boring filler however the silly irritating Hump de Bump is the only song here I actively don’t like. Whilst Stadium Aracdium may lack the peaks of Californication, the sheer beauty of By the Way or consistency and variation of The Getaway it is still an absolute blast and one of the best albums of the 00s.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers have been around before I was eve concieved. I'm 16 and I listen to a lot of old rock music, and tbh I've only just into the Chillis, and boy is it intoxicating. The double album Stadium Arcadium is guarenteed to keep you entertained for quite a while, myself included. With so many songs in no discernible order, you could create your own playlist (ironically, I don't favours playlists on my iPod)but each track has its own delights, whether its some of the catchiest rock out there (Dani California) sophmore sweetness (Snow Hey Oh) or the band's trademark goofyness antics (Hump de Bump) which has been churned over many years and now all bought together in own massive package. If you want rock that can be funny, serious, compelling, and of course, funky, RHCP is where it's most definitelt at, and Stadium Arcadium is one damn fine example of that. Also see there earlier for how it all began for the California kings of Cool!

THE ALBUM: As a chilis fan back in 2006, I was eagerly anticipating this album and bought it straight away. I was disappointed. It felt like a slog to get through and nothing really stood out so I dismissed it as an overindulgent mess and something that should have been chopped down to 12 tracks. I was wrong. Over the years, I've kept going back to this, especially when looking for guitar playing inspiration, and the album really opened up to me. I can find great things about all the songs on this, not to mention some of the now stone cold classics like Snow and Dani California. There are 3 excellent musicians playing at their creative best on this album with a very charismatic lyricist imbuing the songs with his signature vocal style. THE MASTERING This is mastered from the analogue master tracks and completely remixed by Steve Hoffman. You will notice better separation between the instruments, more headroom in the dynamic range (your ears won't get tired) and it elevates this great album. The Chilis themselves back in 2006 urged their fans to buy the vinyl, not the CD. That says it all.

I've recently re-evaluated this album after more or less dismissing it as not top RHCP standard originally. Although there is some truth in saying it's 28 tracks of more or less the same thing, the overall standard is excellent. In fact we get to track 25 (Storm in a Teacup) before the dreaded attempt at white hip hop type rap which Rick Rubin (almost) completely eliminated from the Chilis repertoire (thankfully). Even this track has some great guitar work and thrilling musical ideas.Maybe I've mellowed, but I can see now that this is well up there with Californication and By the Way. For me, the boys came into their best form with the turn of the century. Pre-Californication albums had maybe 3 or 4 stand-out tracks each. From then on, the albums are choc full of quality songs. You can get popular without betraying your ideals and talent and very few bands can produce a double album with virtually no filler or throwaway tracks. Such is S.A.

I guess if you’re buying this on vinyl then you already know about the album. Well, Stadium Arcadium is one of my wife’s favourite albums, and having bought her a record player last year, it was a bit of a no-brainer to pick this up for Christmas. Unfortunately it took 3 weeks to be delivered, but this was due to Royal Mail. I contacted the seller who confirmed that the item was dispatched quickly, and they offered a full refund. However I decided to wait. So, no problems with the seller. Even though it was late, it was worth the wait. The quality is mind-blowing. I’m playing on budget Lenco turntable, through the Audiolab 6000a with B&W speakers, and I’m blown away by the detail. It’s absolutely fantastic.

Having this recording on CD from the day it was released, but have only heard it a few times, as the sound is just terrible. Now having it on vinyl is just a dream come true as the full dynamics has been restored. You can now hear Fleas excellent excursions on the bass and Frusicantes guitar swirling around the room. Masterpiece. It's just a must have.

Ooh! Ooh! Me! Me! I want to write my first review of The Red Hot Chili Peppers' METEORIC Stadium Arcadium. First let me preface that I was born in the 80's so I was not hip to the original sound of The Red Hots. That being said once thing album hit me I learned the entire album on guitar and went out and bought their earlier albums. Does that say something about this album? BTW this is me and a humble cover of "Slow Cheetah" and "Torture Me." One of these days I will put up videos of the entire album which takes about 2 hours. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=leLCpWjYE24 Without 'Further' ado, let me tell you how it all began. A friend of a friend of mine whom I did not know too well at the time (we hung out a couple of times always with good tunes) invited me to a festival. When it comes to road trippin' to a festi, somehow my car is always the one that gets vvolunteered. Shows u how much i love these things... ...so in preparation for this adventure my spider senses were tingling. I felt it was time to 'turn the page' with a fresh start musically so I wandered over to the local public library perusing the meager music collection available for borrow. Pretty much bare bones except for one hidden gem that neatly ambushed me as I gently spun the CD rack. What is this? The Red Hit Chili Peppers in my towns local library? And the album Stadium Arcadium that I've never even heard about before. Well let me tell you that I grew up watching music videos on MTV in the 80's and even though I did not have any albums by the Chili Peppers, I always like listening and watching their videos for Soul to Squeeze Under the Bridge and one of my favorite videos ever "Aeroplane. " I also like video games and arcades and what the heck not only will this double album fill a good chunk of time on the road but the font of the letters the title and the artwork were really drawing me in. Let's just say that I may have judged this album by its cover. I like the cut of its jib so I literally checked it out for 2 weeks. Now...any driver worth their weight in salt will have an excellent range of good music to make the ride enjoyable for their passenger whoever they might be. Driver and Disc Jockey might as well be interchangeable professions. So...that's why I wanted to give Stadium Arcadium a little test drive the week before. You know, make sure it was presentable to these backwater country folk in the mountains. Music might as well be paint. And let me tell you that when you step outside the vehicle after a long trip you might as well be painted with the colors of the music you have been listening to. With our tents chairs sleeping bags cooler full of provisions and of course Max Clover the Siberian Husky taking up the entire back seat (he was my festival friend's dog who could not take care of him anymore so I rescued him) we had no more room left for shields nor armor should the natives become agitated by the sonic booms coming from my stock stereo. Oddly enough, I had a difficult time homing in on the music during those first few days. Fir whatever reason my memory could not draw a bead on recognizing the songs. Maybe I was not driving long enough to catch more than just fragments of lyrics drums guitars and wait, I thought I heard a trumpet in there somewhere...it might also have been the fact that it's a double album. For some reason the lyrics 'Like a Kane and Able' did jump out at me. Whatever the reason I initially had a difficult time wrapping my mind around it. Which is strange because there's nothing out of the ordinary in terms of instrumentation. RHCP are basically a power trio with a vocalist, like like Led Zeppelin or Queen or Ozzy Osborne or Van Halen. And the album was mixed on the hotter side of the peak. Well long story short the three of us (Max ' s masters and the dog...Max Clover with his head out the window) listened to the entire album Stadium Arcadium for like 8 hours on our way to the festival (alternating Jupiter and Mars). I let my buddy drive and I had my head out the window just like my (new dog) with the stereo blasting. It was an incredible feeling, that feeling like we were running on adrenaline, the vanguard racing towards the edge of the earth. This album Stadium Arcadium by the late and very talented band of musicians The Red Hot Chili Peppers is deep. If you are a guitar player like me, and want to analyze Mr. John Frusciante' s style you are in for a rainbow plethora of different techniques. Power chords (5ths), single note lines, double stops, arpeggios, tritones, fingerpicking, 7th chords, 9th chords, hammer ons, 6ths, double picking, use of the blues scale, right handed hammer ons (tapping), pedal tones, counterpoint, and chock full of bending. We are talking Skittles baby, taste the rainbow of techniques. I am always amazed by the rapid pace of the guitar part in "Snow (hey oh)" with a half time back beat on the guitar. This is not easy to play smooth for an extended duration. John must have some incredible stamina to be able to sustain that kind of tempo for the entire song. "Give me your wrist..." And Fleas bass lines are so funky. These guys truly understand the art of counterpoint. I love "Charlie" and "Turn It Again" in particular. I'm not a drummer but I do know that everyone's parts fit well together, with Chad Smith solid on the skins. No one seems to ever overplay, and the songs are so imaginative so different emtionally. Those Chili Peppers are team players in it for the music: The Song. Like I said this was the first album I ever bought (for all of my relatives too; makes a great Christmas present) but since first hearing this in the spring if 2009 I did buy The first few albums including Freaky Stylee Mother's Milk and of course Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Anybody can learn how to play an instrument. Hell, you don't even need to be able to hear if you learn just the mechanical finger movements. This album 'Stadium Arcadium' proves that The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea, John Frusciante, Anthony Kiedis, and Chad Smith are more than just players, they are musicians. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are Jedi Knights. They have opened up and spilled their guts "My heart is hurting when I share..." but they have used their ears to create music for the song. There's no question that this album was written with a more mature and experienced point of view "Slow down the road to my back 40..." so if you're skull was not obliterated and heart shattered into a million pieces when this meteor of an album finally hit you like it did to me, I just pulled out my iPod plugged in my guitar and ran through it 2 hours yesterday first time in a couple of months) I urge you to go back and meditate on these songs. Stadium Arcadium is IMHO a masterpiece if the likes seldom seen or heard by musicians in the last 20 years. So go and may the force be with you and pick up another fellow 'musician' Guitar Slash's Apocalyptic Love featuring Miles Kennedy and the Conspirators (2012). Another album masterpiece and favorite of mine: Joy! Thank you, Steve P.S. oh and 'Kentucky' if you happen to be reading this please do give Anthony a call ;) P.P.S. There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Frusciante will rejoin the Red Hots again sometime in (hopefully near) future when the time is right. If I helped create the music of Jupiter and Mars I think I too would bust the knob off while it was stuck on '10.'

Un excelente producto y calidad acorde a lo deseado

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The Chili's return with new album "Stadium Arcadum" four year's after the masterpiece "By The Way". WOW! Every song is unique and special in it's own way! Their are no bad or throwaway tracks! At an age of 43 year's (except Fruciante , age 36) you would expect them to tone down their music! NO WAY! THEY ROCK AS HARD AS THEY EVER DID AND THEY MIX IN ALOT OF FUNK! Sure their are a ton of ballad's and melodic tune's but that's the great thing! They mix all their sound's in one 28 song package! If I Had To Split The Album In Half (14 song's) This Is How I Would Do It : 1) "Tell Me Baby" - Amazing! A mix of their funk , rap and melodic pretty side! GREAT! Very , Very possible second single! 2) "Charlie" - Funky and bring's you back to the BloodSugarSexMagik day's with a mix of their new sound! Very well written! Lyric's are questionable at time's ("Get The message on Flea's fist/Move Around like a scientist/Lay down...Get Kissedd") but that's O.K. it's allway's fun to her the Pepper's goof off once in awile! 3) "Desceration Smile" - Very "By The Way"/"Californication" sounding! Great ballad with nice vocal's by Anthony! Better then "Slow Cheetah" as a ballad in my mind. 4) "Hump de Bump" - Very , Very Funky! Amazing a band at this age can still do what they did 21 year's ago! Sound's alot like "American Ghost Dance" on "Freaky Syley"! 5) "Turn It Again" - WOW! GO Fruciante! He rip's his guitar up on this one and boy dou's he give us one hell of a solo! Wait until the 4:20 mark in the song and you will know what I mean! Very Spacey Sounding! The chorus with Anthony singing is awsome to! 6) "Hard To Concentrate" - Absolutly Beutifull! Kieds give's an amazing vocal performance and the African drum beat's blend in well! Perfect for a wedding! Q magizene (a popular music mag) said it was the best song on the album! 7) "21 st Century" - Funky but not overly Funky! Good blend and is extremly catchey! Great base work by Flea! Alot of people right this one off , but it IS very good! 8) "If" - Short folkey song. I love it! It is so relaxing! Most people wont pay attention to this one but they should! Flea wrote it and is better then his last atempt "Pea" off "One Hot Minute"! (Nothing against "Pea" On "One Hot Minute" , I still stand by my case that "One Hot Minute" Is Underated) 9) "Dani California" - Ehh. How do you not pick it? It's not the most brilliant original song on the album but it's catchey and fun and make's a great single! Nice ending solo. 10) "Storm In A Teacup" - Rap! Metal! Funk! What dous that remind you of? BloodSugar baby! Awsome! Again not a brilliantly written track , BUT YOU GOT TO HAVE IT ON THEIR! 11) "Animal Bar" - Very unique! Not a rocker but it's so different and special! Another that wont get commercial sucess but deserves to! It is also cathey. That's the cool thing about the Chili's , they can be experimental but make it catchey. 12) "She's Only 18" - Beatle's sounding rocker! Mind blowing solo by Johnny! Anthony (the singer) said it was his Favorite solo on the album! (you can see track by track interview's if you get the Special Edition versian) 13) "Snow (Hey Oh)" - A little long but an awsome pop song! Catchey and very , very catchey hook's! Vintage Californication! Again the only problem I have is it being so long! It should have been a 3:00 song. But it's so good it can't be left off my Top 14! 14) "Slow Cheetah" - An accoustic balad. VERY "By The Way" sounding , but that's a good thing! Very catchey but DON'T skip it just because it take's a while to kick in. At about the 1:09 mark the chorus lift's the song up! Awsome! Not as good as "Desecration Smile" but very close! If The whole album turned out 14 song's like that it probally would be more succesfull but the whole album is awsome! It's Not BloodSugarSexMagik but who care's? I think this is much better then BloodSugerSexMagik , Musically and lyricly! Every song , AWSOME! Even the one's I didn't pick in my Top 14! Other fave's are , "C'mon Girl" , "Wet Sand" , "She Look's To Me" , "Readymade" , "Strip My Mind" and "Especially In Michigan". Their is not a bad sound from the opening beat's of "Dani California" to the errie ending note's of "Death Of A Martian"! This is also not "Dark Side Of The Moon" as some people say but why cant it be "The Dark Side Of The Moon" for are generation? Anyway's thank's for another awsome one boy's and buy it if you have a mind to! (How are they possibly going to relese another album? They have relesed Six flawless album's in a row , I don't know how they have any idea's left! Oh Well they will find a way! They allway's do!) CHEERS!