Greg Prato, All Music Guide

Many figured that the Chili Peppers' days of undisputed alternative kings were numbered after their lackluster 1995 release One Hot Minute, but like the great phoenix rising from the ashes, this legendary and influential outfit returned back to greatness with 1999's Californication. An obvious reason for their rebirth is the reappearance of guitarist John Frusciante (replacing Dave Navarro), who left the Peppers in 1992 and disappeared into a haze of hard drugs before cleaning up and returning to the fold in 1998. Frusciante was a main reason for such past band classics as 1989's Mother's Milk and 1991's BloodSugarSexMagik, and proves once and for all to be the quintessential RHCP guitarist. Anthony Kiedis' vocals have improved dramatically as well, while the rhythm section of bassist Flea and drummer Chad Smith remains one of rock's best. The quartet's trademark punk-funk can be sampled on such tracks as "Around the World," "I Like Dirt" and "Parallel Universe," but the more pop-oriented material proves to be a pleasant surprise — "Scar Tissue," "Otherside," "Easily" and "Purple Stain" all contain strong melodies and instantly memorable choruses. And like their 1992 introspective hit "Under the Bridge," there are even a few mellow moments — "Porcelain," "Road Trippin'" and the title track. With the instrumentalists' interplay at an all-time telepathic high and Kiedis peaking as a vocalist, Californication is a bona fide Chili Peppers classic. It would be a crime for this stellar, definitive lineup to not remain intact the second time around.

Jason Josephes, Amazon.com

Reunited with producer Rick Rubin and guitarist John Frusciante (both of whom were on board for the 1991's breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik), the Chili Peppers waste no time in burying their last effort, the so-so One Hot Minute. Californication's kickoff cut, "Around the World," swaggers around the room, reacquainting itself with old fans and welcoming new ones. Fuzzy Hendrix vibes and popcorn bass lines still rule the roost, along with a heaping helping of disco magic and some unexpected twists. Ten years ago, Anthony Kiedis and company wouldn't have been comfortable doing revamped new wave ("Parallel Universe") or unpretentious ballads (the acoustic "Road Trippin'"), but such material fits Californication's extra-wide canvas. Except for a few meandering numbers that could have been excised, the Red Hot Chili Peppers succeed and regain their footing on the mountain of adrenalized funk.

Andrew McGuire, Amazon.co.uk

Following a string of unsatisfactory replacements (including former Jane's Addiction alum Dave Navarro), Californication--the band's seventh album--saw them reunited with both errant guitarist John Frusciante (hauled out of a long and debilitating heroin addiction) and producer Rick Rubin, whose mixture of commerical nous and sonic smarts helped make 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik their breakthrough set. It's a welcome reunion: Frusciante's playing, in particular--tight, yet lyrical--fits these songs like a second skin, lending them a sensual sort of ease that is perfectly in keeping with the reckless hedonism of their lyrics. The songs themselves are much the same mixture of adrenalised swagger and high-tensile funk as ever. And typically, there are two or three fillers here ("Emit Remmus", "Purple Stain") which probably should have been left on the shelf. Ultimately, though, it's their ballads ("Road Trippin'", the moody, desolate "Scar Tissue") which really demonstrate their strengths, both as songwriters and arrangers--and reveal, albeit briefly, the hearts this crew normally take such pains to conceal.

Douglas Wolk, Barnes & Noble

To commemorate hitting the 15-year mark, the Red Hot Chili Peppers reunited with guitarist John Frusciante and producer Rick Rubin (from 1991's triumphant Blood Sugar Sex Magik) and headed for the studio. With the band having matured at least a little in those years, Californication contains more sun-baked slow ones than your usual RHCP disc, but that doesn't mean the fire's gone out. Frontman Anthony Kiedis seems comfortable in his mellower "Under the Bridge" mode, singing about home and relationships instead of spieling out hard-partying raps. Frusciante is back in form, unraveling cheerful, tricky Hendrix homages, while bassist Flea and drummer Chad Smith remain a nonpareil funk-rock rhythm section, locking in and grooving whenever they get the chance. All fronts come together on the breathless new wave of "Parallel Universe," the taut and snappy "I Like Dirt," and "Right on Time," an ultra high-energy snatch of disco. It's on songs like these, when the Chili Peppers hit that perfect beat, that you can almost hear the grins spreading on the band's faces.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Anthony Kiedis (vocals); John Frusciante (guitar); Flea (bass); Chad Smith (drums).
Additional personnel: Patrick Warren (Chamberlin organ); Greg Kurstin (keyboards).
Engineers include: Jim Scott, John Sorenson, Greg Fidelman.
"Scar Tissue" won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. CALIFORNICATION was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. "Scar Tissue" was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.
"Californication" was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and for Best Rock Song.

CALIFORNICATION finds The Red Hot Chili Peppers once again in the more straightforward punk-funk mode of BLOOD SUGAR SEX MAGIK. This return to their original sound also marks the return of prodigal son John Frusciante, who takes over for his replacement, Dave Navarro. The Chili Peppers fill CALIFORNICATION with material shaped by personal and professional turmoil, resulting in a somewhat more sensitive approach than one might expected from a band whose hard-core following are skate-punks and drunken frat-boys. Songs such as "Otherside," "Scar Tissue" and "This Velvet Glove" overflow with background harmonies, while Frusciante's unadorned guitar provides support for Anthony Kiedis' emotive singing and broken-hearted lyrics.
The title track is one of the most impressive songs this quartet has written--It tells a tale of wandering souls who've lost their way searching for the American Dream in California. This sensitive showing does nothing to undermine the Chili Pepper's trademark aggressive musical style. If anything, their playing has gotten tighter--as evidenced by the chicken-scratch funk of "Get On Top" and the scat-sung approach of "I Like Dirt." The most impressive anomaly on CALIFORNICATION is "Savior," an ethereal track that finds Frusciante playing with a tone reminiscent of early Peter Green.

Amy Sciarretto, CMJ New Music Report, issue 624, June 28, 1999

The Red Hot Chili Peppers's seventh album, Californication, is highlighted by the band's reunion with guitarist John Frusciante, who played on Mother's Milk and the breakout Blood Sugar Sex Magick. His return occurs at a crucial time in the Chili Pepper's evolution, as they struggle to evolve amidst the seemingly constant volatility of their own intra-band chemistry. The album combines the best elements of the Peppers' ever-broadening sound, from healthy doses of power-funk on "Around The World" and the dirty "Get On Top," to more straighforward rock (the first single "Scar Tissue"), revealing the band's increased strength as songwriters. Frontman Anthony Kiedis's voice sounds much more confident and melodic -- his poetic crooning on "Otherside" and the dreamy acoustic "Road Trippin'" are stylishly addictive. Having matured far beyond their drug-soaked sock-on-cock days, the band's surreal, dream-like verses on the title track and the irresistible "Easily" reveal how peculiar and completely original the band's songwriting style has become. Californication doesn't necessarily mark a redefinition of the band's sound, but it masterfully highlights how broad it has grown.

Mike Ross, Express Writer / JAM! Music, June 12, 1999

This is one of the more welcome comebacks of the '90s, if not the most focused.

But it all depends on your point of view. Back with guitarist John Frusciante after breaking up in 1996, the band that made its name by putting socks upon their male members clings to the some of their old funk-rock-rap trappings on Californication - hey, cool. A sober air of maturity also permeates this CD - and that's cool, too. What results is a long and uneven collection, as if the talent is pulling in too many directions, but with Anthony Kiedis's stream of consciousness poetry and outstanding musicianship from all, the Chili Peppers are obviously on the way back to being relevant.

Plagued by disaster and discord, most people find their state of mind wanders inexorably towards the fjords in a long black coat. "Girls in push-up bras" aren't a recognised part of the lexicon of misery - but then the Red Hot Chili Peppers are the band for whom the dread word 'irrepressible' was invented.
Never mind that they've lost close friends and band members to drugs and dissatisfaction, or that their unstable guitarist recruitment policy has led them close to the brink of self-destruction, they've never lost their knack for making everything sound like a gleefully sticky schoolyard euphemism, for revelling in the leering testosterone and goateed bass that stalks the world of nightmare.

Despite the messages given off by the title, 'Californication' is supposedly the band at their most reflective, a meditation on the shallowness of West Coast life and a celebration of the bonds of band and friendship triggered by their reunion with 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' guitarist John Frusciante. A 'Deserter's Songs' for people who like to go 'Heurghhh!', occasionally they do slide into genuine melancholy - the closing 'Road Trippin'' best encapsulates their sweetly adolescent camaraderie by loading up a van with "my two favourite allies" and, ahhh, "snacks" and heading off to discuss surfing and, hey, brother, the new record. The title track, too, is just made for standing on Santa Monica Pier in a blustery overcoat, pondering the ends of the earth - and if the whole 'Hollywood is pornography' metaphor makes you wish people would just move to Kent and, like, get over it, it's touched with a certain maturity.

Like watching a child star in their first role as an accountant, though, it's still hard to take them seriously. There's a staccato burst of petulance here called 'I Love Dirt' and even as they're trying for the adult themes that reflect their hard-line lives, they can't quite shake off their much-loved, inherently juvenile aesthetic of ugliness, looming on the horizon of every song like a veiny Robert Crumb creation. It's there in the fiendishly clever anagram of 'Emit Remmus', furious Sabbath lurching bizarrely backing a tale of going to the movies in Leicester Square; lurking in the woozy piano of 'Porcelain', where Anthony Kiedis upends decades of lyrical tradition by rhyming "moon" with "womb"; and best of all, burrowed deep in the seal-barking, foil-chewing funk of 'Get On Top'. 'Suck My Kiss' has become 'feel my pain' - and yes, you can bet they say that to all the girls.

This, it seems, is how they ward off the demons. For most people it's called adolescence. For the Chili Peppers, it's a lifelong vocation.

Brent DiCrescenzo, Pitchfork Media

I actually frightened friends of mine when I declared that I was looking forward to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers record. Dan simply replied sardonically, "Dooooode." BloodSugarSexMagik was the first CD I ever purchased. Listening to a CD on headphones after a decade of cassettes was revelatory. Faint, echoing harmonies, popping bass, and crisp, finger- lickin' guitar swirled in my ears. (In retrospect, I guess technology had a lot to do with my infatuation with the album.) Now, Californication sees the same players (John Frusciante and Rick Rubin included) from the that album return. As expected, it's considerably better than the bone- stupid One Hot Minute, but not quite as funky- assed as their acclaimed 1991 effort.

But wait. Before we go any further, let's talk about Dave Navarro. Dave Navarro was a horrible fit for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Thankfully, he's off in some private velvet- paneled studio pouring hot wax on his nipples and applying mascara. Look up "wannabe rockstar" in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Dave Navarro's pierced nipples and school- of- Depeche Mode black nail polish. So, weighing in at a stunning 85 pounds, the band's former guitarist John Frusciante and his quavering, pasty, skeletal body rejoined for the Californication sessions.

In his off time from the Chili Peppers, John Frusciante recorded a couple of drug- induced solo mishaps and had a best- selling Italian novel named after him. The man brings a rucksack of real emotions with his guitar. I'll also wager my credibility that he's the best big- time American rock guitarist going right now. His fingers can effortlessly switch from the pickin' funk of "I Like Dirt" to the sculpted feedback of "Emit Remmus" to the tender, lovely (yes, really, a tender, lovely Chili Peppers track) "Porcelain" to the clever, stadium- sized solos throughout. But best of all, he makes you forget about that crazy monkey on bass.

Eh, but let's face it, the biggest obstacle in your enjoyment of a Red Hot Chili Peppers album is horny crooner, Anthony Kiedis. If you can stomach lines like "Go-rilla cunt-illa/ Sammy D and Salmonella," "Up to my ass in alligators/ Let's get it on with the alligator haters," and "To fingerpaint is not a sin/ I put my middle finger in," you're good to go. If those lines make you wince like Pitchfork Editor Ryan Schreiber, keep in mind that I pulled those from only two of fifteen songs.

In a way, you have to be familiar with California to appreciate Kiedis' lyrics. I mean, Los Angeles is shallow, sunny, fun, and tragic. So, in this age of unfathomably horrible choruses like, "I did it all for the nookie/ The nookie/ So you can take your cookie...," "Because you did my homies," and "Bawitdaba" (a five- spot to anyone who can explain that one), we can cut the Chili Peppers some slack. Plus, the sincere, hook- laden, mellow jams of "Scar Tissue," "Otherside," and "Road Trippin'" more than make up for whatever knuckle- dragging Kiedis executes. That the Chili Peppers even gave us a single you can actually tolerate on the radio should be heralded.

Longevity in rock music is about as rare as hip-hop spellcheckers these days. The idea of albums has given way to the force- feeding of singles. Teens reposter their walls with the face- of- the- moment more frequently than undercover advertisers placard boarded- up fences and buildings in New York. Basicially, the Chili Peppers are the closest thing we have to a Led Zepplin today. If you want quality, commercial, Jeep- stereo, headphone, stadium- filling, champion Rock that you can get behind, where else are you going to turn? Not to Eminem, you ain't.

Tom Doyle, Q Magazine

In Red Hot Chili Peppers' world, it seems, people and situations change. Anthony Kiedis's on/off heroin habit continues; guitarist Dave Navarro quits after one album (1995's One Hot Minute) to pen his forthcoming book Trust No-One, a paranoia-wracked account of an entire year spent at home. He's replaced by the returning Blood Sugar Sex Magik linchpin John Frusciante. But the slappy bass, muscular-rocking song remains the same. Perhaps they feel that the 1984 patenting of their thrash punk/P-Funk crossover on Freaky Styley was quite enough innovation for one career and, accordingly, there are moments on Californication, such as the rap metal of I Like Dirt and Get On Top, that could have seamlessly fitted into any of their six previous albums. But even if there appears to be nothing essentially different about Californication, the band's intrinsically eclectic nature ensures that they wander into new musical areas: the dreamlike Road Tripping is McCartney's Blackbird as viewed through acidic trails; the tumbling, jazz-flecked Porcelain features Kiedis at his most poetic, softly lamenting squandered youth and drug-decayed beauty ("Are you wasting away in your skin?/Someone said that you're fading too soon/Drifting and floating and fading away"). While All Saints' cooing xerox of Under The Bridge (without the "drawing blood" lyric) perhaps fuelled the argument that behind the tattoos and pecs, Red Hot Chili Peppers are fine songwriters, the five-minute title track recalls the reflective atmosphere of their best-known song with an unambiguous comment upon the more shallow values of their adopted West Coast home where earthquakes are "just another good vibration". Elsewhere, they reinforce their knack for great, unusual pop with the Police-echoing Otherside, the skippy, oblique Scar Tissue and the strident, rallying Easily. Considering the volatile intra-band chemistry, there's always been a very real danger that they'll implode at any moment. If this finally happens - as many predict - after Californication, at least they'll have done so with no small amount of style.

Greg Tate, Rolling Stone, issue 815

Let's keep it real: white boys do not have to be funky; they only have to rock, and that the Red Hot Chili Peppers do quite wickedly, thank you. Historically, though, RHCP albums have been long on sock-it-to-me passion but short on the songcraft that made their hero George Clinton's most acid-addled experiments lyrically haunting and melodically infectious. Up until this new Peppers joint, Californication, that is. For Lord knows what reasons -- age, sobriety, Blonde on Blonde ambitions or worship at the altar of Billy Corgan -- they've settled down and written a whole album's worth of tunes that tickle the ear, romance the booty, swell the heart, moisten the tear ducts and dilate the third eye. All this inside of song forms and production that reveal sublime new facets upon each hearing.

Back in the revolving-guitar saddle is John Frusciante, of Blood Sugar Sex Magik fame, who replaces the outgoing Dave Navarro (who, of course, replaced Frusciante himself not so long ago) and proves once again why he's the only ax slinger God ever wanted to be a Pepper, too. As in days of yore, Frusciante continually hits the mark with slithery chicken licks, ingenious power chording, Axis: Bold as Love grace notes and sublimely syncopated noises that allow the nimble Flea to freely bounce back and forth between bombastic lead and architectonic rhythm parts on the bass. If there were a Most Valuable Bass Player award given out in rock, Flea could have laid claim to that bitch ten years running.


The real star turn on this disc, though, is by Anthony Kiedis, whose vocal cords have apparently been down to some crossroads and over the rehab, and returned with heretofore unheard-of range, body, pitch, soulfulness and melodic sensibility. On "Scar Tissue" he laces out a falsetto purple enough to have made Jeff Buckley swoon with envy; on "Savior'' he croons and belts with enough chest-thumping pride to suggest that Vegas is just a kiss away, sustaining supple, buoyant tones with such ease, you know he must be amazing himself, too. (As a friend observed, if she didn't know it was Kiedis, she would have thought the vocalist a Kiedis clone who could actually sing.) The point being that until you hear Californication, you haven't ever heard Kiedis truly sang, as they say in the church, nor prove himself so adept and moving in the lyrics department, either. Just in time for Matrix fever, "Parallel Universe" speaks of an "underwater where thoughts can breathe easily/Far away you were made in a sea, just like me" to the beat of a track that hybridinally splits the difference between the Yardbirds and Eurodisco. (Flea and Frusciante's remarkable handheld trillings on that one are more than a little technically impressive, we should add.)


The band treads more-familiar funk-rap ground on cuts like "Get on Top'' and "Right on Time,'' and on this album's "Under the Bridge" reduxes - the title track and the aforementioned "Scar Tissue," a dreamy Venice Beach pimp stroll with lullaby-lovely slide guitar. But songs like "Otherside'' and "Porcelain'' are delicate, vulnerable and volatile enough to earn the rubric Pumpkins-esque, while the baroque progressions and contrapuntal maneuvers heard on the hook-drunk "Easily'' could have one thinking that the Chili Peppers car-jacked Elvis Costello and made off like musical bandits. The poetry found on "Easily'' is no joke: "The story of a woman on the morning of a war/Remind me, if you will, exactly what we're fighting for/Throw me to the wolves, because there's order in the pack/Throw me to the sky, because I know I'm coming back.'' As dope as all of the above are, however, they're only the setup for the glistening simplicity and serenity displayed on the disc's denouement, "Road Trippin'," a finger-picked Olde English stylee number that ties the album up in a bow while gently inferring that Californication is the recovering singer's way of reminding himself to wake up and live and be "a mirror for the sun."


While all previous Chili Peppers projects have been highly spirited, Californication dares to be spiritual and epiphanal, proposing that these evolved RHCP furthermuckers are now moving toward funk's real Holy Grail: that salty marriage of esoteric mythology and insatiable musicality that salvages souls, binds communities and heals the sick. Not exactly your average white band.

© Frank Steven Groen