Red Hot Chili Peppers, One Hot Minute Song by Song Thread *

Since my 1984 thread is wrapping up, I wanted to kickstart my thread for the 1995 record One Hot Minute by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, notable for being their only album to feature Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. Before we get started, here are some ground rules:
Ground Rules

1. Keep all discussion to the song at hand or songsthat have already been discussed so as to not disrupt the flow.
2. Please explains all thoughts in depth I'd simply because that leads to more fruitful discussion than "This Rocks" or "This Sucks".

Anyway, is like to hear how all of you discovered this record and what your initial impressions were!

How I Discovered This Album
Got into Chili Peppers around 2011 or 2012, had the early records, then I came to this knowing it was known as "Oh such a s---ty record", and then I popped it in, and was taken about, it ended up being really f---in' good, and I listened to it quite a bit after that. And here I am.

 

Looking forward to the thread

 

Me too

 

Jumping in here

 

Cool, how did you discover this record and such?

 

Bought this one on release in '95 when I was 13. Blood Sugar Sex Magick was one of the first three CDs I ever owned (along with Aerosmith's Pump and The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience) and I listened to that thing until every note was burned into my brain, so OHM was definitely on my radar.

The 'Warped' video was my first exposure to post-Frusciante RHCP (although I can't remember if I was aware of the lineup shift at the time). From what I can recall, I wasn't sold at first. The song was a long way away from the playful, sexed-up funk of BSSM and the video was a little beyond my adolescent comfort zone.

That said, I dutifully gave the album my full attention once the CD was mine (as one was wont to do in the days before streaming and instant gratification). It never surpassed BSSM for me at the time, but as I got older I definitely gained a deeper appreciation for its dark twists and menacing funk. To the point that I now consider it one of the band's crowning achievements and am baffled by anyone who doesn't hold it in the same regard.

 

I think that My Friends is the best song on the album (a very underrated album, IMO).

 

Looking forward to this thread. I haven't listened to this album in ages.

I was a skate rat back in the 80s, and the Peppers were "required" listening. Loved 'em. I was really disappointed in this album, and it'll be fun to see if I change my mind about it.

 

As someone who was a RHCP fan from the mid 80’s, the 90’s were the beginning of the end. For whatever reason they abandoned their funk and zanyness and embraced a more traditional “alt rock” sound.

One Hot Minute’s impending release actually peaked my interest by adding Dave to the mix. Sadly it was a confused album. Dave had some really good licks though.

Warped was a good kick off track though. Not a great song necessarily but a good way to start things off.

That’s all I can say about this record without going into great detail about how much I dislike it overall.

 

OHM was the last Chili Peppers album I cared about. I don't get why it's so hated these days. Dave Navarro did a great job putting his stamp on these songs with a band he ultimately didn't really fit in with - so what, still sounds good to me!

I saw them on this tour and thought the show was great. The stage had lamps all over it, and their shadows provided the light show. Kiedos fell off the stage at the end and apparently broke something.

 

I'd rather have him back than John quite frankly.

 

I was fortunate to have seen them pre UMPP and they were insane. So much fun. Saw them again with Nirvana and Pearl Jam opening and they were by far the weakest of the three. I thought I that was 1990 or so. Never mind had yet to take over but Teen Spirit was just starting to sprout radio airplay.

 

It was probably sometime around late 1991.

 

Which lineup was that? I'd imagine Hillel was there, but who was the drummer when you saw them?

 

That period, live, was pretty hit or miss. Love the album, easily the best with Frusciante, but compared to everything before it, was a downgrade (and I'm going by bootlegs). And yeah, the opening bands who were younger than them, hungrier than them, and were putting on tighter shows, yes, totally owned the most of the time.

 

I was 24 when this album came out, was running my own company. I was the boss and I loved music. I had a captive audience always with me as we would drive from call to call. Long summertime work doing AC repair. I would have someone usually young working for me (be it a student on his first summer job, or someone I worked for trying to get there son off to a good start working with me, or sometimes just someone just wanting to work ) We had a CD player in the van and I was also a CD buying whore. I had over 1000 CD's at this time in my short life I was always finding bands I liked and would wait for their next release. Every Tuesday I would head down to the music store to check out new releases. I remember when this album was released I was so stoked because Warped had some airplay before hand and I thought this was going to be a monster. Looking forward to the review, thanks @Musicman1998

 

No problem at all, and the review will be post in the morning or noon.

 

There were only five shows with that lineup at the end of '91. Were you at LA, Del Mar, Tempe, San Francisco or Salem?

 

I started listening seriously to RHCP and buying their CDs way late in the game. I mean Stadium Arcadium late. So my perspective is and was a little different, though of course I was familiar with a lot of their stuff prior to that via radio and MTV. And I do remember when OHM came out and seeing videos of (I believe) Aeroplane, Warped, and My Friends on MTV. But anyway, when I finally picked up the CD a decade or so later I liked it. I didn't think the songs quite measured up to some of the other albums, but I did like it. It definitely seemed like a bit of an anomaly in their catalog. Guess that was mostly the Dave factor, but the album also seemed a little darker in tone to me than some of their other stuff.

 

I need to definitely revisit this album. There's something about OHM that put me off from the start. As a huge fan of BSSM, which was my entry point at age 17, I went backwards through their catalog, enjoying most of it. For whatever reason, I never purchased it and from what I heard, I thought it sounded like a totally different band. I remember thinking the aeroplane video was particularly cheesy. I never really gave it a fair shake after that, even after wearing out Californication, which followed.

Looking forward to revisit this album to see if my opinion has changed.

 

Tempe. ASU Activity Center if I’m not mistaken.

 

Subbing....love this album!

 

I honestly don’t recall. The show was with X at Big Surf. My first time doing mushrooms.

 

I'm anxious for this, although I still need to dig out my old CD. I was already a Chili Peppers fan, even four years on Blood Sugar was still on regular rotation pretty much everywhere. That was one of those records that found common ground in my high school - the jocks, the music nerds, the grunge fans, everyone seemed to find something to like. Seriously, I think Blood Sugar and Tom Petty's Greatest Hits were the only non-rap albums that folks in my high school all seemed to rally around.

Anyway, by 1995 I had started college. I was just a few weeks into my sophomore year when this was released. I recall the "Warped" video generating some pre-release controversy among my dormmates, some put off by Kiedis' welcoming kiss to Navarro. I don't know, I thought it was pretty punk at the time. Anyway, I bought this, like most others, at a midnight release party as Discount Den. I don't think I played it until the next morning as I walked to class, and I remember being thrown with that first listen. There were some weird diversions, but it grew on me a lot. Most of my friends got over it pretty quickly and started to trash RHCP, though, mysteriously, they were rabid fans again when "Scar Tissue" came out.

It's been more than a decade since I've played this. My memories are of an underrated album with some interesting detours and some that didn't work out so well.

Thanks for starting this thread.

 

If it was before April '86 then it was definitely Martinez on drums.