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

One Big Mob:

It is a great track and I love the slow almost haunting melody in the middle. I kind of feel like this is like 3-4 different songs and it's very disjointed.

 

One Big Mob

Love Flea's bass work on this, but otherwise this bores me. Not a fan of the long trippy stuff.

 

I always thought the lyrics “ek bara mala” were typical Anthony gibberish vocals, but I just looked it up and it means One Big Mob in Bengali. Not a huge fan of this one, the weakest song up to this point on the album. I do like Dave’s guitar work at the end. The baby crying is as annoying to me as the kids choir was to most people on Aeroplane.

 

Ah, "Coffee Shop." I think I personally overplayed it a bit back in the day, but I still like it a lot. One of the catchiest songs on the album for sure. Funny story with this one, I had such terrible computer speakers that, because of the way the song is mixed, for a while all I heard during the verse sections were the backing vocals. I didn't even realize there were lyrics outside the chorus. I knew it sounded odd, but hey, this is an album that includes "Pea," so who knows what RHCP were thinking. It wasn't until I played it in the car a few months later that I discovered, "Oh, Anthony's actually singing something." I can't make out the lyrics and I still prefer it the way I remember it to be honest. Might adjust the balance on my soundcard to see if I can recreate that.

"Pea" is what it is. I don't like it, but I don't hate it. It's just kind of there.

I don't know why but I've always liked "One Big Mob" a lot. It's got a lot working against it: it's pretty long, it's all over the place, and elements of it probably fall closer to their early "funk frat boy" phase sound than anything they've done since (specifically the "I AM YOU ARE ME!" section, which sounds straight out of Uplift Mofo). But somehow it's a lot better than the sum of its parts.

 

"One Big Mob" has a very cool middle section, but the rest of it I can do without it. I find I'm getting more and more negative as this album continues. Hopefully, things will improve in the next couple of songs.

 

You are probably the one person who says that, because everybody I've heard online or in person usually go "I like everything except the middle section" or they feel the same way about the entire song.

 

I’ve always liked spacy, psychedelic stuff so the middle section is down my alley. The ramped up funk rock is hit or miss with me. I don’t care for it on “One Big Mob”.

 

Walkabout:

Now we reach Walkabout, which is written about the Australian Aborigine's "walkabouts" where they connect with the spiritual world, the "dreamtime", although truthfully a walkabout can take place anywhere.
Flea kicks off the tune, with his bassline and Dave and Chad delivering strong, muscular rhythms, with the former doing some cool talk box effects that kind of recalling ol Slim. Anthony starts singing at :42, and it has this free spirit, casual carefree delivery, fantastically complimenting that smooth groove the band has going on- hey wait, I thought Dave couldn't play funk? Hell, it's way more convincing than many of John's attempts at funk, particularly after he came back. Seriously, that s--- sounds like Maroon 5 doing Chili Peppers, Can't Stop? That's a hamburger that needs a helper. But back to Walkabout, I really enjoy the talkbox solo, it's pretty damn cool. And then we get a mini jam at 3:47, I love Dave's very tasteful licks and the way Flea bounces off him, and Chad anchors as well as he always does.
I just love this song, such a great, smooth headbopper, and my second favorite tune on here.

 

You know, reading through this thread makes me hope that one day we get a Super Deluxe Edition with B-Sides, demos, unreleased songs, and the unreleased Deep Kick documentary (or whatever exists of it if it's unfinished).

 

Live in 1995:

 

The final 21 seconds of this song are, quite possibly, my favorite part of the entire record. I was very excited when I learned it was originally part of another song that was cut from the record, but disappointed when I heard that song and found it was just a short instrumental interlude before switching to something entirely different.

 

"Walkabout" has a very Funkadelic like vibe to it. As most RHCP fans know the band worked with George Clinton on Freaky Styley and, by all accounts, that was a good experience for the band. So, "Walkabout" seems like an obvious nod to GC. The mellow pace of the tune and cadence of the vocals match that of several Funkadelic tunes. I enjoy this one quite a bit. I tend to find songs to be more interesting if there's more layers to them then just flat out ripping funk as that stuff just doesn't do that much for me. Great bass playing and fine, if a bit odd, work from Navarro here.

 

And a 5.1 mix!

 

Solid song, Flea delivers a rather simple but effective bass line that suits the song. Chad is solid as always and Dave delivers some cool stuff. As a fan of the band from the early days, I find as I get older I’ve become less tolerant of some of Anthony’s vocals. They work here. I remember reading at some point he took vocal lessons. I know a lot of people hate his singing, I’m not one of them, but he can be annoying at times.

 

I'm not gonna lie, I sometimes have to tune him out.

 

Love Walkabout, probably my favorite song on the album.

 

Walkabout

A nice jazzy opening. This is kind of a funky version of a Dr. Suess book. I like the mix, with the vocals up front. Throw in a little psychedelia in the outro and I like this one.

 

Kind of a “Yertle the Turtle” vibe.

 

My favorite song on Freaky Styley, and Flea's favorite Chili Peppers tune, I even tried making a stop motion video for it.

 

Very interesting for me to see others holding this song in such high regard, as I've always considered it rather pedestrian. The funk touches are cool, but I'd rather listen to an actual funk band. I do like the talkbox solo, and Walkabout probably features my favourite lyric of the songs discussed so far with "The stingrays must be fat this year, I'm moving slow in my lowest gear".
Nothing really wrong with the tune but it always just glides by for me, and therefore not an album highlight.

 

It's crazy that they've expanded all the stuff on Capitol (albeit only with a handful of bonus tracks) but have never revisited the higher-selling WB catalog. I think OHM would easily be the most interesting project they could do...but it's also the most unlikely, sadly.

The second half of OHM is less familiar to me so it's cool checking out these songs again. I do sort of remember "Walkabout" and always felt pretty positive about it, but I'm really digging it more than I expected. Great funky jazz groove. Like others have said, the vocals here don't detract from the song (I mean, he's basically just speaking), but I have to say it again--how freaking good would an instrumental version of this album be?

 

Very cool.

I had no idea it was Flea’s favorite song. I mentioned it because (I think) it’s based on a Dr. Seuss story...

 

How did I forget about that song! It's not a surprise that the Peppers are Suess fans.

 

That's also the song that George Clinton's coke dealer is on. He's the spoken word at the beginning.

 

I didn’t know that, either!