Red Hot Chili Peppers: Every Unlimited Love Song Ranked Worst To Best
This is one funky mess, and it's great!
Unlimited Love marks the return of long time Red Hot Chili Peppers collaborator Rick Rubin, but more importantly, the third coming of John Frusciante. After his departure in 2009, the group recruited the wildly talented Josh Klinghoffer. Despite Klinghoffer's welcome contributions, longtime Chilis fans have yearned for the return of their guitar messiah, for the simple fact, he's shaped their best material over the years.
His initial stint with them (1988 - 1992) yielded the breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991). Pumped full of raw and aggressive guitar, shameless bravado and explicit lyricism, it helped usher in the rise of alternative rock. Frusciante lost the arrogance of youth - after a prolonged heroin addiction - and rejoined the group as a sensitive purveyor of melody, for their most fruitful stint, during the 2000s. Now he's back shaping their sound once again...
The USP of the Chili Peppers is the earnestness with which they make, and present their music - they couldn't get away with naming a record "Unlimited Love", otherwise. But it's this heart-on-their-sleeve approach, that also turns people off. Their latest release doesn't break this rule. Chilis fans will love it, and detractors will level the same old criticism at it: namely that Anthony Kiedis' lyrics are ambiguous, nonsense, boarding on ridiculous...
This is an album soaked in nostalgia and utterly uninformed by anything else going on in the world of music right now... but that's not a bad thing. Is there a place for a band like Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2022? The answer is a resounding YES.
17. She's A Lover
Even on the less appealing tracks, the Chilis still display a talent for slipping right into the groove. Flea's bass leads the charge, with Fruciante delivering his signature Chic-esqure rhythmic chords, and the odd disco-inspired lick. Chad Smith sits in the pocket, comfortable to give the track a little momentum.
Kiedis' lyrics are nonsensical, as usual. But he's come along way since writing Sir Psycho Sexy, in the '90s, which included the line: "There's a devil in my dick and some demons in my semen."
This sexually charged number is far less explicit than former ventures, however. There's far fewer references to bodily fluids, with the most raunchy lyric being: "I just want to lick your face." He saves more suggestive lines for later tracks...