10 Best Red Hot Chili Peppers Albums - Ranked!
1. Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
There isn’t much to say about this record that hasn’t been said before. It is simply brilliant.
Produced by music megalodon Rick Rubin, the album was the first of many collaborations between Rubin and the band. In the 1991 documentary Funky Monks, Kiedis described their working relationship by eloquently stating, "If Baron von Munchausen ejaculated the four of us, onto a chess board, I would have to say Rick Rubin would be the perfect chess player for that particular board".
The 1988 documentary Funky Monks explores the recording process, giving a fascinating and hilarious insight into the band’s working relationship. Holed up in the Hollywood hills, the band lived, wrote and recorded the entire album in The Mansion, where, according to music legend, The Beatles first took LSD.
On the surface, this album could be seen as another explosion of young male energy, sticking it to the man, but dive a little deeper and you realise it’s a departure from previous releases with far more focus on melody rather than sheer punk-funk energy.
Although this was Frusciante’s second album with the band (and would be the last before his descent into drug-addled isolation), it was the first where he was able to really make his mark. Though the album is still full of unapologetic bravado, it also features tracks like Under the Bridge, a heart-on-the-sleeve expression of loneliness and confessions of drug addiction. If you do one thing today, listen to this album.