by David Williams

Created on: May 22, 2008

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of musics greatest exemplars. While several other bands have been compared to the Chili Peppers, none have managed to marry Funk, Jazz and Rock in such an enjoyable way.

Imagine the delight of hard core Chili Peppers fans then, when the band announced a double album. Stadium Arcadium promised to be double the pleasure double the fun. Unfortunately, not even the mighty Red Hot Chili Peppers could pull this off seamlessly.

It may or may not be common knowledge that when recording an album, most bands have around twenty to thirty rough songs. The best of these make the cut and appear on the final release. One can't argue that "Stadium Arcadium" certainly has its highlights. Songs like "Snow (Hey Oh)" and "Slow Cheetah" are easily on par with the bands best work, and the albums first disc "Jupiter" is in all fairness a good collection of songs.

The sets second disc "Mars" however is where the problems begin. It would be unfair to say that any of the songs on either disc are bad, such terms should be reserved for girl bands and pop idol winners, the problem here is variety, or lack of it. By around four songs into the second disc you begin to wonder if there is any point to listening to it all the way through. Again, it has its high points, single "Tell Me Baby" being one of them even if it is nothing special.

The bottom line here is that one disc comprising the best songs from both of these would have been a much better buy. Unless you are so devoted to the band that you won't hear a word said against them, you may find yourself skipping through the 28 tracks to listen to your favorites and hardly listening to the whole thing through at all.

The major lesson to be learned here is quality trumps quantity. Any attempt to listen to both discs through by anyone but the most devout of fans will leave you wanting to listen to something else by disc 2's fourth track. Most people will probably pick a preferred one of the two discs and stick to that. New recruits to the funktastic world of the Chili Peppers would be better served buying "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" or "Californication". despite this, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are still, and probably will be for a long time to come, one of the best bands on the planet. Everyone makes bad judgment calls sometimes, and this particular one doesn't seem to have harmed the band any.

Not a bad record, but there was never any need for it to be a double album.

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