Better than nirvana

The way I see it every ten years there is a sound that you can assert that generation with. Culture describes the majority; the majority consists of pop-culture’s most acclaimed artist, and there is always one that is thirteen furlongs ahead of the rest.

The Beatles owned the 60’s, Led Zeppelin were the 70’s, Van Halen had the 80’s (not Skid Row…Sebastian Bach is a wiener), Nirvana was pre April 6, 1994 (ya know, before Kurt decided to cop out and do the 27-year-old dead rock star thing), then after then someone else stepped in and hasn’t quite left yet.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been pwning for the past decade. Blood Sugar Sex Magik was my favorite Chili Peppers’ album. The feeling you get when listening to that album is incredible. It makes you wish you could pick up a guitar and wail on it like John Frusciante does. You’ll have dreams about making a bass sing like Flea does. Anthony Kiedis’ lyrics are so poetically smooth and yet still vague that no matter what he’s singing about, you’ve been there too. Chad Smith can hammer out a thousand drum beats and each one be different from all the prior.

That’s who RHCP is, and they’ve taken it upon themselves to take those abilities to our generation.

Everyone has heard Under the Bridge. That song is about Kiedis’ drug problem, but yet we all love it, and think it was written for us. That’s when you’ve found a good lyricist. I’ve always thought Dave Grohl was the best at making you think he’s singing for you by keeping his lyrics vague and accessible.

Stadium Arcadium should be the album we’re reading about years from now about how it raised the bar for rock music. Every rock musician was sitting in their underwear that Tuesday morning eating Cheerios with Stadium Arcadium playing in the background saying, “S-!+, we gotta stop screwing around!”. Tool was probably saying, “Well I wish we had actually put out an album that had 5 good songs, instead of 3.” I imagine Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam taking a shower, probably with a bottle of wine sitting in his shampoo rack, when he heard Dani California come on the radio and say, ‘Oh f*%$ (because that is his favorite word), how did they keep the sound their fans love and still improve?’.

(Side note) I believe Pearl Jam has gone folk-rock or something. I would love to see them in concert, but only in hope of hearing Rearview Mirror, Daughter, Evolution, Jeremy, Yellow Ledbetter, not Life Wasted, Comatose or whatever else is on the new album.

I’m so relieved that rock n’ roll isn’t gone. It’s like that scene in Almost Famous when Lester Bangs tells William Miller that he missed out on rock n’ roll, that it was dead. Black Sabbath was still on tour, John Lennon and John Bonham were both still alive, rock n’ roll wasn’t even close to giving out.

I just hope we can hold out for a few more years with some real music. God knows I’m tired of these groups coming out and having to act tough, try to be partiers and just flowing with what sounds good to the majority. I’m not saying we should break pop culture’s mold, I’m just saying we shouldn’t have to listen to seven bands that sound like Fall Out Boy, or keep hearing that glazed over sound that Ashley Parker Angel produces.

So thank you RHCP, for keeping it real.


Doc’s note: This theory is shared by The Doctor but is also the view of many, many music critics. The Doctor doesn’t mean to rip anybody off, only to tell it like it is.