By The Way
by Red Hot Chili Peppers

An album that grows on you. I've never really understood why RHCP has felt it necessary to "funkify" their sound for so long - or rather, at all. To me it's always felt out-of-place'ish, more or less forced, not to mention, unnecessary.

I appreciate the band's drive, good humor, openness and all such positive qualities and then some. But in hindsight, hanging desperately onto funky elements all those years has only managed to hold the band back, never to fully find it's own sound. I don't think RHCP merely reinvented itself in BTW: I think they finally found home.

There are fillers, sure, but that's always the case with RHCP. For some strange (and likely very poor) reason RHCP always crams too much stuff on one record. Maybe they (and the people they choose to collaborate with) have never heard the expression: quit while you're winning.

When this album first came out, I was bummed because there was no funk and too many feminine sounding harmonies. I listen to it now and realize just how much depth this album has. There are subtleties in these songs that are so simple, yet so beautiful and genius. Then it all closes out with the epic "Venice Queen", which is like a little story book at the end of the album. Very underrated.

From swhaze TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/29/2014 17:16 | #113210 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

"By the Way" is, undeniably, a stellar album, representing yet another tremendous offering from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It easily equates its predecessor, "Californication", in terms of its accessibility and the consistency with which it displays quality musicianship and meaningful lyrics.

A pleasant and well made album, but too many songs are mellow and similar for it to ever be considered a great album. The big singles are still the best songs unfortunately. It's totally fine for an artist to experiment, but in the case of TRHCP, the experiments don't quite work like it did on their other 90's and 2000's albums. I don't understand why this band always felt the need to stuff a bunch of extra mediocre songs in their albums to appear long and epic.....because of the time between recording albums so they wanted to satisfy their fans? Well a better way to satisfy your fans is to have 10 incredible songs instead of 3 classics and 13 filler songs.

From micah88800 03/16/2018 00:41 | #211023 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Another banger from my all-time favorite band. Once again, Red Hot Chili Peppers prove why they are the number one alternative rock band of the era. This albums shows a more intimate and very welcome side to the group. Vulnerable isnt usually a term used when describing the Chili Peppers, but here its out in full force, and its a nice adjustment for them. They might rock a little less here, but the melodies pop more beautifully than anywhere else in the discography. A couple fillers, but overall an extremely good listen.