RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS RANKED

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been monsters of the music industry for a long time, and for good reason - some would say they are one of the most important rock bands in music history. Having been active since the early 1980s, they have been around long enough to have seen and done it all, and eleven studio albums deep into their career they are still touring and (reportedly) writing new music. 

It's my job today to try and rank them. I've been tossing and turning as to whether I should be trying to approach this as objectively as possible or simply rank them in order of my personal preference, and in the end I've decided to attempt to achieve a balance between the two. There aren't a whole lot of bad Chilis albums, so some tough choices had to be made - let's jump into it.

11) The Getaway (2016)

I was sorely disappointed with The Getaway when it dropped, and while it has grown on me a little since its release it still remains the weak link in an otherwise sparkling discography. It's not all bad; there are plenty of groovy sections lead by Flea's signature bass sound and a couple of sticky hooks, but for the most part this is a Chili's record that stands out as lacking any of the bite that made the band so electrifying earlier in their career. This was an easy pick for the bottom spot on this list. 

10) I'm With You (2011)

I'm With You is the first album in the Chili Peppers' discography with guitarist Josh Klinghoffer after long time guitarist John Fruciante's second and final departure from the band, and kind of sits in the middle of the transition into the sound on The Getaway. Similar to The Getaway, while there are a few great songs on here (particularly "The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie"), there just isn't enough of interest to keep my attention for the almost 1 hour run time. It's hard to say exactly how much influence this change of full-time guitar duties affected the writing process, if at all, but it seems to me that the post-John days of the Red Hot Chili Peppers lack something to elevate it to the standards they set across their career. 

9) Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984)

The debut album from the Chilis is something of an anomaly in the band's back catalogue, and they were understandably unhappy with the finished product. This album is the product of a producer attempting to make the band the next big thing on the radio, completely misunderstanding what made their live shows so incredible. All the ferocity, kinetic energy and insanity of the band's early hardcore funk sound was watered down into a radio-friendly mish-mash of tracks that you can just tell are not suited to their studio versions. Listening to this record makes me wish I was around in the early eighties just to be able to see the original line-up playing these songs in a tiny bar, tearing the place to shreds. 

8) Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987)

This is the album where a lot of what we know the classic Peppers sound to be started to emerge from the earlier hardcore funk days. Still pre Chad Smith and John Fruciante, Uplift Mofo Party Plan is an odd mix of where the band started and where they were headed next on Mother's Milk and later the seminal Blood Sugar Sex Magik, where they perfected that transformation.

7) Mother's Milk (1989)

This often overlooked Chilies record is the first to feature the "classic" lineup the consisted of Chad Smith on drums, John Frusciante on guitar and of course the bass-vocals combination of Flea and Anthony Kiedis. Aside from having a killer cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" it is where the four of them really experiment and go wild, striking new ground and exploring the new territories they can occupy with the new lineup. While this never really culminates in anything bad it is all refined and improved upon in their next studio release, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. 

6) Stadium Arcadium (2006)

You can't fault the band for ambition, given that on Stadium Arcadium they released a mammoth 28 tracks on one double album. And for the most part it is of a damn high quality, but as a piece of work it is a long hard slog to get through. This in combination with the fact that the two CDs are of notably different quality (other then "Tell Me Baby", "Storm In A Teacup" and "Turn It Again" the second disc tends to meander) results in an album that is tiring in places when it should be exhilarating and epic. This being said there is some of Frusciante's finest guitar work on show ("Turn It Again" has one of his best damn guitar solos ever) and the album produced some of the band's biggest radio hits with the likes of "Dani California", "Snow (Hey Oh)" and "Tell Me Baby".

5) Freaky Styley (1985)

This is where the band remedied the issues they had in the production process on their debut album. Raw, driving and brimming with true insanity, this is the best representation of what the Red Hot Chili Peppers were at the height of their hardcore funk days in the 1980s. The musicianship of the original line up is on point, with the drumming of Cliff Martinez, the guitar work of Hillel Slovak, Flea's bass lines and Anthony Kiedis' rabid vocal performance combining into well more than the sum of their already spectacularly talented parts. If you want to know what the early Red Hot Chili Peppers were all about, this is where to start. 

4) One Hot Minute (1995)

One Hot Minute tends to get a lot of hate, but I hold it up in the same company as some of the band's best material. The only Chilis record with Dave Navaro from Jane's Addiction on guitar duties in the absence of John Fruciante, it has a distinctly different flavour to it, touching on some of the heavier elements that were so prominent in their earlier releases and the Jane's Addiction discography. These tracks tend to get overlooked, considering upon Frusciante's return to the band they rarely, if ever, played any of the material live - Frusciante reportedly saying it was like "my best friend sleeping with my girlfriend". 

3) Californication (1999)

I'm sure this album being this far down the list is going to be the cause of some animated disagreement, but compared to the next two entries I feel that Californication loses momentum through the middle third of the album. It's also a case of personal taste on my behalf; the moodier, more reserved sound they started to explore on this record were far better realised and further developed on their subsequent masterpiece By The Way, although it is still a refreshing change for the band on this album, being the first after a messy break-up with guitarist Dave Navarro and disbandment, and later reunion with John Frusciante. Don't let that give you the wrong idea, though, Californication is a damn fine album and it sits at number three on my list for a reason - it has classic Chilis bangers like "Around The World" and "Get On Top" and introduces a moodier sounding approach, hinted at on earlier albums with tracks like "Under The Bridge" and "My Friends", provided notably by the title track, "Otherside", "Scar Tissue", and - a personal favourite of mine - "Porcelain". 

2) Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik (1991)

This one very nearly edged its way to the top of my list, being for me the iconic album from the iconic Chilis lineup. Everything about this album just screams "classic" - from the striking artwork to the intriguing stories around the writing and production, the incendiary tracks to the era from which it was born. One of the things that make Blood Sugar Sex Magik such a seminal piece of rock history is the way that it sits in the middle of two eras in the band's sound - it borrows heavily from the earlier days of the band's existence and maintains the furious chemistry between the rhythm section and Kiedis' vocals, while also beginning to show hints of the British-influenced direction they would continue down through the turn of the century. Almost every song on here is worthy of praise - even "The Greeting Song" which the band famously denounced - but some worth mentioning as being particularly exceptional are "If You Have To Ask", "Suck My Kiss", "Apache Rose Peacock" and "Sir Psycho Sexy". Commonly regarded as the band's finest and most iconic work, the only reason it is not at my number one slot is my deep love for this next album:

1) By The Way (2002)

The album that just does it for me on every level. Probably not even my most played Chilies album (that would likely be Blood Sugar Sex Magik) but regardless the album that continues to elicit the biggest emotional response from me. Every time I come back to it I get something different out of it, and there are different stand out tracks. "Can't Stop" is for me the epitome of Red Hot Chili Peppers, and anyone who says otherwise can politely buy me a coffee and convince me. The more reserved sound that the band had started to touch on post-hiatus with Californication comes across as much more seamlessly integrated with the more energetic, funk-driven elements that are so distinctively RHCP, and this is By The Way's biggest calling card over the rest of the band's discography. The best example of this is on the track "This Is The Place", where even throughout the driving chorus there is an underlying sense of melancholy. This underpins the entire record, and whereas Californication tends to jump back and forth between these two worlds By The Way manages to blur the lines that separated them. Being a bit of a Beatles nut, too, the clear influence of that era of British rock music  on By The Way is an added reason why I love it so much. The back end of the album is also overlooked far too frequently due to it's lack of any recognisable radio hits - please do yourself a favour and go for a deep dive through the sixteen tracks, there is so much gold to be found.

So what do you reckon? Did your favourite Red Hot Chili Peppers album place too far down the list? Do you agree with my rankings? Do you think I'm missing the point with the newer releases? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.