Red Hot Chili Peppers
Essential: Under The Covers
[EMI-Capitol]
Rating: 3.5
A lot of what makes the Chili Peppers interesting is their ability to
manage a variety of different musical styles. Their best tracks span the
musical gamut from funk and soul to punk and pop. All of this while
managing to sound like the local band that rehearses in the shed
behind your yard.
Vocalist Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea have perhaps two of the most
recognizable musical signatures around, so it's always easy to pick a Chili
Peppers song out of a crowd. Sadly, this collection doesn't consist of Chili
Peppers songs, but rather, legendary songs made painfully average by way of
the Chili Peppers' renditions.
Overstating itself as Essential, the record sees the guys covering
classics by the Meters, Parliament, Hank Williams, Stevie Wonder, and even
Elton John. This is at once a good thing and a bad thing: on
one hand, the Chili Peppers expose their fans to the canon of musical
greats. On the other hand, it all sounds the same.
If you're a fan, these tracks are nothing new to you. You've heard them
in concert, on bootlegs and in some cases, on other Chili Peppers albums.
If you want them all in one place, this is a good a compilation as you're
likely to find. But if you're like everyone else, the last thing you want
is to hear funk- rock versions of these songs.
-Aparna Mohan