The Post-Hit Album

This is not universal, this is just me trying to figure out why I like two albums from bands that have probably moved into the new wave of “dad rock”: The Red Hot Chili Peppers and System of a Down, and how my favorite albums of their aren’t the ones that exploded their popularity, but the ones right after.

I started listening earnestly to these two bands around 2003-2004, and their stuff has been something I like putting on regularly. They were my favorite bands for awhile but they still sit in the top 5ish range to this day. Like, I’ve read the Anthony Kiedis (RHCP singer) autobiography and bought the Serj Tankian (one of two singers for SOAD) solo album Elect the Dead at launch. These bands are pretty important as they were something that my best friend at the time and I bonded over. One of these two bands were usually playing as background noise as we played video games, played Yu-Gi-Oh, or just chatted. Some tracks from these bands also found their way onto the playlist that would play in the locker room before football and basketball games.

The two bands breakout albums, Californication for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Toxicity for System of a Down, released in 1999 and 2001 respectively, with the latter releasing exactly a week before 9/11. While both bands received some fame with previous work (Blood Sugar Sex Magick really put the Red Hot Chili Peppers on a wider radar, especially “Under the Bridge”, and “Sugar” off SOAD’s previous album, their self titled album, got radio play), it’s not really a stretch to say that Californication and Toxicity were their peak of public awareness and of their prowess.

These albums are great! The title track “Californication” is a melancholy song about the effect of Hollywood on the world. Toxicity opens with fucking heat as “Prison Song” opens the album, a slamming indictment of the United States carceral system. I don’t think I need to lay out more credentials for this album, but Californicatoon’s “Otherside”, “Scar Tissue, and deeper cuts “This Velvet Glove” and “Easily” are great tracks as well. Toxicity boasted, well, “Toxicity” and “Chop Suey”, the bands two biggest hits, but also “Aerials”. These albums kick a lot of ass!.

But these aren’t the albums that stuck with me. By the Way and Steal This Album, both released in 2002, have a more consistent runtime than the previous two albums. While the title track “By The Way” rivalled “Californication” as a chart topper, “Can’t Stop” is an excellent running mate that’s all supported by solid-to-good tracks “The Zephyr Song”, “Dosed”, “This is the Place”, “I Could Die for You”, “Tear”, “Minor Thing”, and “Venice Queen”, a track about one of his closest friends from rehab passing away. There’s just fewer songs I want to jump past in By the Way that makes it incredibly enjoyable. It also feels more varied in tone and content than Californication, which could be a detriment to those who like their albums to be a cohesive whole.

Steal This Album is similar to By the Way in that regard, though it doesn’t pack nearly the same mainstream punch as Toxicity. There is no track off this album that approached even “Aerials”, from my experience, though I don’t know about outside the US. As for the tracks, this music in this album careens recklessly between so many different tones from track to track. The random sounding nonsense of “I-E-A-I-A-O” is a fun track to just bounce to, even if I can’t parse what it’s trying to say. There’s just something about the musicality of this album that just sucks me in and makes me want to bob my head along with it. Tracks like “Mr Jack”, “A.D.D (American Dream Denied)”, “Bubbles”, and “Innervision” will build to a peak, then drop out everything but a more reserved vocal or just kill the intensity only to rebuild it en route to another chorus. “Highway Song”, “Nuguns”, and “Streamline” have these melodies that just hook me in.

Are these two albums as good as their predecessor? I don’t know I can’t judge the objective quality of art. I will say though, they’re really fun for me to listen to and that’s all I really ask for in music.