Top Ten Albums of 2011 - #10
Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You
Editor's Note: This is the 1st in a quasi-weekly series of reviews marking my favorite ten albums of 2011. New reviews go up every weekend through the end of the year.
It can't be easy to lose John Frusciante.
Hardcore fans of RHCP went into a collective apoplectic shock when Frusciante announced in 2009 that he was splitting amicably with the rest of the band. The Three Pillars of the Peppers were down to two. Regardless of where you would rank John amongst those three, it's pretty evident that he's not on this album. What can we say about the new guy? Well...he does play a guitar. But few guys can drop a solo like John.
That's not to say this is a bad album. It's making the top ten, isn't it? I wouldn't cut any of the songs in the tracklisting off of the album, which is more than I can say for some albums that will actually be ranked higher in the next few weeks. The disappointment comes, unfairly I suppose, from knowing what the album would have sounded like if he had decided to stick around. There's no denying the fact that this is a solid group of catchy tunes. And they still have 2/3rds of that funky sound [1]. But spin Stadium Arcadium one more time and then listen to this album - you'll see what I mean.
Album highlight: "Brendan's Death Song" is a lot more stirring than it sounds, trust me.
[1] Wait, do they have a drummer?
It can't be easy to lose John Frusciante.
Hardcore fans of RHCP went into a collective apoplectic shock when Frusciante announced in 2009 that he was splitting amicably with the rest of the band. The Three Pillars of the Peppers were down to two. Regardless of where you would rank John amongst those three, it's pretty evident that he's not on this album. What can we say about the new guy? Well...he does play a guitar. But few guys can drop a solo like John.
That's not to say this is a bad album. It's making the top ten, isn't it? I wouldn't cut any of the songs in the tracklisting off of the album, which is more than I can say for some albums that will actually be ranked higher in the next few weeks. The disappointment comes, unfairly I suppose, from knowing what the album would have sounded like if he had decided to stick around. There's no denying the fact that this is a solid group of catchy tunes. And they still have 2/3rds of that funky sound [1]. But spin Stadium Arcadium one more time and then listen to this album - you'll see what I mean.
Album highlight: "Brendan's Death Song" is a lot more stirring than it sounds, trust me.
[1] Wait, do they have a drummer?
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