Choice lyrics include 'Anyway, took a left on 3rd' and Kiedis randomly shouting 'spirographic anagram!' It's silly as hell, but the goofiness is infectious, as Kiedis adopts a very 1980s flow while rapping about trying to get to the beach for a surfing sesh. RHCP at their most classic rock, the bluesy 'Carry Me Home' is pure 1960s, especially thanks to those dramatically walking guitar riffs that evoke 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' by way of Jimi Hendrix. But that fucking voice! Don't you dare try to blame this on Cate Le Bon.

'Black Summer' performed decently well on the radio thanks to its vintage RHCP chorus and uncharacteristically coherent lyrics about climate change. I've had nearly a year to sit with it, and, for the life of me, I still can't figure out why no one told Kiedis not to sing in a stupid pirate voice.

It kind of stinks until the absolutely enormous fuzz chorus swoops in and makes it all better. The weird verse melody sounds like it should be accompanied by a harpsichord in some sort of medieval folk ballad.

'My name is Veronica' is one of Kiedis's more compelling opening lyrics. One of a few songs in 6/8 time on the back half of Dream Canteen, 'Copperbelly' has perfectly functional verses that set up a loud-quiet-loud structure and a biting chorus lyric: 'Someone's in love with emotional pain.'Īnother intriguing combination of a verse and chorus that don't really fit, 'Veronica' goes from synth-treated guitar arpeggios to a waltz-time acoustic chorus. A more memorable chorus could have taken this one to the next level. RHCP try on jazzy rock, with Frusciante's atmospheric arpeggios leaving space for fluttering drums from Smith and a sing-speak cadence from Keidis. It's neat, but they did this kind of electronic experiment more effectively on Dream Canteen. More interesting than it is enjoyable, 'Bastards of Light' curiously grafts its verse of bloopy synths onto a country rock chorus. The problem is there's not all that much right with it either. There's nothing wrong with this song, with its pleasant arpeggios and lushly harmonized chorus. The melody's a little too listless to really come together, and 'Jumping Jiminy, the cat is in the chimney' is maybe the silliest lyric that the notoriously inane Kiedis sang this year. With an electronic beat, a melody that borrows from Lady Gaga's 'Poker Face' and a jazzy sax outro, this is the weirdest of the experimental tracks on Dream Canteen's back half. 'RHCP do grunge' sounds cooler in theory than it does in practice. Wisely left off the Unlimited Love tracklist and released as a bonus track on the Japanese CD edition, 'Nerve Flip' has cool-sounding fuzz guitars, so it's a shame that Kiedis neglected to write a memorable melody. The only upside was that, by releasing this as a preview of Unlimited Love, it set expectations low and made the rest of the album a pleasant surprise. Anthony Kiedis's voice wobbles with ugly Auto-Tune as he sings a melody that lazily follows the plodding piano chords for four and a half dull minutes. The only true stinker of the year, 'Not the One' was a bizarre choice for the Chili Peppers to share as a pre-release digital single. Of course, it's tempting to imagine what it might look like if RHCP whittled their 2022 material down to a single album - so we decided to separate the great from the merely okay, and ranked every song they released in 2022.įrom worst to best, here's our ranking of every song the Red Hot Chili Peppers released in 2022. They may not have released another classic hit single like 'Scar Tissue' or 'Under the Bridge,' but this spring's Unlimited Love and the fall's Return of the Dream Canteen hold up respectably against the band's best albums, and one track even made the cut for our list of the band's best-ever songs. What's even more remarkable than the quantity of the material is that, for the most part, the songs were pretty good. The Chili Peppers released a whopping 36 songs in 2022 - two 17-song albums, plus a bonus track from each - marking an incredible burst of creativity following the return of classic-era guitarist John Frusciante, who reunited with singer Anthony Kiedis, bassist Flea and drummer Chad Smith to recreate the band's classic lineup. Quick: name another band who, 39 years into their career, had a more productive year than the Red Hot Chili Peppers did in 2022.

Red hot chili peppers tour dates 2022