They were a truly important voice in music from 1988 until 1999; they were influential from 1983 to 1991. They have recorded one of the best albums of all time, Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
After BSSM, though, the once-experimental, punk-meets-funk outfit Red Hot Chili Peppers started getting repetitive, with each funk song resembling Give It Away and all ballads sounding too much like Under The Bridge, but for the moment of an incredible record, they came up with 17 (!!) incredibly different, all great songs full of witty and/or intelligent lyrics, nervous and funky bass lines, inventive guitar work and percussions worth a record of their own.
One song they'd never try to replicate was Breaking The Girl, a rare 6/8-timed song in their catalog, with building beats and guitar chord progressions reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's Middle Eastern-influenced songs best captured when Robert Plant and Jimmy Page went Unledded.
The lyrics detail a rocky relationship - classic ballad material - but with the music, it just created a whole different universe for it to live and evolve in. The video, directed by acclaimed director and (war) photographer Stéphane Sednaoui (who also directed their video for Give It Away) is an experimentation in saturated colours, not unlike his previous work with U2 (Mysterious Ways) a year earlier, and adds yet another layer to the whole ordeal:
At a time where pop/dance videos shot in front of a white background were clinging on for their life, grunge bands were concentrating on live clips or two-tone videos full of close-ups and Guns N' Roses were waving the 8-minute epic flag by themselves, Breaking The Girl stood alone as a work of art, a testament to the song's authors for creating such an oddity that was still right where it needed to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment