The Getaway? More like, “I can’t wait to get away from Red Hot Chili Peppers”. Well that sucked, as does this album, and not in the traditional Chili Peppers sense. I mean, there are times on ‘The Getaway’ where they do seem to become a parody of themselves, ‘Goodbye Angels’ for example with its “Hey oh hey oh hey oh” section, it’s nice to see they’re adding layers to their work, that was sarcasm.
Don’t get me wrong, I love ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’, an album that encapsulates everything great or passable about the band – the funkiness was authentic, the ballads had not yet become completely flanderized, and the sleaze was a lot easier to stomach than it would become on ‘Californication’, you know, with that song about fingering and periods.
But this album sucks mainly because it has little to no essence. At least on ‘I’m With You’ (their first album in the new no-Frusciante era, not to be confused with the first no-Frusciante era) they tried. Sure, the results were mixed, but at least there was a mix, whether it be down to some of the world music influences or the slight excitement of some of the songs. ‘The Getaway’ is a stagnant record, it’s also very safe, it’s about as challenging as the first level in a Sonic game.
I also hate Anthony Kiedis’ vocals on the album, he’s trying way too hard to sing melodically. I can see how his vocal style would get on people’s nerves anyway, what with all the overly-sexualised, dick-swinging shouting, but at least when he does that, he’s in his element, not on here, his vocals sound so out of place on songs like ‘We Turn Red’ and ‘The Longest Wave’, ESPECIALLY ‘The Longest Wave’.
Staying on the topic of performances, the band does nothing on this album to really show off that much. Fine, fine, Josh Kliffenhongenstein, or whatever his name is, is a completely different guitarist to John Frusciante – he’s a lot more subtle, and that’s cool. I believe for most of the band’s run, their ‘funk’ has been flat, it’s so white, seriously, it makes me look like Sidney Poitier, or Idris Elba, for you kids who don’t know who Sidney Poitier is. But still, except for the chaotic section in ‘Goodbye Angels’ and the main, ‘Can’t Stop’-esque section of the decent ‘Dark Necessities’, where are all the great Flea bass performances? Chad Smith is also the quietest he’s ever been here.
‘Sick Love’ would sound a lot better if it wasn’t Kiedis singing – it’s a decent-sounding, slightly slinky ‘70s-esque rock song, with (looks at credits)…wait a minute, Elton John played on this song? Huh…oh that’s right, the verses sound almost exactly like ‘Bennie and the Jets’. I actually noticed this before I learned that Elton John played on it, and before I saw that Elton and Bernie Taupin received writing credits. At first I just thought they gave him the credit just in case he had the same lawyers as Tom Petty or Marvin Gaye. It’s still a pretty good song, but they may as well have just covered ‘Bennie and the Jets’, though they probably would’ve butchered it like with ‘Higher Ground’ and ‘Love Rollercoaster’.
This really is RHCP at their safest yet, really bad considering pretty much everything they’ve ever made has been made for the radio. Oh well, it happens.
Production /
Composition /
Performance –
Listenability/Stylistics –
Flow –
1. The Getaway
2. Dark Necessities
3. We Turn Red
4. The Longest Wave
5. Goodbye Angels
6. Sick Love
7. Go Robot
8. Feasting on the Flowers
9. Detroit
10. This Ticonderoga
11. Encore
12. The Hunter
13. Dreams of a Samurai
Bold = I like the song – Italics = I dislike the song – Standard = no strong feelings
Rating – D
PEANUTBUTTERPOPE 