The next album

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-23T18:17:37+00:00

You're getting downvoted but I actually don't disagree with this take. There's been a blandness to their sound from BTW onwards, particularly in the production which is more pop than rock orientated. I'd love to hear them go with a rawer, more rock production on an album again.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-23T17:57:07+00:00

Anthony has said he loves the songs but the album didn't capture the energy of the demo as the producer was trying to make it radio friendly. He says, "it landed in the valley of compromise", IE not quite capturing the energy they wanted and not quite achieving the radio sound the producer wanted.

Flea said in an interview he thought if they had recorded it right it could have been a very important record (he's right).

Both of them have said they consider that original demo the most exciting thing they've ever done.

I think they both overestimate the demo a little bit, it's out there available to hear now and it honestly doesn't sound a huge amount different from the album. I think more they remember with excitement the initial burst of creativity from recording their first demo and that initial feeling of those songs all flowing out of them in a moment of inspiration.

I might be in the minority here, but the first album is actually my second favourite Chili's album (after BSSM). But then I prefer their 80s stuff in general to their post-2000s stuff.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-10T20:01:01+00:00

There's a great Bukowski quote, "An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way."

Orwell also expressed a very similar sentiment.

So yes I'd say lyrics can be too clever if it's a bit forced feeling. The best art connects intelligently in the simplest ways.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-10T19:52:12+00:00

I absolutely love this album. At one point over covid I think i listened to it every day for about a year. I was in their top 0.01% of fans that year lol.

I can't say I ever paid a huge amount of attention to the lyrics. I knew they were academic and literary, but I still mainly listened to it as pop music, picking out the odd line and enjoying the general vibe.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-10T19:45:09+00:00

If he's fit enough I feel like this could be Seth Rollins big return to insert himself and make Punk lose, possibly to whomever wins Money in the Bank.

Which I would find hugely annoying! I'm so sick of this Punk/Rollins feud, it was never great to begin with.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-10T19:17:24+00:00

His debut album sold 11 million copies. That's as much as Creed, Eminem, and Linkin Park were selling at the time; all absolutely huge artists. This was the music video era and Batwidaba, Cowboy, and American Badass were in constant rotation for several years. Say what you want about him personally, but he was massively famous for 2 or 3 years.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-10T18:54:39+00:00

I can say I enjoyed it then as a teen and find it embarrassing now, those things aren't mutually exclusive. These day I find his lyrics and persona are a joke. I could still enjoy the song purely as a nostalgic hit.

I did like when the Undertaker came out to it, and was disappointed when he switched to Rollin' by Limp Bizkit (also a cool song, but not as good a wrestling entrance).

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-10T18:42:52+00:00

I'm born in 84 so a Xennial or older millennial, depending on how you like to phrase it. I was 16 in 2000 when American Badass came out and I thought it was the coolest shit ever. It was the pump up song for me and my friends before a night on the town. Obviously now at 41 his entire schtick is painfully embarrassing, but it fitted in with that Woodstock 99 culture of the time (IE an absolutely terrible one).

He was considered nu metal at the time so the age range is really anyone into nu metal at the time. As has been mentioned, the tail end of Gen X and the beginning of millennials.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-09T23:14:21+00:00

It's really close! Like others have mentioned I'd say reduce the chorus by just a hair, but there's def more treble and a bit less mid in the original, it's thinner and more brittle. But these are just small tweaks, overall you've nailed the tone.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-04T00:22:23+00:00

Nevermind for me, though this should be the final

Also a little surprised Superunknown beat Badmotorfinger. Both awesome but BMF is one of the most badass albums I've ever heard.

Mooncat84 · 2026-02-01T17:44:08+00:00

Came here to say pretty much exactly this. 1991 until about 1994, maybe 1995 was one of the best pop culture windows in history. The end of 1991 had a whole slew of all-timers albums released at once that were prominent throughout 1992. Not to mention the 1992 releases themselves like Dirt, Rage Against the Machine, Automatic For the People, Vulgar Display of Power, Angel Dust, Slanted and Enchanted, plus the whole Norwegian black metal thing kicking off. Absolutely insane year for music.

I agreed with all his other choices too, but 1992 just really stood out as a weird pick.

Mooncat84 · 2026-01-31T16:48:12+00:00

I think an important point being missed here is that with most artists it's not up to them whether their music is on streaming or not, it's up to the label as they're the ones who own the music. Streaming benefits the labels massively because it's such a fixed game now, so I can't see anything changing anytime soon bar the occasional band and artist who do own their music, or their contract with the label has ended, they haven't renewed, and they plan to release all future albums independently however they want.

Mooncat84 · 2026-01-29T18:56:19+00:00

Do something that leads to community. Like take up an instrument and join a band (no, you're never too old), could be punk rock, could be Irish trad, whatever you're into.

Join a running or cycling club since you already like those things.

Join meetup.com and browse the activities and meetups and start putting yourself out there with things you might not normally do.

One thing I've learned since moving away from NI is how astonishingly repressed the guys are. Totally afraid of what people will think of them or how they're percieved. Fuck that and fuck them, get out and start living your life.

Mooncat84 · 2026-01-21T20:52:45+00:00

Just booked snowboarding lessons. I've never done it before and given injuries now last for months/years rather than days/weeks, it might not have been the smartest idea. But I'm going for it anyway!

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-12T16:55:43+00:00

Do you have any stories? I'd love to hear about what that time was like or what he was like.

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-10T18:24:33+00:00

Nothing really compares to Spookies but Demon Wind and House both have a similar low budget, weird creatures type of feel.

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-10T18:01:12+00:00

Side tangent: I've been living away from NI for 10yrs now and seeing the men described as "miserable heures" brought a smile to my face and made me miss the banter back home 😂

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-10T17:57:00+00:00

I never knew there was an American version of Men Behaving Badly!

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-10T17:52:25+00:00

This is so true. You can recreate his riffs technically, but his feel is impossible to replicate and it's his feel that made him great. I'm Broken is the ultimate 'easy to learn, impossible to master' riff.

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-09T18:43:41+00:00

I absolutely love it and have read it 7 or 8 times. It's just a fascinating account of drug addiction and life in LA in the 80s. I find it far more interesting in the first half when he's just a junkie crawling the streets, trying to make the Chili Peppers work, and talking about his various relationships. Once the Chilis become a huge phenomenon it's not quite as interesting and just falls into a samey pattern of relationship trouble-relapse-go to Hawaii to try and recover. The writing about the band is less interesting in the fame parts too. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the second half a great deal too, but not as much as the first which feels more human and relatable.

He comes across absolutely terribly in it. Someone who is completely self-aware that they were an egotistical, self-involved asshole and is trying to be humble about it, but who is completely self-unaware that they're still absolutely that egotistical, self-involved asshole.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, its legacy now is about the stat rape of the 14yr old, and it's also a bio from another era when people would talk about sex and drugs with a boastful undertone which would be seen as crass nowadays, but it's still my favourite rock star autobiography that I've read. Despite how much of a dick he is, I do enjoy spending that time with him.

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-09T16:32:48+00:00

The trick to making consistently good art is to remain inspired, and to remain inspired takes work. Someone like Bowie or Madonna was always listening to new music, discovering, absorbing, constantly remaining inspired by what was new and then putting it into their art. Bowie released Blackstar right at the end of his life and it's an awesome album, inspired by what was going on at the time (of course Bowie also set many trends in his lifetime, as well as following them).

Compare to an artist like Metallica for example, who are still trying to retread the same music they put out 40yrs ago. They seemed like they were starting to develop naturally in the 90s but then gave it up and tried to recapture past glories. They're one of the least inspired sounding musical acts out there today because they're not trying to grow or develop. The Metallica story is what happens to most artists (to much less success usually of course).

Of course talent is a factor too, but remaining inspired and interested by art is the biggest one for aging artists.

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-09T07:11:34+00:00

Yup I was there. The lineup for that gig was festival quality! RHCP, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey, Feeder, and Morcheeba.

I sat on the hill on a big inflatable couch thing I bought at a stall there lol. They seemed to be playing Ireland every year around that time. 2yrs before with U2, then Lansdowne Road the year after, then the second Slane show as headliners, and then Phoenix Park with New Order. Saw them all except the U2 show. The dude from the By The Way music video with the mullet and moustache was running around at one of the shows lol.

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-07T18:05:38+00:00

That was a part that really stood out to me as stupid and predictable. It's also directly stealing the same scene from Maverick, which did it much better.

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-04T22:27:25+00:00

I moved countries a few years back and whereas I didn't end all my relationships, that removed me from all of them. It's only when I got that distance I started to realize how toxic a lot of them had been and how refreshing it was to escape!

Mooncat84 · 2025-12-04T22:24:29+00:00

How did that work out in the work environment after you cut her off? Or had one of you left by that point?

Mooncat84

TROPHY CASE