1991/10 SPIN

Many thanks to Hamish at RHCP Sessions for the scans.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Warner Bros.

I’d like to tell you about the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, but I haven’t heard it. I have heard rough mixes that played during a party thrown last summer in the supposedly haunted, four-story Hollywood Hills mansion where the band temporarily lived and recorded the disc.

The sings were almost as cool as the party and hey, Faye Dunaway was at that party. The song “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” seemed particularly Peppery, but it was the stuff betraying the influence of producer Rick Rubin—acoustic numbers that  avoided Danzig dopiness, and cuts built on spare, big Queen’s beats that was most Interesting.

Rubin downplays his input, but there’s definitely a new vibe going on, if only because the studio was bathed in red candles and set up, U2 style, in the Iiving room of the manse.

Sounds good on paper, so what the hell, let’s give it the green light. But caution: The beer was warm and Rick Rubin’s beard is so long he looks like ZZ Top, Jr. (available late September)

Bob Mack