Red Hot Chili Peppers Music:

Freaky Styley Track Listing:
1. Jungle Man
2. Hollywood
3. American Ghost Dance
4. If You Want Me to Stay
5. Never Mind
6. Freaky Styley
7. Blackeyed Blonde
8. Brothers Cup
9. Battle Ship
10. Lovin' and Touchin'
11. Catholic School Girls Rule
12. Sex Rap
13. Thirty Dirty Birds
14. Yertle the Turtle

Editorial Review:
With their second album, Freaky Styley, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were still growing into their oversize funkdafied britches. The polished funk-punk-metal-rap hybrid of later albums was still in its seedling stage here, with the group yet to successfully merge those elements. Still, there's a consistent old-school garage feel. Flea's bass lines, normally in hyperdrive, are clipped and springy, like bare feet hopping on a hot Los Angeles blacktop. Lead singer Anthony Kiedis risks sounding like a parody of the vocal styles he's trying to emulate but commands the songs with every variation of bravado his voice can muster. And finally, the merit of this album could stand solely on the talents of the late guitarist Hillel Slovak, who infuses the tracks with resonating harmonics, psychedelic screeches, and righteous riffs. As disjointed and occasionally amateurish as this album was, it was also groundbreaking and captured the undivided attention of the rock world. --Beth Massa

Freaky Styley Reviews:
!!!!
2009-01-21 - Freaky StyleyIn the early 80's,i was considerably bored and fed up with hair bands.A friend, whom i had not seen in years, was nominated for a grammy for an album titled, "BIG GUITARS OF TEXAS", stopped by and recommended a fairly new band called "THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS". Since then, i bought there albums and attended all their concerts. Just watching Flea play his bass is worth every penny spent on tickets. If you want to attend at least one concert, i highly recommend The Chili Peppers. "Freaky Styley", in my opinion, is one of their best recordings.A matter of fact, all there recordings are great!

Pretty spicey
2008-12-20 - 3 1/2

Like their early funk-punk approach or not, this mid-80's sophomore release still packs a punch. It is one of those rare, wisely put together party rock discs made in that decade that actually grows better with age, providing ample subtly amongst all the upbeat frenzy. These songs appeared so uniquely brash when debuting, it was easy to dismiss some, though in retrospect FS remains as hot a dish the Pepper's ever served.

Good, but not great.
2008-08-19 - Freak Styley was RHCP's second album, and I feel it was the weakest of the original trilogy. A lot of the tracks here were throwaways that didn't make the cut for the first album (albeit freshly re-recorded for this record). It's like the saying goes-- "If they weren't good enough the first time, what makes them good enough now?" Luckily these "throwaways" aren't AWFUL or anything, they are just kind of mediocre & forgettable. At least most are only 1 minute long or thereabouts.

All that said, there is still some great stuff on Freaky Styley. The first four songs are without a doubt the highlight of the record and stand to this day along with some of the band's best work, most notably the incredible "American Ghost Dance" which forshadowed a sound the band would employ years later on BloodSugarSexMagik and even as recently as Stadium Arcadium. Flea made his trumpet debut on this album and this work is featured on a good number of tracks.

At the end of the day though, Freaky Styley suffers from the too-much-filler-not-enough-substance syndrome. As it stands Freaky Styley clocks in at 14 tracks. At least 5 of these are either not songs at all or one of the aforementioned throwaways. Another 2 of those are cover songs. If they had trimmed away some of the fat and recorded 2 more, hell even 1 more, full-length original song Freaky Styley could have been a whole lot better. These issues, despite a few great tracks, drag Styley down from being a great album to merely being a good album.

(Although it should be noted that even the worst, most ridiculous track here-- the 10-second "Thirty Dirty Birds" is better and more entertaining than anything on the snoozefest they called By The Way. Food for thought.)

Red Hot Chili Peppers and George Clinton...A Winning Combination
2007-10-03 - Freaky Styley is a much improved CD from the debut, Red Hot Chili Peppers still a very good CD. It improves especially upon every listen. I can't stress it enough.

George Clinton helped craft one of the most overlooked and underrated CS in their discography, with One Hot Minute being the most underrated.

The CD is full of hits, Jungle Man, Freaky Styley, Blackeyed Blonde, The Brothers Cup, Lovin and Touchin, Catholic School Girls Rule.

A magnificent release. Highly recommended.

At least it's their best album
2007-08-10 - Over the years, I have risen to the rank of Captain in the Red Hot Chili Peppers Hate Brigade. In college, during the salad days of Mother's Milk and BloodSugarSexMagik, I liked them OK but only because you couldn't go to a frat party without hearing at least one of their tunes during the course of a drunken night. Girls in particular dug them, so I kinda had to start liking them if I hoped to have even a prayer of getting them to take me seriously.

Of course, after the success of BloodSugarSexMagik they descended into complete ridiculousness and my lone album I owned (Mother's Milk) disappeared someplace, and I never felt the need to replace it.

That's how I judge a band -- if I lost their tape, did I feel the need to replace it with a CD? Prince: yes. Van Halen: yes. Elvis Costello: yes. Red Hot Chili Peppers: no.

I did hear that Freaky Styley is the one Chili Peppers album worth owning, because of the great George Clinton's involvement as producer. While the album is OK, a sense of "white boys trying to act black" is sadly ever-present, even with Clinton's still-active sensibilities stamped all over the record.

Unfortunately, Clinton couldn't do anything new with the Chili Peppers, and the Peppers couldn't inspire Clinton to go other places he hadn't already gone with Parliament. But I can conclude this is easily their best album (which is like saying Murmur is R.E.M's best). Here is the blow-by-blow:

Jungle Man -- Doesn't offend me, but sets the tone for the album. 5 out of 10.

Hollywood -- I like the Parliament-style tempo slow downs, with the horns muted in the background. Pure Clinton. But points subtracted for Keidis' god-awful "singing". 5 out of 10.

American Ghost Dance -- Keidis tries to sing/rap, which takes away from the cookin' band behind him. 5 out of 10.

If You Want Me To Stay -- A HUGE disappointment. Here is Clinton finally taking on Sly Stone, and instead he decides to ape the song note-for-note. Why do it then? They don't expand or improve on the original, and the result really sounds like karaoke at times. 1 out of 10, only for the cool humming at the end of tune.

Nevermind -- The Peppers finally do their own thing instead of trying to sound like Parliament. But...they instead sound like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 4 out of 10.

Freaky Styley -- My favorite cut on the album. Here, we see what a Clinton/Peppers union might have produced over the course of an entire album, but sadly this is the exception as opposed to the rule. 8 out of 10.

Blackeyed Blonde -- Flea finally gets to show his chops a bit, which is always a good thing. 7 out of 10.

The Brothers Cup -- They were running out of ideas by this time. 3 out of 10.

Battle Ship -- Here starts their salute to LA punk. They've got the speed part down, for sure. 4 out of 10.

Lovin' and Touchin' -- A cool little interlude. Wish they had done more with this. 7 out of 10.

Catholic School Girls Rule -- Yes they do! 5 out of 10

Sex Rap -- See my review of Battle Ship. 4 out of 10.

Thirty Dirty Birds -- Why? Why do this?

Yertle The Turtle -- Limp and weak. Wisely, the Peppers' management started steering them away from rap to actual singing. And also away from songs about Dr. Seuss books. 2 out of 10.

So overall, I give the album a generous two stars. At least it wasn't boring, not with George Clinton involved. And I now have the correct Red Hot Chili Peppers album in my music collection.