Okay sorry to kick this up again... it's just got me thinking.
If by "found their old sound" you mean lifted Tom Petty, then I guess they have." - Tarmac
That's a great catch. Of course you're talking about the verse of Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance, which is similar to Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama. And before that? Someone else.
Of course, the choruses and bridges all go their separate ways and, at that point, the comparison ceases. But still... this kind of thing is fascinating to me.
I remember reading a 'Best of' issue of Rolling Stone magazine, where they did a 'Best of' Letters to Rolling Stone. And they reissued this letter written to them by a mathematician, who predicted the end of rock and roll within 5 years. His case was that there was a finite number of chords, and a finite number chord progressions, and finite number of notes, and a finite number of ways to combine them into melodies, and on and on.... and that within 5 years every conceivable combination of those would be exhausted.
He wrote that in 1974.
It actually made a lot of sense, but it sure hasn't panned out that way... other than a noted similarity here and there between a verse to a song or a bridge to another song. The lawsuits over this have been
extremely few and far between.
Which brings us back to this Chili Peppers album. For one thing, it's completely wrong to say that by "[finding] their old sound," they lifted Tom Petty, because it implies that the rest of the album
also shares characteristics of a verse in some Tom Petty song - which doesn't happen. There are however many things about that single which you could trace back through to older Chili Peppers songs.
Anyways, we're playing this album at work, and one guy says "I like it, but all of the songs sound like radio hits." He's not sure, but leaning towards it not being a good thing. And that's another interesting observation.
When the Chili Peppers first got radio play, it was in '89 with 'Higher Ground', and was book ended by world singer Bon Jonvi and Poison and Steve Winwood. It predated "alternative" and grunge by 3 years, and there was nothing else like it on the radio.
When their sound became viable, there emerged a couple of like bands such as Fishbone.... but aside from a single or two, never opened any doors or by any means established the Chili Peppers' sound as somehow formulaic or mainstream. The only thing close was George Clinton and we know how much radio play
he got.
In fact, when the Chili Peppers came out of a 3-year hiatus (or a drug induced nightmare) with Californication, it was in 1999, right dead center in the middle of The Spice Girls and 'N Sync - those untalented gits that drove the stake through alternative music - and garnered the Chili Peppers their first multi-platinum (14 million sold) record...
out of nowhere.
So if any Chili Peppers song sounds too commercial, too radio.... think about it. They single handedly
created that niche, and not only that....
nobody else has been able to ride on their coattails.
What happens when a Britney Spears blows up? They sign Aguleras by the boatload. What happens when a Nirvana blows up? They sign Pearl Jams and STPs by the boatload.
What happens when the Chili Peppers blow up? Nothing. Who do they sign? Who are the imitators?
There's just nothing there. There's nothing comparable. That says a lot. They only sound like radio because they alone created a unique sound that radio picked up on which is now familiar to us.
Takes a hell of a band to do that.
