ONE HOT MINUTE

'''One Hot Minute''' is the sixth album by alternative rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, released on September 12, 1995. It is the only album by the band recorded with Dave Navarro, formerly of Jane's Addiction. The album fared well on the charts, achieving double platinum status and selling almost 2 million copies in the United States. However, this was considered a disappointment when compared to the much greater commercial success of the preceding album ''Blood Sugar Sex Magik'', and the band's later three albums (''Californication'', ''By the Way'', ''Stadium Arcadium'') following John Frusciante's return. ''One Hot Minute'' featured an unusual combination of hard rock, psychedelic and funk; an uncommon style for the band that was never duplicated.

Contents

History

Musical style

Track listing

B-sides, outtakes and non-album tracks

Personnel

Band line-up during recording

Additional musicians

Children who sing on "Aeroplane"

Production

Artwork

Chart positions

Album

Singles

Miscellanea

Sample clips

History

Three years had elapsed between the release of the band's previous album ''Blood Sugar Sex Magik'' and the recording of ''One Hot Minute'', which began around late 1994 or early 1995. The band's previous guitarist, John Frusciante, left the group mid-tour in the April 1992 (to return in 1998). After a string of replacements, the band settled on guitarist Dave Navarro, formerly of Jane's Addiction, in 1994. Navarro would depart from the Chili Peppers during the subsequent album tour to pursue other projects.
In March 2006, the album was re-released via the iTunes Store including bonus track. The original tracks, as with all the other re-released albums are not remastered, leaving only the bonus tracks remastered. One of these tracks, "Bob", had never been heard of/seen before. When a fan asked Navarro about this song on his weblog 6767.com, he said: ''"Bob is a song about our friend and Thelonious Monster singer, Bob Forrest. It was the first song we did together. Why it never came out I am not sure."''

Musical style

Unlike the band's previous work, much of ''One Hot Minute's tracks are rooted in the heavy metal genre with added progressive and psychedelic influences, making heavy use of distorted, crunching guitar work (evident on such tracks as "Deep Kick" and "Coffee Shop"). Flea's bass is prominent throughout the album, most notably in the two bass solos played in "Coffee Shop", the jazzy feeling of the bass track played in "Walkabout", the wah-distorted, complicated, fast paced intro to "Shallow Be Thy Game", and the whole bassline to the song "Transcending". Drummer Chad Smith's skill is also evident in songs such as "Warped", "Coffee Shop", "One Hot Minute", "Shallow Be Thy Game" and "Transcending".
''One Hot Minute's songs were on average far longer than on the Chili Peppers' preceding albums due to the added progressive influences on several of the songs. "Deep Kick" begins with a slow pace and lengthy spoken-word poem, only to suddenly kick into a loud and energetic punk song, before once again descending pace for the melodic coda sung by Flea. "One Big Mob" is a track that begins in a heavy, fast-paced manner typical of the band's early period, but dramatically slows down for a drawn-out psychedelic bridge (complete with the sounds of a crying baby), then builds up to a crescendo before the first part of the song starts up again. Both songs over six minutes in duration, and are examples of the band's progressive approach to ''One Hot Minute'' - to which Navarro may well have made a major contribution. His previous band, Jane's Addiction, was known to compose progressive epics (e.g. "Three Days") as well songs of a conventional structure and length.
Other songs regress to the funk style of the Chili Peppers' earlier period, albeit with added influences from unlikely sources ("Walkabout" adopts an Australian theme, whilst "Falling Into Grace" contains tribal sounds.) In "Pea" bassist Flea plays on his own with only acoustic bass and him singing about a "homophobic redneck dick" who had assaulted him. "Tearjerker" is a subdued ballad in which frontman Anthony Kiedis sings of the grief felt after learning about the death of a friend. The friend is speculated to be Kurt Cobain, whose band Nirvana had previously toured with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. However, some have speculated that it may instead be about Shannon Hoon who died around the same time as Cobain and whose band, Blind Melon had also toured with Red Hot Chili Peppers. Once again on "Transcending", which explores the band's reaction to the death of actor and close friend River Phoenix.
Lead singer and lyricist Anthony Kiedis was struggling with a heroin addiction throughout the recording of ''One Hot Minute''. As a result, the album's lyrics are often cryptic, bizarre and much darker in tone than any album the band have made before or since, moving away from the typical themes of sex and the sense of fun that dominated previous albums, and focusing more on the introspection that had already appeared on tracks like "Under the Bridge". The songs "Warped" and "Aeroplane" tackle Kiedis' drug problems head on, often utilizing some graphic, subversively menacing imagery, whilst the acoustic ballad "My Friends" appears to adopt a theme of depression and despair. These unusual music approaches create many difficult, inaccessible and commercially-unfriendly songs as a result, and this is further highlighted by the fact that the three songs above were released as the first three singles for the album, the latter two being the most successful. "My Friends" was the only track from ''One Hot Minute'' to be included on the band's ''Greatest Hits'' compilation, although the music video for "Aeroplane" is also included on its accompanying DVD.

Track listing

All songs by Anthony Kiedis, Michael "Flea" Balzary, Dave Navarro and Chad Smith.
# "Warped" – 5:04
# "Aeroplane" – 4:45
# "Deep Kick" – 6:33
# "My Friends" – 4:02
# "Coffee Shop" – 3:08
# "Pea" – 1:47
# "One Big Mob" – 6:02
# "Walkabout" – 5:07
# "Tearjerker" – 4:19
# "One Hot Minute" – 6:23
# "Falling into Grace" – 3:48
# "Shallow Be Thy Game" – 4:33
# "Transcending" – 5:46

B-sides, outtakes and non-album tracks

Song	Length	Release(s)
"Melancholy Mechanics"	4:30	★ B-side of "Warped" ★ Bonus track on Japanese edition ★ ''Twister'' movie soundtrack
"Let's Make Evil"	5:17	★ B-side of "My Friends" ★ iTunes bonus track
"Stretch You Out"	6:01	★ B-side of "My Friends" titled "Stretch" on CD single ★ iTunes bonus track (contains a 20-second long intro)
"Bob"	5:43	★ iTunes bonus track
"Love Rollercoaster"	4:38	★ Used on "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" official soundtrack

Personnel

Band line-up during recording

★ Anthony Kiedis – lead vocals

★ Dave Navarro – guitar, backup vocals

★ Michael "Flea" Balzary – bass, backup vocals

★ Chad Smith – drums, percussion

Additional musicians

★ Lenny Castro – percussion on "Walkabout", "My Friends", "One Hot Minute", "Deep Kick", and "Tearjerker"

★ John Lurie – harmonica on "One Hot Minute"

★ Tree – violin on "Tearjerker"

★ Stephen Perkins – percussion on "One Big Mob"

★ Kristen Vigard – background vocals on "Falling into Grace"

★ Aimee Echo – background vocals on "One Hot Minute" and "One Big Mob""

★ Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa – chants on "Falling into Grace"

★ Gabriel James Navarro – cries on "One Big Mob"

Children who sing on "Aeroplane"

★ Clara Balzary

★ Max Gould

★ Bailey Reise

★ Askia Ndegéocello

★ Nadia Wehbe

★ Sarabeth Kelly

★ Matthew Kelly

★ Phillip Greenspan

★ Perry Greenspan

★ Veronica Twigg

★ Remy Greeno

★ Jaclyn Dimaggio

★ Hayley Oakes

★ Nikolai Giefer

★ Taiana Giefer

★ Nina Rothburg

★ Sheera Ehrig

★ Jade Chacon

Production

★ Rick Rubin – production

★ Dave Sardy – engineer

★ David Schiffman – assistant engineer

★ Dave Sardy – mixing

★ Stephen Marcussen – mastering

★ Don C. Tyler – digital editing

Artwork

★ Mark Ryden – art

★ Sweetbryar Ludwig – calligraphy

★ Anthony Kiedis – art direction

★ Flea – art direction

★ Dirk Walter – art direction

Chart positions

Album

Year	Chart	Peak position
1995	The Billboard 200	4

Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Peak position
1995	"My Friends"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	1
1995	"My Friends"	Modern Rock Tracks	1
1995	"Warped"	Modern Rock Tracks	7
1995	"Warped"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	13
1996	"Aeroplane"	Modern Rock Tracks	8
1996	"Aeroplane"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	12
1996	"Aeroplane"	Top 40 Mainstream	30

Miscellanea

★ "Pea" is the only song from this album that the Peppers have played live since Dave Navarro's departure from the band. The song is played and sung only by Flea.

★ The song "One Hot Minute" features extra lyrics in the booklet to this album. The extra lyrics can be found after the first chorus, just before the line "Close your eyes, and click your heels."

★ The children singing on the song "Aeroplane" are Flea's daughter's kindergarten class. Flea's daughter, Clara is the loudest of the group.

★ The lyrics to "Walkabout" are different in the booklet than the song itself.

★ The B-side song "Melancholy Mechanics" was featured in the 1996 movie ''Twister''.

★ This iteration of the group also recorded a cover of the Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster", "I Make My Own Rules" with LL Cool J on the ''Private Parts'' soundtrack, and "I Found Out" on the John Lennon tribute record.

★ Working titles for the album included ''Hypersensitive'', ''Turtlehead'', ''Black Fish Ferris Wheel'', ''The Blight Album'' and ''The Good & Bad Moods of The Red Hot Chili Peppers''.

★ The song "Tearjerker" is about Kurt Cobain and, likewise, the song "Transcending" is about River Phoenix

Sample clips