The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Soul to Squeeze - Non-Album Tracks (1987-1991)

I was not impressed by the first few albums by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Admittedly, they were working on an interesting mixture of funk, rap, and rock, but I like songs with melodies. By their own later admissions, they didn't really know how to write good, proper songs until guitarist John Frusciante joined the band in time from the 1989 album "Mother's Milk." That's pretty much where my interest in the band begins.

So this stray tracks album reflects that. I only have one song here from before Frusciante joined the band, and that's kind of an anomaly, because it's a cover of the 1965 Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues," thus getting around their songwriting issues from their early years. The version here is a slowed down and unreleased one that I like much better than the better one they put on album in 1987. And by the way, their radically different cover of this song is further proof that Dylan pretty much invented the rap genre all the way back in 1965! ;)

The band really made me sit up and take notice with their 1991 hit song "Under the Bridge." Not only is it a great song, it showed to me that the band had depth and wasn't just a bunch of party funksters. It's an acoustic-based song. But I've included here what I think is the only completely acoustic version of it, recorded with just lead singer Anthony Keidis and Frusciante in 1991. This version is unreleased, done (I think) for a Dutch TV station.

Most of the rest of the songs here are B-sides or bonus tracks (with the exception of "Cosmic Slop," an unreleased cover of a Parliament-Funkadelic song). Jimi Hendrix clearly is a big influence on the band, because they play three Hendrix covers here ("Crosstown Traffic," "Little Miss Lover," and "Castles Made of Sand."). I believe the rest of the songs are originals, except for a cover of "Search and Destroy," originally done by the Stooges.

You may be surprised to find the hit song "Soul to Squeeze" included here. I was, because I thought that song was from 1993, which is beyond the reach of this album. (I wanted it to end when Frusciante left the band for the first time in mid-1992.) It certainly was all over the radio in 1993. But it turns out it was an obscure B-side in 1991. Then, in 1993, it was put on the soundtrack to the "Coneheads" movie, becoming a belated hit. And that was a lucky thing for the band, because they didn't know how to cope with the departure of Frusciante, so they didn't release any more truly new music until 1995.

I'll deal with that next stage of their career in the next stray tracks album for them.

01 Subterranean Homesick Blues [Slow Version] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
02 Knock Me Down [Long Version] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
03 Crosstown Traffic (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
04 Millionaires Against Hunger (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
05 Show Me Your Soul (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
06 Cosmic Slop (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
07 Search and Destroy (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
08 Little Miss Lover (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
09 Castles Made of Sand (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
10 Sikamikanico (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
11 Under the Bridge [Acoustic Duo Version] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
12 Soul to Squeeze (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259269/TRedHChilP_1987-1991_SoultoSquze_atse.zip.html

The cover art is simply the cover to a "Soul to Squeeze" EP, but with the word "EP" removed from the bottom of it.