The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mercy Mercy - Non-Album Tracks (2006-2007)

In 2006, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released the album "Stadium Arcadium." Even though it's a double album, in my opinion it's solid all the way through and one of the best albums they ever did. Yet even with that double album, they still had lots of leftover songs, and they released many of them as B-sides in 2006 and into 2007. This album is mostly a collection of those B-sides.

Again, it's just my opinion, but I think even these B-sides are quite good. I have certain standards. I'm not going to include absolutely everything just to be completist. I only want the songs I'll actually enjoy listening to. But in this case, I've included all the B-sides because I like them all. (That's in sharp contrast to the B-sides to their next album, "I'm with You," which I feel aren't nearly as good.)

There are only two songs here that aren't B-sides. One is a surprisingly faithful version of the Beach Boys' classic hit "I Get Around." That performance actually comes from 2005, so I should have included it on the band's previous stray tracks collection. But I only discovered it recently, and I figure 2005 is close enough for horseshoes. ;)

The other non-B-side is also the only song that remains officially unreleased. It's an acoustic version of the Bee Gees hit "How Deep Is Your Love." In concert, guitarist John Frusciante often had a solo spot in which he played acoustic covers that were very different from the usual Red Hot Chili Peppers fare, such as versions of songs by Simon and Garfunkel or Cat Stevens. Generally speaking, I haven't included those, because I usually don't think they fit in well with the rest of the band's output. But in this case, I think an acoustic version of the Bee Gees song is interesting, different, and very well performed. It's mostly Frusciante, but if you listen carefully there are some drums and backing vocals.

Sadly, this is the last of my planned stray tracks albums for the band, unless more material emerges. For their next album, "I'm with You," they released an entire album's worth of outtakes as a collection of singles. Combined, the collection is known as "I'm Beside You." But, as I mentioned above, I simply don't think they're very good, so I'm not going to bother with those. Other than that, there's a surprising lack of stray tracks. For instance, their next album, "The Getaway," had four singles released, but none of them had any B-sides. And the band has had almost no songs on soundtracks, other various artist compilations, and the like.

By the way, the band did compose 20 to 30 new songs for "The Getaway" album, only to scrap them all and start anew when they picked a new producer to work with. So there probably are a ton of songs sitting in the vaults. But none of them have leaked to the public yet.

01 Million Miles of Water (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
02 Whatever We Want (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
03 Lately (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
04 I Get Around (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
05 A Certain Someone (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
06 Mercy Mercy (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
07 Lyon 6.6.06 [Instrumental] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
08 Funny Face (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
09 I'll Be Your Domino (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
10 Permutation [Instrumental] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
11 Joe (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
12 Save This Lady (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
13 How Deep Is Your Love (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259318/TRedHChilP_2006-2007_MrcyMrcy_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a photo of the band in concert in 2006.