The Red Hot Chili Peppers (RHCP) are rightly called the pioneer of rock genre. Creating a style that combines punk, funk, rock, and rap the group has achieved the status of one of the most popular, inventive and eccentric bands of our time. Their performances are always held with wild energy and a charge of musical adrenaline. They have managed to sell millions of copies of their albums worldwide, and five of their albums have earned multi-platinum status in the United States.
The musical influence of this group can hardly be overestimated. While earlier punk, rock and rap existed separately, the fusion of these styles led to a new musical era, when musicians began to combine different elements to create unique and original style. The Red Hot Chili Peppers gave birth to a style branded alternative rock and have become its most successful advocates. The RHCP band is unique both in terms of music and in terms of its history, where there was a place for disappointment, fame, death and betrayal.
For a long time, the members of the group were on drugs which resulted in the death of one group member. The feelings of sadness and loss found portrayal in the groups’ songs along with the theme of struggle against dependance on heroin. Many songs depict the loneliness of a person and experience of deep personal struggle. Thus, the hit “Dark Necessities” talks about the negative, that is, the dark side of the personality. The band sings: “Spinnin’ knot that is on my heart is like a bit of light in a touch of dark”, showing the good and bad are interconnected and the one can give birth to the other (Red Hot Chili Peppers). The main idea of the song is that creativity, growth and light can paradoxically grow out of negative feelings. In order for positive qualities to manifest in a person, first he needs to go through the dark side.
Sexuality, violation of prohibitions, eccentricity are characteristic for the group’s earlier period, while in recent years songs acquire a more solemn character. The idea the group conveys to the society is that even if everything is gloomy, there is still a possibility for a change. Moreover, the group advocates for stopping heroin usage and shows by their own example that it is possible to give up on drugs if one is really determined to do it.
Group NWA appeared as a reflection of ongoing events in the society at that time and, simultaneously, as a challenge to the established way of things. Never before the music has reflected the bare essence of life, including ghettos, criminals and mafia as in NWA tracks. NWA’s music is fast, noisy, and clanking; and the samples are glued into many layers. Scraps of sounds and phrases are stuffed into the chorus, alternating melodies of verses and obligatory scratchings.
When the group appeared, the shock effect of the first tracks “Straight Outta Compton” and “Fuck The Police” was unsurpassed. Other rappers in the late 80s only raised their heads, while Cube, Ren and Eazy revealed the naked truth of life in their songs. Thus, in the song “Fuck The Police” the group uses a number of tabular words, such as “what the fuck you’ve got to say”, “motherfucking stand”, “fuck that shit” (NWA). No one read with such fury then and does not read now, and no other group disregarded morality to such an extent as to use words like “nigga” in their songs.
The first hits of the group aroused a storm of indignation. People were not used to brutal revelations and inappropriate words used in songs. However, as time passed, the audiences appreciated the group’s style and many of its albums became hits. Moreover, some songs gave birth to the whole new styles that appeared after the group’s first album came out. Thus, the group’s track “Always Into Something” became the progenitor of all the gangsta beats of the 90s. NWA flaunts gangsterism in “Gangsta Gangsta” — and for 15 years after that, rappers do not do without shooting and threats in the texts. NWA members attribute to themselves dozens of murders— and hundreds of artists compose bloody fables for the pleasure of listeners. It can be concluded that NWA paved the way for the whole new set of music directions.
References
NWA. Fuck the police. Web.
Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dark Necessities. Web.