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EW review: Peppers' 'Stadium' good -- and bad

Also: Terrific Gnarls Barkley, fiery Neil Young

By Michael Endelman
Entertainment Weekly

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(Entertainment Weekly) -- Listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new hit single, ''Dani California,'' and you'll get a sense of what's good, bad, and aggravating about "Stadium Arcadium," the band's ninth studio album.

The song opens with the Chili Peppers rehashing their funky white-boy shtick, as frontman Anthony Kiedis spits out half-baked slacker rap over a swaggering beat. But then guitar whiz John Frusciante lays down his sledgehammer riffs, Kiedis begins to actually sing the elegiac chorus, the golden harmonies of the bridge kick in, and by the end, you're blindsided by how great it all sounds.

Just like the single, the two-CD "Stadium Arcadium" (one inexplicably named ''Mars,'' the other ''Jupiter'') has flashes of brilliance and moments of inanity. Think of it as a 122-minute, 28-track encapsulation of the varied musical phases of the quartet's bumpy 22-year career. There's the early, sophomoric punky funk, the career-making alterna-ballads, and the unlikely late-'90s revival as mature, tuneful, middle-aged rock stars.

Maybe they're playing it safe by casting such a wide net. But who can blame them? Their last album, 2002's "By the Way," went too far into mellow navel-gazing territory for their party-hearty fans. It moved under 2 million copies -- a definite disappointment after 1999's quintuple-platinum career reboot, "Californication," which savvily added textured pop (''Otherside'') to their well-loved mix of moody post-addiction meditations and mosh-pit grooves.

"Stadium Arcadium" ensures that graying Lollapalooza-era fans, indie teens, and rowdy lunkheads will all be satisfied. Arenas will explode to the Funkadelic-esque ''Readymade'' and the psychedelic shredfest ''Turn It Again,'' with its orgasmic, multi-tracked guitar coda.

Married-with-children Pepperheads can snuggle to the spiritual pop epiphanies (''Stadium Arcadium'') and love songs like ''Hard to Concentrate,'' where Kiedis admits that even serial model daters have monogamy envy.

By reaching out to the next generation of testosterone-fueled party animals, however, the Peppers stumble. Their '80s frat-rap mode, with its slap-bass diddling and bonehead rhymes (''Warlocks''), lingers like a bad case of mono. It's not that the James Brownish ''Charlie'' is any worse than a sock-era classic like ''Fight Like a Brave'' (it might even be better), but to anyone used to the virtuosity of Jay-Z, Kiedis' clumsy flow sounds as dated as an episode of "Small Wonder."

When you try to deliver something for everyone -- particularly with a double album -- a few missteps are to be expected. (They actually recorded 38 tracks with producer Rick Rubin, so we should be thankful it's not a triple disc.) In the era of MP3 ripping and burning, is a slightly bloated two-hour disc worth bitching about? Not really. With a few clicks of the mouse, "Stadium Arcadium" can become the streamlined, near-perfect disc hidden within.

EW Grade: B+

'St. Elsewhere,' Gnarls Barkley

Reviewed by David Browne

How do you categorize an album that blends hefty soul shouting, swirly techno, and creepy-crawly hip-hop? Not easy, but that's the pleasure of this captivating collaboration between Brian Burton (a.k.a. Danger Mouse, the nerd-rap brains behind the last Gorillaz disc and "The Grey Album") and Goodie Mob belter Cee-Lo.

Neither man has made a conventional record in his life, and on "St. Elsewhere" they're not about to start.

''Crazy,'' the record's seamless fast-rising single, is Seal with meat on his bones. But the whirring rhythm and Cee-Lo's messed-up brain (''Does that make me crazy?/Probably'') transport the song into inspired areas where mainstream R&B never ventures.

After that, Cee-Lo alternates between joy and jitters, digging into his paranoia one minute (''The Boogie Monster'') and throwing himself onto the dance floor the next (''The Last Time''). Between his mood swings and Burton's willingness to shift tempos and textures, "St. Elsewhere" is a bumpy but mesmerizing ride.

Their sense of humor is wonderful, but nothing beats soultronica gems like ''Just a Thought.'' Cee-Lo tries to decide between love and suicide, Burton begins interjecting jarring rhythmic accents to make sure the song doesn't become too normal -- and techno-rap-house-whatever perfection is achieved.

EW Grade: A

'Living With War,' Neil Young

Reviewed by David Browne

A string of harangues against the White House's current occupants, Neil Young's "Living With War" feels like one of the first blog albums: It was written and recorded in two weeks and quickly thrown up on the Web. (Young began streaming it on his Web site on April 28, four days before it was sold digitally; the CD arrives in stores Tuesday.)

The album reflects Internet immediacy in other ways as well. The power-trio arrangements have a let-it-rip simplicity; the lyrics are like stream-of-consciousness postings. (In ''Let's Impeach the President,'' you can hear him rushing to finish long lines like ''highjacking our religion and using it to get elected'' before a chorus starts.) The choir and trumpet solos sound underrehearsed and ragtag.

But being off-the-cuff suits Young, never more so than here. Whether he's railing against Bush's ''Mission Accomplished'' (''a golden photo op'') in ''Shock and Awe'' or wondering whether Colin Powell or Barack Obama is up for an Oval Office job in ''Looking for a Leader'' (the album's most Crazy Horse-style stomper), Young hasn't sounded this fired up in years. The maudlin creakiness of last year's "Prairie Wind" has been blown away.

As he did with 2001's ''Let's Roll,'' Young still strains to prove he's a patriot, this time with a gratuitous choir version of ''America the Beautiful.'' But if this is what it takes to energize Young again, the war may have at least one unexpected silver lining.

EW Grade: B+


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