For me, the Chilis are tied with Oasis for my favorite band.

Love their music, love how they've evolved over time, from being just a rough riding funk group, with a rapper for a frontman, doing songs about "partying on your pussy", to a wonderful mix of love songs, guitar solos, rapping, and very articulate songwriting & instrumentation, with Anthony's singing developed from years of practice & what not, singing songs about wishing "All I want is for you to be happy/Take this woman and make you my family."

All of the main guitarists have been worth noting, to say the least. Whether it be Hillel Slovak, the wonderful guitarist, who was an inspiration for John Frusciante, but left the World much too soon, or Frusciante himself, who is one of the all-time greats, imo, or Dave Navarro, a pretty good guitarist who unfortunately never quite fit with the group, or Josh Klinghoffer, Frusciante's protege and is great in his own right, the band has had quite the talent in the lead guitarist spot.

Whoever's been there has had time to blend in with Flea, Cliff Martinez, Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, and Jack Irons over the years, and as a result, almost every album & every song has been wonderful.

Stadium Arcadium and Blood Sugar Sex Magik are my two favorites, and probably their two best, with By the Way very closely in third. BTW is easily their most experimental album, with SA also having experimental aspects to it. All three of those albums prove why Frusciante is one of the greats in rock & roll history, as far as guitarists go.

Flea's bass playing is also marvelous too (Ex: Funky Monks) and Chad's had a drumming style that puts the bass & guitar right together. He's also pretty good with custom percussion, too (Ex: Breaking the Girl, The Zephyr Song, Hump de Bump). Anthony hasn't always been the best vocalist, but he most certainly gets the job done for the group when it's been needed. His voice may be slightly out of pitch at times, but like on Funky Monks, Apache Rose Peacock, and Sir Psycho Sexy, it sounds really cool and adds to the raw, funk sound. Love his rapping, too. The Power of Equality is probably his best rapping track, imo.

Awesome group, awesome tunes, and it's amazing how Flea, Anthony, and Chad have been together for (coming up on) 26 years making music, through all the times of people coming and going from the lead guitarist spot, the rise and falls, but still have a strong sense of friendship & overall love for what they do. To me, that's truly what a band is all about, and why the Chili Peppers appeal to such a wide demographic, myself, a Funky Monk & MadFerIt, included. 

Great thread ! I'll tell you something. This band is weird for me , I never considered them great , never thought of buying any of there lps , yet when I'm out and about especially when I was a barfly or working in a bar I ALWAYS PICKED A PEOOERS TUNE WITH MY 5 bucks. Sometimes more than 1 ...blood sugar sex magic , californiacation , under the bridge , by the way , that song with give it away give it away now , , the list goes on , as time goes by I realized THERE A GREAT BAND love them, always changing styles , top band. My initial opinion on them was so wrong theyre great

I like thir hits, massive hits btw, but never dug deeper than that, maybe someday.

I don't mean to be rude but RHCP is one of the most annoying bands to me.

Grant they have made some good-great albums. Mother's Milk and Blood Sex Sugar Magik are fine albums. The latter is one of those 90's defining albums. Californication and By the Way are nice evolutions of band. Showcase that they do have some songwriting chops, but I can't stand Kiedis. As musicians they're one of the best groups around. Kiedis just gets annoying fast and he is definitely the weakest link in the band.

Used to listen to them a lot in middle school, started phasing them out in high school, and by college I didn't even have anything my them on my library. Now that I've discovered and gotten into Funkadelic, its pretty clear to me that RHCP just based their career off of them. Way more so then Oasis did the Beatles in my opinion.

They're a good band that has had great moments but I don't think they've been good for at least a decade now.

Some artists just fade away and don't hold their relevance with people over time. RHCP is one of the biggest bands that had this effect on me.

See, that's one of the small things I love about the Chili Peppers. They can solidly nail down a 14-16 track album (or even two 14 track albums, see SA) that goes for an hour+, and it still sounds absolutely brilliant from start to finish. I think that's one area where the chemistry, hard work, and passion, definitely shine through with them.  

The Getaway is a really good album. I'd say it's tied with BTW, and just a tick behind SA, as far as best Chili Peppers albums go. Josh sounds more "in the band" and it shows. The textures he adds are elegant and funky, almost like what Froosh and the guys set out to do with BTW but fell just short of doing.

Speaking of which, BTW is another good album. It's a bit poppy at times, but that also makes for some of the best moments on the album (like with Dosed). There's a wide variety of sounds and influences, aside from the usual funk affair, like on the synthesizer-driven Warm Tape, the two-in-a-half-part-in-one Venice Queen, the Beatlesque Tear, the Latin-infused Cabron, and the 60s psychedelic pop-influenced Universally Speaking. It's their most wide-ranging work to date and is worth a listen, even if you don't usually listen to the Chilis.

I can enjoy some RHCP from time to time.

I like that "Parallel Universe" tune.