Netplugged.com review of SCWP
March 2004, Netplugged (Croatia)
Translated by me, the original can be read here
John Frusciante gives the impression of a happy man, not concerned about anything – a kid. Yes, despite his age of thirty-something, John is a typical American young boy, obsessed with his guitar, his band and non-stop playing music. He’s romantic, a person who consciously keeps on escaping from controlling his own life. He hasn’t even managed to finish highschool, he was writing songs without any ambition and then he faced Red Hot Chili Peppers – the band he jumped up into after the tragic death of Hillel Slovak, their original guitarist. Then came recording of BloodSugarSexMagik and a new, “everybody loves Red Hot Chili Peppers” era. Such life did not suit him, so he left the band and turned to heroin until the point when he was tottering on the edge of life and death. Somehow he escaped death, quit drugs and returned to the Peppers, having recorded four solo albums so far (from 1995 on). The first two solo efforts of his were results of his heroin-caused exhibitions, the third one, To Record Only Watter For Ten Days, was a sort of a Zappa-esque adventure and the fourth album, Shadows Collide With People, would be the first one to truly showcase John’s talent for work otuside of the band containing of great musicians.
John Frusciante’s work is easy to make through on each RHCP album, it is not hard to differ his playing sensibilities from Flea’s slapping bass and Kiedis’ dominant singing. Nevertheless, there’s this impression that John was not aware of his input in such a popular band and that he’s going solo to show off his vision of contemporary music. His most recent effort, Shadows Collide With People, is presenting Frusciante as a naive artist who does not accept compromises and, on the other side, you’ll have this feeling that he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. How else could we, in the era of absolute commercialisation, explain excesses in forms of electronica miniatures, chaotically mixed with pop songs? Unfortunately, on the majority of today’s releases, it’s easily to see the compromises caused by orders of their executive producers, some of those compromises are even included in recording musicians’ contracts. So, Frusciante here had the freedom he owes to his talent as well as to immense success of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The first listen to Shadows Collide With People will confuse even the most broad-minded listeners. It’s impossible to give up expectations that, on a solo album of a RHCP member, you’ll find something that sounds a bit like RHCP, at least a song that’ll make you suppose that it simply did not make it to one of his albums. Of course, on this albums there’s a lot of material that sounds like RHCP demos or at least an idea for one of their songs; but that is just a logical consequence of working in such a famous band where Frusciante has a very important role, maybe much more important than he’s aware of. Shadows Collide With People consists of 18 songs, amongst them electronic instrumentals, the role of which I did not manage to determine, not even after numerous listens. Perhaps someone recently gave John records of Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream or Future Sound Of London? I don’t know. However, the “classic songs” on this album are of constant quality, but it would be really hard to pick a remarkable one or, how they say, a “single”. My opinion is that Frusciante did not want that, anyway. This was just a result of his need to release an album, his need to show his songs to the world, to have a rest and show everyone that he’s now a happy man. Perpahs he’s not aware of his happiness and hoy at all; but the fact is that he’s doing something he’d always wanted.
To RHCP fans (I don’t know who else will want to give a listen to this album), this might seem like a good pick, but it’ll hardly remain in CD players for a long time. Frusciante’s songs will seem too mild to RHCP fans, and people who are into such things will hardly be looking for such elements of pop on an album of a guy who plays in RHCP. So, this is the album recorded for itself and for the sake of the author’s own soul; and if someone happens to like it, that’s nice. The result and reactions do not matter, what matters is to make an album and be happy with it. And that is exactly what Frusciante achieved.
