The Power Of Equality / If You Have To Ask / Breaking The Girl / Funky Monks / Suck My Kiss / I Could Have Lied / Mellowship Slinky In B Major / The Righteous & The Wicked / Give It Away / Blood Sugar Sex Magik / Under The Bridge / Naked In The Rain / Apache Rose Peacock / The Greeting Song / My Lovely Man / Sir Psycho Sexy / They're Red Hot

i dare to declare this one is their best work, and in the early 90's, one of the most important album of the rock music scene. If a rock band can only create just one supreme record at their peak in terms of spirits, physical strength, this album must be the one.

You may say at this time(till "Californication"), next album could be their best one because they are quite active vigorously now. But, i think RHCP wouldn't make the album better than this. It is not they "can't" make it, but they "don't." In my opinion after listening to "CAL," even the quality of next album would be quite excellent, it should be discussed in alternative phase from this piece, "BSSM."

No change at the member, but they took Rick Rubin of DefJam as a producer and moved to the Warner from EMI. This one was released in that situation as their fifth original album.

Impression changed from the taste of albums before that had been driving at full speed, to the taste that the center of gravity going lower and sound going totally settling down. Firstly John's guitar, it's defferent from the sound that was, "metallic" in the former one. In this album, "natural" guitar sound is developed through all tunes. Next, the slap base play that was almost synonym of Flea hides in this album. His playing style changed obviously from the one kind of showing his hyper technique off .

The world of lyrics written by Anthony grew deeply. The raising of objection to the injustice of United States' society such as "The Power Of Equality," "The Righteous & The Wicked"...i was really moved by these messages. And there scarcely is a rock band singing the love to animals("Naked In The Rain"). Especially i wanna emphasize the lyric of "Breaking The Girl," it succeeded to embody a unique world with the combination of the abstract, floating lyric and melody.

One of the features of this album is they put "plain" ballads that Anthony called "salad" such as "I Could Have Lied," "Under The Bridge" firstly. Normally the rock bands of which specialty was hard tunes decided to play ballads, they tend to be shits. But, these salads were saved from being shits with their overwhelmingly beautiful melody and Anthony's strict singing skill. i saw the bootleg video of the show in N.Y.C. just after the release of BSSM. Audience booed when the band played "salads." "No way! the Chili Peppers playing ballads?" But i think it's natural the musical style changes as the band grows up. i'd like to support their decision to dare to play ballads on the show. Just because the quality of the ballads are excellent.

This piece was recorded at the big mansion known as "The Haunted House." As a result, the sounds make us feel the spread of the space different from the one that has been taken at the normal studio. All the members except for Chad('cause he was scared:-)) stayed at the mansion. Literally they lived 'under the same roof' and it seemed they had a deep relationship during the recording. We can see how it was like on the video "Funky Monks."

This is what i've been thinking from the time i listen to this firstly, this one is the "rock" album. For a period of time after BSSM had been released, Japanese music press picked this band as a head of (so called) "Mixture Rock" movement again and again. It made me so perplexed. i don't know people in the U.S.A. or another country could understand the nuance of "Mixture Rock," but as far as in Japan, RHCP was/is dealed with as almost the synonym of "Mixture Rock." Above all, the word "Mixture Rock" sounds meaningless to me(don't you know rock' n' roll itself has a origin that was a mixture of white country and black R&B?) and compared to the former albums, they extremely grew up in this piece. While they abondoned their "Foolishness" almost of all, they created the serious album full of coolness that rock music had originally had. You should just say "rock". i thought the sound in this album was the very "orthodox" rock music in the early 90's(of course you may have a counterargument). Anyway, as long as talking about the former ones, the word "Mixture" doesn't so much miss the point, but i don't understand the feeling of the people who say 'Mixture Rock' even after listening to BSSM.

i feel this album is like the Led Zeppelin's third album. Of course the sounds of both are different, but i feel in some way the "touch" of them are similar to each other. Considering the using of melotron, the simple sounds, the producer and the members must had the idea of attempting to re-create the 60-70's rock feelings in their funky way. RHCP's stance in the rock music field just after the release of BSSM was...especially the ideology in the lyric of 'Give It Away' seemed to point to the 60-70's culture...if i say directly, "Woodstock."

In terms of sales, the smashing hits of "Give It Away" and "Under The Bridge" put the band up to the higher stage as a consequence. In the 1993's Grammy Awards they won a prize of "Best Hard Rock"(why "Hard Rock"?) and performed with P-Funk all stars(at this time John already left the band though).

i clearly remember the night firstly listened to this album. Leaving my fiancee that had got to sleep alone, i slowly took out the CD that i bought that day and put it on the tray. Listened by head phones. From the moment i pressed the start button till my player finished its play, i had been sorounded by the deeply impressed feeling. Rock music scarcely moves my heart truely, but the listening to BSSM was the most impressed experience in my life. For one reason, the band which i followed strictly proved themselves to be the genuine rock band(to tell you the truth, i didn't expect the excellent piece like this). For second, though it's personal thang, the lyrics of this album grabbed my heart.

Talkin' about the lyrics of former albums, while there were some lyrics backed with deep observations, there still were many of "demonstrative" one like saying "We are the number one!," or lyrics of the "Bad Boys"...the images which people held about this band on the surface. But, in this album lyrics written by Anthony got serious and started to express the strict messages directly. Sorry for repeating, but especially "The Power Of Equality," "The Righteous & The Wicked," "Give It Away" which say "No" to the value of modern society or the United States. And "Naked In The Rain" singing love to animals...really moved my mind. i even felt Anthony affirmed my emotion which i'd been holding from my childhood secretly. Of course it might be just an imagining, but i'd never felt that way by listening to rock music before. Therefore, this album was truly important to me. i really needed that sounds, messages from the bottom of my heart at that time.