Review of Red Hot Chili Peppers: The Greatest Hits

Introduction

Red Hot Chilli Peppers have actually been knocking around for 20 years, and have put out 9 albums in that time (including 2003`s Greatest Hits effort). As with most bands that have been around for a couple of decades, the line up has varied over the years.

They probably didn`t appear on most people`s radar until 1991`s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, after they teamed up with producer Rick Rubin to record the album. This produced probably their 2 best known songs "Give It Away" and "Under the Bridge" (more recently the subject of an interesting cover version by former girl group All Saints). This album can still be heard in student bedrooms up and down the land.

After touring heavily and changing personnel once more they stuck with Rick Rubin to record 1995`s One Hot Minute. Over the next 4 years they changed personnel again and then released 1999`s Californication, and 2002`s By The Way, which can also be heard in student bedrooms up and down the land.

Here then is their fifth official DVD release, a greatest hits type compilation which covers the 4 albums mentioned above. The tracks are presented in a slightly different order to the corresponding CD, with 4 tracks that don`t appear on the CD. The CD has 6 tracks that don`t appear here too. Here`s what you get:-

Give It Away
Suck My Kiss
Under the Bridge
Aeroplane
My Friends
Scar Tissue
Californication
Around the World
Road Trippin`
Otherside
By The Way
The Zephyr Song
Can`t Stop
Universally Speaking

Video

A reasonable full-frame transfer here. Whilst this is acceptable for the older videos on show, it`s a bit of a rip off for the more modern stuff, at least some of which was probably shot in widescreen. Apart from that niggle it all looks ok.

A real mixed bag of styles and genres in the videos on offer. We have black and white, garish colours, exotic dancers, synchronised swimmers, recording studios, a simulation of a computer game and stage performance footage too. It`s not massively exciting, but it`s certainly not dull.

Audio

Oh dear. Just a DD2.0 stereo soundtrack available here, which does seem like a bit of a rip off nowadays. It`s likely that most fans will already have these songs on CD, so the DVD needs to offer improved sound in the form of a DD5.1 or dts soundtrack (or more). Releasing video compilations with any less should be banned!

That said, what we do get all sounds fair enough, although I thought I could detect a note of clipping/compression now and again. Maybe my ears are over-sensitive.

Features

We get the option of commentaries on selected videos, "making of" clips for some videos, and a behind the scenes mini-tour documentary from their 2000 world tour with clips from Japan, Australia and elsewhere. There`s plenty of backstage and related footage. Might be of interest for fans of the band.

Conclusion

Not sure about this one. Peppers fans will already have all of the tracks on CD, and maybe some of the other DVDs too. This DVD is ok, but it`s not a stunning example of a music DVD.

The only Peppers songs that interest me are "Give It Away" and "Under the Bridge", and the rest of the DVD was not really to my liking.

The good news is that this has a reasonable RRP, so you could pick it up for the price of a CD. But I wouldn`t bother as they haven`t made enough of an effort with it in my opinion.