Freaky Styley | 
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| Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Label: Capitol
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
Buy New: $6.81
You Save: $7.17 (51%)
New (51) Used (14) from $5.99
Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 12379
Format: Extra Tracks, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.7 x 0.4
MPN: 40377
UPC: 724354037726
EAN: 0724354037726
ASIN: B000078DOH
Release Date: March 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Jungleman | | • | Hollywood (Africa) | | • | American Ghost Dance | | • | If You Want Me To Stay | | • | Nevermind | | • | Freaky Styley | | • | Blackeyed Blonde | | • | The Brothers Cup | | • | Battleship | | • | Lovin' And Touchin' | | • | Catholic School Girls Rule | | • | Sex Rap | | • | Thirty Dirty Birds | | • | Yertle The Turtle | | • | Nevermind (Demo) | | • | Sex Rap (Demo) | | • | Freaky Styley (Original Long Version) | | • | Millionaires Against Hunger |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential recording
With their second album, Freaky Styley, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were still growing into their oversize funkdafied britches. The polished funk-punk-metal-rap hybrid of later albums was still in its seedling stage here, with the group yet to successfully merge those elements. Still, there's a consistent old-school garage feel. Flea's bass lines, normally in hyperdrive, are clipped and springy, like bare feet hopping on a hot Los Angeles blacktop. Lead singer Anthony Kiedis risks sounding like a parody of the vocal styles he's trying to emulate but commands the songs with every variation of bravado his voice can muster. And finally, the merit of this album could stand solely on the talents of the late guitarist Hillel Slovak, who infuses the tracks with resonating harmonics, psychedelic screeches, and righteous riffs. As disjointed and occasionally amateurish as this album was, it was also groundbreaking and captured the undivided attention of the rock world. --Beth Massa
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good, but not great. August 19, 2008
N. Hall (Seattle, WA USA)
Freak Styley was RHCP's second album, and I feel it was the weakest of the original trilogy. A lot of the tracks here were throwaways that didn't make the cut for the first album (albeit freshly re-recorded for this record). It's like the saying goes-- "If they weren't good enough the first time, what makes them good enough now?" Luckily these "throwaways" aren't AWFUL or anything, they are just kind of mediocre & forgettable. At least most are only 1 minute long or thereabouts.
All that said, there is still some great stuff on Freaky Styley. The first four songs are without a doubt the highlight of the record and stand to this day along with some of the band's best work, most notably the incredible "American Ghost Dance" which forshadowed a sound the band would employ years later on BloodSugarSexMagik and even as recently as Stadium Arcadium. Flea made his trumpet debut on this album and this work is featured on a good number of tracks.
At the end of the day though, Freaky Styley suffers from the too-much-filler-not-enough-substance syndrome. As it stands Freaky Styley clocks in at 14 tracks. At least 5 of these are either not songs at all or one of the aforementioned throwaways. Another 2 of those are cover songs. If they had trimmed away some of the fat and recorded 2 more, hell even 1 more, full-length original song Freaky Styley could have been a whole lot better. These issues, despite a few great tracks, drag Styley down from being a great album to merely being a good album.
(Although it should be noted that even the worst, most ridiculous track here-- the 10-second "Thirty Dirty Birds" is better and more entertaining than anything on the snoozefest they called By The Way. Food for thought.)
 Red Hot Chili Peppers and George Clinton...A Winning Combination October 3, 2007
Ryan Rogers (Memphis, TN)
Freaky Styley is a much improved CD from the debut, Red Hot Chili Peppers still a very good CD. It improves especially upon every listen. I can't stress it enough.
George Clinton helped craft one of the most overlooked and underrated CS in their discography, with One Hot Minute being the most underrated.
The CD is full of hits, Jungle Man, Freaky Styley, Blackeyed Blonde, The Brothers Cup, Lovin and Touchin, Catholic School Girls Rule.
A magnificent release. Highly recommended.
 At least it's their best album August 10, 2007
Michael A. Beyer (Chicago, IL United States)
2 out of 16 found this review helpful
Over the years, I have risen to the rank of Captain in the Red Hot Chili Peppers Hate Brigade. In college, during the salad days of Mother's Milk and BloodSugarSexMagik, I liked them OK but only because you couldn't go to a frat party without hearing at least one of their tunes during the course of a drunken night. Girls in particular dug them, so I kinda had to start liking them if I hoped to have even a prayer of getting them to take me seriously.
Of course, after the success of BloodSugarSexMagik they descended into complete ridiculousness and my lone album I owned (Mother's Milk) disappeared someplace, and I never felt the need to replace it.
That's how I judge a band -- if I lost their tape, did I feel the need to replace it with a CD? Prince: yes. Van Halen: yes. Elvis Costello: yes. Red Hot Chili Peppers: no.
I did hear that Freaky Styley is the one Chili Peppers album worth owning, because of the great George Clinton's involvement as producer. While the album is OK, a sense of "white boys trying to act black" is sadly ever-present, even with Clinton's still-active sensibilities stamped all over the record.
Unfortunately, Clinton couldn't do anything new with the Chili Peppers, and the Peppers couldn't inspire Clinton to go other places he hadn't already gone with Parliament. But I can conclude this is easily their best album (which is like saying Murmur is R.E.M's best). Here is the blow-by-blow:
Jungle Man -- Doesn't offend me, but sets the tone for the album. 5 out of 10.
Hollywood -- I like the Parliament-style tempo slow downs, with the horns muted in the background. Pure Clinton. But points subtracted for Keidis' god-awful "singing". 5 out of 10.
American Ghost Dance -- Keidis tries to sing/rap, which takes away from the cookin' band behind him. 5 out of 10.
If You Want Me To Stay -- A HUGE disappointment. Here is Clinton finally taking on Sly Stone, and instead he decides to ape the song note-for-note. Why do it then? They don't expand or improve on the original, and the result really sounds like karaoke at times. 1 out of 10, only for the cool humming at the end of tune.
Nevermind -- The Peppers finally do their own thing instead of trying to sound like Parliament. But...they instead sound like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 4 out of 10.
Freaky Styley -- My favorite cut on the album. Here, we see what a Clinton/Peppers union might have produced over the course of an entire album, but sadly this is the exception as opposed to the rule. 8 out of 10.
Blackeyed Blonde -- Flea finally gets to show his chops a bit, which is always a good thing. 7 out of 10.
The Brothers Cup -- They were running out of ideas by this time. 3 out of 10.
Battle Ship -- Here starts their salute to LA punk. They've got the speed part down, for sure. 4 out of 10.
Lovin' and Touchin' -- A cool little interlude. Wish they had done more with this. 7 out of 10.
Catholic School Girls Rule -- Yes they do! 5 out of 10
Sex Rap -- See my review of Battle Ship. 4 out of 10.
Thirty Dirty Birds -- Why? Why do this?
Yertle The Turtle -- Limp and weak. Wisely, the Peppers' management started steering them away from rap to actual singing. And also away from songs about Dr. Seuss books. 2 out of 10.
So overall, I give the album a generous two stars. At least it wasn't boring, not with George Clinton involved. And I now have the correct Red Hot Chili Peppers album in my music collection.
 Thank you, Michelle May 7, 2007
B. Fonts (Chicago)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like the cicadas, I hibernated from radio music and miss groups that come along; but, Michelle gave me Red Hot Chili Peppers CD that had me wanting more and Freaky Styley follows suit.
Super pfunky! March 8, 2007
Avernus (Weatherford, TX, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Chili Peppers' second album is best described by the amazing Flea himself.. `Too funky for white radio, too punk for black.'
What we have here is a very entertaining variety of off-kilter, and bizarre pieces of funky rock; but to give you my view on the Peppers in general, so to compare your personal opinion to mine, I think that 'Freaky Styley' 'Mothers Milk' 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' and 'Uplift Mofo Party' are the Chili Peppers most creative, and entertaining albums. This is the Chili Peppers before the extreme funk and experimentation was watered down by alternative and commercial influences. To me, this is more along the lines of what the Chili peppers should have remained.. but of course I am more into Primus and Tom Waits than anything alt pop.
The only downfall to this album is the sometimes immature lyrics. While I don't enjoy the later Peppers music all that much, I do think that they have really evolved lyrically. The production isn't so good either, wich may bother you, but I find it to add personality to this particular recording.
If you are looking for classic Chili Peppers radio hits, then look elsewhere. There is not a radio-friendly song on this album. If you are looking for something weird, funky, and fun, then I would say that you have found it..
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