Mother’s Milk by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Mother's Milk is the sound of the Red Hot Chili Peppers picking themselves up off the floor. Their fourth album, out on EMI in 1989 on the heels of The Abbey Road E.P., followed a brutal stretch: founding guitarist Hillel Slovak was dead, drummer Jack Irons was gone, and Anthony Kiedis and Flea had to rebuild the band around two new recruits, guitarist John Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith.

The new blood changed the chemistry. The old Chilis had lived and died by rhythm; Frusciante was a melody man, and his playing pulled the songs toward tunes you could actually hum. Michael Beinhorn, back in the producer's chair, had other ideas. He wanted crunching heavy metal riffs and overdubs stacked sky-high, and he and the new guitarist were forever at war over how the guitars ought to sound. You can hear the tug of war all over the record: funk-punk thrash with a metallic gloss.

The calling card was a cover, Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" turned into a snorting stampede, with "Knock Me Down" and "Taste the Pain" following it onto the airwaves. Critics warmed to it less than The Uplift Mofo Party Plan from 1987, but it did better business than the band's first three albums, climbing to 52 on the Billboard 200 and handing them their first gold record early in 1990. It was the moment the Chili Peppers stopped being an underground secret and started heading for the big time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.