Talk:Californication (album)

Poor production and clipping

I believe this article needs to go more in depth about how poorly this album was mastered. I really have trouble listening to it now because I cannot escape the clipping. It has ruined it for me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.87.222 (talk) 23:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

That is a subjective judgement. First of all, the people that judge it to be objectively bad mastering know nothing about art or music. It is an aesthetic choice and was popular at the time. Listen to “Is This It?” by The Strokes one of the most acclaimed albums of the decade in 2001, it has the same compressed slightly distorted sound. I personally love the sound of californication, it is more lively and dynamic than a clean slick sound that I know you would consider “good mastering”. Again, art is subjective, you are confusing your taste for objectively. Shhsbavavaa (talk) 10:11, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

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This album is notorious among audio enthusiasts for poor mastering, and was the second loudest album ever released by a major label at the time it came out (second to Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges). Shouldn't that be mentioned somewhere? Graue 03:30, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

theres no such thing as an objective aesthetic judgement and there are just as many if not more MUSICIANS artists and cultural critics that appreciate the mastering. Personally, I think its fair to dismiss these so called audio enthusiasts who are philistines and are fixated on clarity and realism Shhsbavavaa (talk) 18:38, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Your judgement is also very subjetive (and offensive) and should equally be dismissed. What a self-own. 187.44.245.18 (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

One hot Minute

Wait, why does the One Hot Minute page say that it got generally good reviews, and then this article says that Californication brought RHCP back from it's bad One Hot Minute reviews...?

Something doesn't add up! --Discharger12 03:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Another point about One Hot Minute - it seems to get overlooked in this article. It was that album, not Californication, that was the first one in the Chilis catalogue to feature a "strongly reduced number of rapped tracks" and add "heavy psychedelic influences" (both in tracks such as "Warped", "Transcending" and "One Hot Minute"). I could also argue that Californication was not at all "vastly different from its predecessors". If anything it is just One Hot Minute with a more commercially accessible sound.

Loganator, 20:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I feel the same, i hate OHM haters, massive backlash against it but BTW and SA are radio friendly albums which get lauded critically.

What is a “commercially accessible sound”? Doesn’t that change regularly? and One Hot Minute did get comparatively bad reviews, whoever wrote that it got generally bad reviews was a crazed psychotic RHCP fan trying to rewrite history. On the wiki page itself glancing at the ratings of major publications, its getting 2 and 3 stars.

Californication has a drastically changed vocals from anthony. It has more range, melody. OHM he is half singing, or rapping his vocals, where on Californication he is melodic for the first time. In 1999, numetal and hip hop and pop were commercial, not mellow reflective funk music. Shhsbavavaa (talk) 10:07, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Loudness

More information should be added on the loudness war aspect of the album. I'm sure many readers will be interested in why exactly this album was mastered in such a way (to be heard loud on radios??? money???) and where physical recordings can be found that do not suffer from clipping at the peaks. General further discussion on this topic is therefore requested, since this is quite a significant aspect of the record. 196.210.199.35 (talk) 22:48, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Your exactly right, the mastering is deliberatly very poor, and the eq levels just obnixious. It was the start of a trend, where trebel was puched to the fore so that when it was played in background situations, eg in clothers shops etc, it was abrasive enough to register with the buy one cd a year market. Ceoil (talk) 01:23, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The loudness war graphic seems misleading. If you want to show the difference in volume, shouldn't both audio graphs be using the same vertical scale? By scaling down the 2nd graph to match the volume of the first, you are actually hiding the difference rather than showing it. Kaldari (talk) 07:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I've replaced the graphic with a new one that shows both graphs at the same scale. This should make the difference more apparent. Kaldari (talk) 07:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

this is a ridiculous criticism leveled by naive audio realists that lack an education in the arts. the mastering was an aesthetic choice , the strokes had a similar sound too, i think it sounds great. Shhsbavavaa (talk) 18:40, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

FA concerns

It looks like there's some unreliable sourcing in this older FA.

• Prince.org appears to identify itself as "an online fan community", site source appears to be a fan post.
• Classicrockhistory.com appears to be the personal website of someone who's credentials appear to be that he got an award at Stony Brook's Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities summer program, and that he's a history teacher with his master's. Not everyone with a master's degree qualifies as high-quality RS for FA purposes.
• The chilisource.com newspaper clippings site has an unknown source for the newspaper clippings, and as these are modern, probably copyrighted, clippings, may fall afoul of WP:COPYLINK.
• The google sites page is almost certainly unreliable
• The Daily Express (express.co.uk) is listed as general unreliable at WP:RSP and is compared to the Daily Mail.
• What makes acclaimedmusic.net high-quality RS?
• Last.fm is user-generated and was deprecated in 2019
• The Lantern student newspaper is used to support content about rape and rioting, and is probably not high-quality for stuff like that
• Listsofbests.com is probably not high-quality RS
• From my experience, Allmusic is mainly an FA-okay source when professional staff reviews or attributed bios from staff are used. The "Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers - Credits". AllMusic." source is one of their unattributed listings pages and is doubtful.

There's also some issues with book sources needing page numbers and other stuff such as what the waveform image of the bootlegged version has to do with anything. Given that this article needs significant work, a featured article review may be in its future. Hog Farm _Talk 19:18, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Hog Farm Think it's about time we take this to FAR? I was just looking at the issues as well. – zmbro _{(talk) (cont)} 01:37, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Zmbro: - Yes, I agree. I won't be able to list another FAR until probably Friday/Saturday (maybe longer if things get held up at an existing FAR), though. Hog Farm _Talk 02:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Hog Farm I had one that just got closed so I can open it later today. – zmbro _{(talk) (cont)} 13:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

criticism of mastering irrelevant

is it really necessary to include what some people on online mastering communities think of Californication’s mastering? It was a deliberate aesthetic choice, predictably people that believe clean and slick is “better” would deride this aesthetic when really all they are doing is confusing their own subjective taste with objective judgments. I think the opinion is ignorant, incoherent, and naive. You can find people on online communities that think anything about anything. It doesn’t mean it’s relevant. Shhsbavavaa (talk) 10:16, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

It really isn't. As noted by "online communities" (and several reliable sources at that matter), this album's mastering really is poor (I mean compare BSSM and this and the audio quality is night and day). Also, the reason it is relevant is BECAUSE it's talked about so often, so we're simply conveying what others say. That's really what WP is all about, interpreting what others say. – zmbro _{(talk) (cont)} 19:34, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

The loudness war is a well-documented and notable debate in the music industry. Attempting to dismiss that as "some people online" is disingenuous. Zaathras (talk) 21:08, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah this is maybe the most famous 'victim' of the loudness war, and in the past week found myself in a discussion about the compression on this album and a few others in person. Its absence from the article would be noticeable and I suspect you'd find others adding it back.--TangoTizerWolfstone (talk) 22:19, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

you are still making objective judgements about art. i studied philosophy of aesthetics in university. this criticism would not be taken seriously by anyone with an education in the arts or cultural criticism. i think its ok to note that some felt it was bad, but many and probably more felt it was mastered great. it was a deliberate aesthetic choice by rick rubin and the band. they have never come out to disown their work as a mistake. again, art is SUBJECTIVE not objective. Shhsbavavaa (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

It may have been a deliberate aesthetic choice, but that means it is perfectly susceptible to subjective criticism. – zmbro _{(talk) (cont)} 20:11, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

i studied philosophy of aesthetics in university, yikes, my condolences. Art is open to criticism, and if criticism is noted in reliable sources, and it has no issues with being fringe or giving undue weight, then it is worthy of inclusion. Zaathras (talk) 23:20, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Additional material, for the future

I have nominated this for inclusion in the body of the article. Extensive commentary is not necessary for inclusion, as WP:ALTTRACKLIST makes no mention of that as a qualification (the entirely separate point is made that alternate track listings for full albums should not be included unless there is extensive commentary). I'm not getting involved in a long debate about it, but given that the majority of Wikipedia album pages side with making brief mention of B-sides, etc. in the main body of the article, this will probably get voted on eventually, so I'm leaving the text here.

Many additional songs from the albums’ sessions have since been released as B-sides or bonus tracks, including "Gong Li" and "Instrumental #1" on the "Scar Tissue" single, "Teatro Jam" on the "Around the World" single, "How Strong" on the "Otherside" single, "Instrumental #2" on the Japanese touring edition of the album, and "Slowly Deeply" from the "Universally Speaking" single. When the album was reissued on iTunes, further outtakes "Fat Dance", "Over Funk", and "Quixoticelixer" were released.

Will make any affirmations later if necessary, otherwise I'm moving on. YouCanDoBetter (talk) 20:00, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

ALT:TRACKLIST says: Include track listings for alternative editions only when they are significantly different and when the tracks are the subject of extensive commentary in the article.

The point is that if the additional tracks or tracklists are notable — in other words, they are covered in enough reliable secondary sources for us to write about them extensively in the article — then they can be mentioned.

Nothing you write there is sourced, with no indication of notability, so it shouldn't be in the article anyway. Popcornfud (talk) 00:14, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Just want to affirm that alternative track listings and editions are not the subject at hand. Regarding sources, if someone wants to find them that would be great, that's the only obstacle at this point. YouCanDoBetter (talk) 01:52, 22 November 2022 (UTC)