Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother's Milk

Mother’s Milk is the fourth studio album by American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, originally released in August 1989 via EMI Records.

For the Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1988 was the type of year that could destroy far more established bands. They had slowly built a cult audience with their first three records but celebration was cut short when founding member, guitarist Hillel Slovak, passed away in June 1988, at age 26, from a heroin overdose. A grieving Jack Irons, unable to continue, left shortly after. Frontman Anthony Kiedis entered rehab. The band attempted to trudge forward with a new lineup including P-Funk guitarist DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight and Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. Peligro, but both would be fired within months.

The Peppers didn't begin their second life until they connected with a teenage Slovak fan named John Frusciante and a hard-rock loving, heavy-hitting behemoth named Chad Smith. Smith had moved to L.A. from Detroit in August of 1988 - and by December he was drumming in the band. It would establish the longest-standing line-up in the Peppers, eventually responsible for 19 million records sold.

A pivotal album for the Peppers, Mother's Milk turned the tide and transformed the band from underground funk-rocking rappers to mainstream bad boys with seemingly very little effort. Mother's Milk brought them to MTV, scored them a deal with Warner Bros., and let both frontman Anthony Kiedis and the ubiquitous Flea get back into a good groove.

With the new line-up the band took everything that previous album The Uplift Mofo Party Plan hinted at, and brought it fully to bear for this new venture. If anyone doubted the pulsating power of the opener, "Good Time Boys", it took only a few bars of the band's outrageous and brilliant interpretation of the Stevie Wonder classic "Higher Ground" to prove that this new line-up was onto something special.

Wrapping up with the aptly titled and truly punked-out "Punk Rock Classic" and the band's own punched-up tribute to "Magic Johnson", Mother's Milk was everything the band had hoped for, and a little more besides.

Effortlessly going gold as "Knock Me Down" and "Taste The Pain" careened into the charts, the album not only set the stage for the band's Blood Sugar Sex Magic domination, it also proved that funk never died; it had just swapped skins.

This album is a 2016 reissue on black vinyl, pressed in Europe via EMI Records.