Stadium Arcadium - Music

Music

The musical style of the album combines many aspects of music from throughout the band's career, with many fans and critics welcoming the return of the band's signature funk sound and the use of power chords after its significant absence from By the Way. It was also noted that Frusciante's playing style had changed from his signature 'less is more' style, inspired by punk and new wave guitarists, to a more flashy approach, not seen extensively in his playing since Mother's Milk, his first album with the band; drawing influence from guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix and Steve Vai. While he received moderate acclaim before Stadium Arcadium, this change in style gained him far more recognition than before. Frusciante's approach to guitar on Stadium Arcadium was influenced by progressive rock group The Mars Volta and R&B singer Brandy. Of Brandy, Frusciante says "she's doing something different, she's doing so many vocals that there is never a space. Whenever one voice stops, another one does something in its place. There's very little space, and there are so many vocal parts that are breathy, you don't know what you're listening to. There is so much going on, you can't hear her voice with your conscience, you have to hear it with your subconscience. Some of them have a watery sound, then metallic, she really creates a lot of dimension with her voice. I'm impressed with that." Of The Mars Volta, Kiedis states: "John's always had an understated confidence, but he likes being loud now, and part of that came from hanging out with The Mars Volta. Omar is such a rocker that John was like, 'It's time I let it all hang out.' Being at the forefront, going for the heavy blistering guitar in your face: John's always been capable of that. But he didn't feel it. Now he feels it." Rodriguez-Lopez appears on the album, performing a guitar solo on the track "Especially in Michigan". Frusciante subsequently appeared on the Mars Volta's next three studio albums, performing as a member of The Mars Volta Group. Frusciante would also go on to release a joint studio album with Rodriguez-Lopez, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & John Frusciante, in May 2010.

Frusciante also began using layering in his guitar playing, which is something he had not done before (many layered guitar parts appeared on Mother's Milk, but this was mostly because of the insistence of the producer, although it was against John's will) and also used a modular synthesizer on many songs after doing so on his 2004 album Shadows Collide with People. While John was pleased to have used the modular synthesizer on the album, he admitted that when the band began rehearsing for the tour, it was very frustrating because many of the songs sounded very empty without it. This meant the band had to rework many of the songs to perform them live.

Unlike By the Way, where bass player Flea was displeased with what he felt was Frusciante dominating the songwriting, Stadium Arcadium saw both Flea and Frusciante much more musically conjoined in the writing process.

According to Kiedis, the album is musically and lyrically influenced by the various relationships the band members were experiencing at the time of its conception. Kiedis states that "love and women, pregnancies and marriages, relationship struggles - those are real and profound influences on this record. And it's great, because it wasn't just me writing about the fact that I'm in love. It was everybody in the band. We were brimming with energy based on falling in love."

Kiedis recalled that the band "wanted to on three separate discs that be released in installments...something about those songs made us really like each one. However, by the time we planned to release the third installment in two years, we’ll be writing new music." This was the impetus for the band to pare those songs down to 28, a process Kiedis described as "heartwrenching." 9 of the unused songs have been released as B-sides (see section on B-sides below). He explained the reasoning behind the decision to name the album "Stadium Arcadium" by saying that it had more "variety and verve compared to its predecessors we each have things we do best and it’s all in there. Everybody played their part and expressed their creativity to the max."