Pitchfork

A lot of what makes the Chili Peppers interesting is their ability to manage a variety of different musical styles. Their best tracks span the musical gamut from funk and soul to punk and pop. All of this while managing to sound like the local band that rehearses in the shed behind your yard.

Vocalist Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea have perhaps two of the most recognizable musical signatures around, so it's always easy to pick a Chili Peppers song out of a crowd. Sadly, this collection doesn't consist of Chili Peppers songs, but rather, legendary songs made painfully average by way of the Chili Peppers' renditions.

Overstating itself as Essential, the record sees the guys covering classics by the Meters, Parliament, Hank Williams, Stevie Wonder, and even Elton John. This is at once a good thing and a bad thing: on one hand, the Chili Peppers expose their fans to the canon of musical greats. On the other hand, it all sounds the same.

If you're a fan, these tracks are nothing new to you. You've heard them in concert, on bootlegs and in some cases, on other Chili Peppers albums. If you want them all in one place, this is a good a compilation as you're likely to find. But if you're like everyone else, the last thing you want is to hear funk- rock versions of these songs.