The "loudness wars" ruined a few albums in the late '90s and early '00s, as mastering engineers cranked the volume to the point that albums were over-compressed and distorted. Red Hot Chili Peppers' 1999 album Californication is famously one of the worst offenders, and drummer Chad Smith has reflected on the album's terrible sound quality.
Speaking with SiriusXM back in June (and newly uploaded to YouTube by fan account Daniel2k1Live), Smith began the interview by admitting that the album is "a little too hot."
He said, "The beef with people was that, when you master a record, at the time it was really [about] how loud you can get the record, so when it comes on the radio, you want it to be the loudest thing that comes on. Rick Rubin had this guy that he had used, Vlad [Vlado Meller] in New York, who, somehow, through his magical mastering techniques, had gotten records to really be the loudest. We were into being loud, or at least ... sonically. And when you push the sonic EQs, some distortion comes into play. And so I remember when it came out, there were people like, 'The record's distorted!'
Smith acknowledged that the album was "a little too hot," and that "audiophiles were getting upset about it."
He optimistically added, "I'm sure it got remastered at some point, so maybe it's not so hot." Unfortunately, he's not quite right about that. There have been some vinyl remasters over the years that reduce the volume, but all widely-available digital and CD editions still the same old disastrous mastering they always did.
The interview is below. Meanwhile, RHCP fans are still waiting on a proper remaster (and maybe even a remix) of the album.