We’re only a hop, skip and a jump away from the release of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album Unlimited Love, which drops on April 1, half a dozen years since their previous album, 2016’s The Getaway (and their first in more than 15 years to feature their longest tenured guitarist, John Frusciante). As such, it seemed like a good time to take a look back and recall 10 of the top tracks from their last 30 years, along with a few soundtrack and best-of contributions.
“Under the Bridge” (1991): Kids, never forget that drugs are bad...and then make sure you remember it when you find out how many incredible songs were written as a result of addiction. Take this song, for instance, which provided the Red Hots with their first insanely big hit single (from the beloved 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik) and was inspired by Anthony Kiedis’ days as a heroin addict.
READ MORE: Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' Was Their Sweetest Victory
“Soul to Squeeze” (1993): Another song inspired by Kiedis’s struggle with drug addiction, this single outshined its place of origin so significantly that you probably don’t even remember where it came from in the first place. Okay, fine, we’ll tell you: it was the band’s contribution to the Coneheads soundtrack. See, we told you...
“My Friends” (1996): You will be un-surprised to learn that Kiedis did, in fact, write this about one of his friends, having been inspired while watching the band's bassist Flea suffer through a messy divorce. The premise is effectively that although he can’t necessarily do anything for his friends when they’re going through their hardest times, he’ll be there when those times are over and they need help picking themselves back up.
“Love Rollercoaster” (1996): RCHP have recorded numerous covers over the years, but it was this cover of the 1975 single by the Ohio Players that the band contributed to the soundtrack of Beavis and Butt-head Do America that became the most successful cover of their career.
“Californication” (1999): A song criticizing the way the world is becoming ever more superficial, a la California, its title was borrowed as the title of David Duchovny’s Showtime sitcom, but what’s amazing is that the series’ producers never actually bothered to ask RHCP if they could use the title. In fact, the band sued Showtime, asking for a permanent injunction to bar any further use of the title, but the ship had kind of sailed by that point.
“Can’t Stop” (2002): While Anthony Kiedis generally writes his lyrics first and then the music comes afterwards, this was an instance where he wrote the lyrics around the music, resulting in some unique rhymes, but the song still became the biggest hit from the By the Way album.
“Fortune Faded” (2003): There’s not a great deal to say about this track aside from the fact that it was the most successful of the obligatory new tracks added to the band’s 2003 best-of collection, and that it’s a lyrical reminder that fame can be fleeting, as can the accompanying fortune. (It's a fate that has yet to befall the band, though.)
“Dani California” (2006): Kiedis has said that the title character of this song is a representation of every girl he’s ever come across in his life, much as the video – per Flea – offers representations of the various musical styles that’ve influenced the band over the years.
READ MORE: Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Stadium Arcadium': Six Tracks to Know
“The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie” (2011): Appropriately, this song came about as a result of Flea tasking himself with writing a classic bassline. “He woke up, had his tea, sat down [and said], 'I'm going to write a classic bass line, you can’t stop me,’’” Kiedis told MTV. “Played his bass line until he felt it was cooked into a classic, brought it to us and said, 'This is Classic Number One.' On a good day, you just know if there's music to wrestle with and get with, and it was one of those moments."
“Dark Necessities” (2016): This was the first single from the band’s 2016 album The Getaway, but it almost wasn’t. "I mean, I knew that was a good song," Flea told The Pulse of Radio. "There was another one that was gonna be the first single and then we…Like, we already told the record company, 'Okay, we're gonna do this one,' and then we changed our mind and went to 'Dark Necessities'. But I'm glad we went with it. "
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