Iconic '90s Rock Album Is Climbing the Charts Again 27 Years After Its Release
The hit 1999 album, Californication, by subversive rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is back on the charts. During the week of June 6, the record reached the 179th spot on the Billboard Hot 200. It also landed on the 44th position on Billboard's Top Rock & Alternative Albums.
The 1999 album marked the Red Hot Chili Peppers' seventh record and featured beloved songs like "Scar Tissue," "Otherside," and Californication's title track. During a February 2025 episode of his SiriusXM show Whatchu Thinkin', the band's singer and frontmanAnthony Kiedis shared some insight into recording the album. He explained that he had written some of "Californication" when the Red Hot Chili Peppers were essentially on a hiatus. According to Kiedis, he heard "melody and lyrics for 'Californication,'" as if "it was being transmitted to [his] head from outer space," during a trip to New Zealand.
"I would stop like on the stoop of different buildings. And I just started writing stuff down and singing the melody over and over and over in my head, 'cause I didn't want to forget it," said the musician, now 63.
He also said that when he returned from New Zealand to Los Angeles, the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Frusciante, returned to the band after leaving in the early '90s. He recalled that he and Frusciante began working together on "Californication," which took some time to finalize.
"John rejoins and is in a really interesting headspace, and he and I start hanging out late at night around ashtrays and record players, guitars, and writing some songs, which felt good," said Kiedis on the Whatchu Thinkin'episode. "Like we were both broken and willing and eager to get back into that special something. And I played him or sang to him 'Californication,' and the look in his eyes was, 'Yes, this is the song.' But he could not, for all of his trying, crack the code of what goes with 'Californication' musically."
Kiedis said that he and the rest of the band completed recording all of the Californication record before Frusciante was able to finalize the track.
"We finished our record, and we were just crossing the Ts and dotting the Is at the very end, and he came bursting in through the back door of the studio ,where he had been outside with his electric guitar playing acoustically. And he said, 'I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it!'" said Kiedis.
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This story was originally published June 8, 2026 at 3:27 PM.