Songoftheday 2/5/20 - Ex girlfriend called me up alone and desperate on the prison phone...
from the album One Hot Minute (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #27 (one week)
Weeks in the Hot 100 Airplay Top-40: 14
Today's song of the day comes from the alternative funk-rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, who had followed up their top ten hit "Under The Bridge" with the soundtrack hit "Soul To Squeeze" in the fall of 1993. During that time guitarist John Frusciante left the band, eventually replaced by Jane's Addiction axe man Dave Navarro. In 1995, the band returned with their next studio album One Hot Minute, with the musically experimental rock throwdown "Warped" as the lead single to radio. That track, not released as a commercial physical "single", was unable to place on Billboard magazine's official pop Hot 100 chart, but it gained enough radio love to just miss the top-40 on the airplay component of that list at #41 in the fall of 1995. The next track serviced to radio also wasn't released as a single; nevertheless the ballad "My Friends", with its quieter structure more like "Under The Bridge", gave mainstream radio more to work with on their playlists, and it became the biggest success from the album...
"My Friends" made the top-40 on the Hot 100 Airplay component chart in November of 1995. The ballad topped both the Mainstream and Alternative Rock charts in Billboard, each for a month. It also crossed over to the Triple-A (Adult Album Alternative) radio format list at #4. Internationally, the single peaked at #4 in Iceland, while reaching the top-40 in Canada (#11), Australia (#15), New Zealand (#20), the UK (#29), and France (#40).
A third promoted song from the One Hot Minute album, "Aeroplane", made it to #49 on the Hot 100 Airplay list, while getting to #8 on Alternative rock and #12 Mainstream Rock. In the UK it was the big hit from the set at #11, and peaking at #2 in Iceland.
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A second version of the music video just had the boys in the studio....
and here's the band performing live on Letterman...
And finally, live in concert at Madison Square Garden in 1996, touring behind the album...
Up tomorrow: Alt-rockers sing about roadkill monarchy.
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