Songoftheday 3/28/22 - I heard your voice through a photograph, I thought it up and brought up the past...

 

 

"Otherside" - Red Hot Chili Peppers

from the album Californication (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 15

 

Today's song comes from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who returned to the pop top ten for a second time in the autumn of 1999 with "Scar Tissue", the lead single from their seventh album Californication, which brought guitarist John Frusciante back into the group.  The second release from the record, "Around The World", was a decent rock radio hit, reaching both the Alternative (#7) and Mainstream (#16) Rock radio charts in Billboard magazine, but the aggressive guitar fuzz feedback and rapped lyrics probably hindered it at "mainstream" stations, and it only "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #108 at the close of the year. 

The third offering was a bit more serious, dealing with issues with addiction, something the band has been fighting themselves since original bandmate Hilel Slovek died from an overdose right as they were starting to break through. Written by the group's Anthony Kiedis, Michael "Flea" Balzary, Chad Smith, and Frusciante, and produced by Rick Rubin, the dark is uptempo but doesn't feel so, which Kiedis rising and falling through the lyrics like breathing, with the backing vocals strengthening as it goes on, as he could be just as easily recounting his own struggles with drugs as recap the ones from Slovek. The music video puts all four band members in surreal settings in mostly black and white that set the mood right, with the main actor's wings, a nod to heroin, as the splash of color for the item that lifts him up and eventually sends him down....

"Otherside" reached the top 20 of the American pop chart in May of 2000. The song was huge on rock radio, topping Billboard's Alternative Rock chart for thirteen weeks, while spending five weeks at #2 on the Mainstream Rock list. It also just missed the top ten on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, going to #11 in its 26 weeks on the list, the same result that "Scar Tissue" had. Internationally, the single topped the Icelandic singles chart, went to #5 in New Zealand and #10 in Greece, and reached the top-40 in Italy (#17), Sweden (#19), the Netherlands (#24), Australia (#31), Canada (#32), and the UK (#33). 

The fourth single from the album was the title track "Californication", which stalled out at #69 on the pop Hot 100 despite topping both the Mainstream and Alternative Rock radio chart, and reaching #28 on the Adult Top-40 format. The song did a bit better overseas, making the top ten in Belgium and New Zealand, and hitting #16 in the UK. It also was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2001, for Best Rock Song (losing to Creed's "With Arms Wide Open") and Best Duo/Group Rock Performance with Vocals (which U2 took home for their "Beautiful Day"). The Peppers will return to the series.

(8/10)

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Here's the band appearing at London's Big Day Out in 2000...

Up next, in concert at Slane Castle in Ireland in 2003...

 

 and lastly, fast forwarding to a gig at the iHeart Theater in California in 2016...

Up tomorrow: The up and coming R&B star attempts successfully this time.