Red Hot Chili Peppers' video for the title track to the band's 1999 Californication album has surpassed the one billion mark on YouTube. The track, which has been certified five-times platinum, hit Number One on Billboard's Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock charts, and peaked at Number 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released as the album's fourth single back in June 2000.
Loudwire reported: “The original video, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, placed the band's members inside a fictional video game that found each musician on his own California-based adventure. The video itself became so beloved that earlier this year video game developer Miguel Camps Orteza actually created a video game based off the music video in which the player can play as one of the four band members through multiple levels.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith told us that “Californication” was the perfect combination of Anthony Kiedis and John Frusciante's talents: “Anthony actually had the melody and lyrics before we had the music, and it’s usually the opposite. Usually we come up with the music and he comes up with the melody and lyrics to it. So, he had this thing and the words and everything. We had some music to it but it just was kind of boring and long. And about two weeks before we were supposed to go into the studio, John just took the words home and he came back the next day with this really simple guitar line, completely different than how we were playing it before. He had the guitar line and I think he had the chorus part. It was a completely different song.”