Greatest Hits (Red Hot Chili Peppers Album)

''Greatest Hits'' is the second compilation album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was released on November 18, 2003, by Warner Bros. Records. Aside from their cover of " Higher Ground", all songs on the compilation are from their tenure on Warner Bros. Records from 1991 to 2002, in addition to two newly recorded songs.

''Greatest Hits'' was released along with a separately sold DVD containing most of their music videos from the same time period.

The album was released with Copy Control protection system in some European markets, but not in the United States.

Overview

While their first hits compilation album ''What Hits!?'' encompasses material from their 1984 debut to 1989's '' Mother's Milk'', this collection of songs takes off from that point, including material from their 1991 album ''Blood Sugar Sex Magik'' up through their 2002 album ''By the Way''. It was during this period of their career that the band became a major commercial force in the music industry. Therefore, this compilation includes the majority of hit singles released since their breakthrough cover of Stevie Wonder's " Higher Ground".

" My Friends" is the only track included from the 1995 album, ''One Hot Minute.'' However, the music video for "Aeroplane" is featured on the DVD version of the compilation.

Also absent was the top ten hit " Around the World" from 1999's ''Californication'' although the DVD contained the music video. Conversely, "Breaking the Girl" was not included on the DVD, as was not "Parallel Universe", which never had a video released.

Of their eight U.S. number one singles on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart up to that point, only one of them, " Can't Stop", from their 2002 album ''By the Way'', was excluded, though again the music video was featured on the DVD.

To date, worldwide sales show that ''Greatest Hits'' has outsold six of the band's eleven studio albums including '' Mother's Milk'' and '' I'm with You'', making it the band's fifth-highest-selling release.

Unreleased studio album

In 2011, Chad Smith discussed the recording sessions for ''Greatest Hits'', saying they recorded sixteen songs and wanted to release a new album of that material after a brief tour; however, by that time John was against doing that because the style he was playing had changed and evolved as had his musical influences. Smith said there is an entire Red Hot Chili Peppers album out there that nobody will likely ever hear.

Aside from the two tracks that appear on this compilation ("Fortune Faded" and "Save the Population"), only two other studio tracks from these sessions have been officially released. "Bicycle Song" and "Runaway" appeared as bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of ''By the Way'' when it was released on iTunes in 2006 and they can now be found on many other digital music stores. Live versions of several other songs have also been released. "Rolling Sly Stone" and "Leverage Of Space" were released on the '' Live in Hyde Park'' album in 2004 and "Mini-Epic (Kill for Your Country)" was released as an "official" bootleg in 2015. A studio in-house CD-R was leaked in 2014 which contained two instrumental tracks from these sessions, called "Starlight" and "50/Fifty", and 3 different takes of "Runaway". The names of the remaining songs are either unknown or unconfirmed.

In a February 7, 2014 interview with fans on reddit, Chad said that the band hopes to one day release a box set which will include the unreleased material from these recording sessions.

Track listing

DVD

''Greatest Hits and Videos'' is a digipak that was also released with the tracks above plus a DVD (which is available as ''Greatest Videos'') containing the following music videos:

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greatest Hits (Red Hot Chili Peppers Album)
2003 greatest hits albums
Albums produced by Michael Beinhorn
Albums produced by Rick Rubin
Red Hot Chili Peppers compilation albums
2003 video albums
Music video compilation albums
Warner Records compilation albums
Warner Records video albums