| "Otherside" | ||||||||
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| Single by Red Hot Chili Peppers | ||||||||
| from the album Californication | ||||||||
| B-side | "How Strong" | |||||||
| Released | January 11, 2000 | |||||||
| Format | CD | |||||||
| Recorded | 1999 | |||||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | |||||||
| Length | 4:15 | |||||||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||||||
| Writer(s) | Flea, Frusciante, Kiedis, Smith | |||||||
| Producer | Rick Rubin | |||||||
| Red Hot Chili Peppers singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Otherside" is a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released in 2000.[1] It was the third single from their album Californication, and confronts the battles ex-junkies have with their prior addictions. The single was highly successful peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, the fourth highest ever for the band; and number one on the US Modern Rock Tracks, which was, at the time, the fifth for the band. The song remained at number one on this chart for 13 consecutive weeks, one of the longest runs at the top of that chart. In addition, the song was featured in the 1999 Van Damme film, Universal Soldier: The Return.
Like most of the singles from the album, "Otherside" remains a live staple in the band's setlists.
Contents |
The video was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris in a black-and-white/monochrome Gothic style similar to Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, all influenced by German Expressionist art. Elements of Cubism and work by the graphic artist M. C. Escher are also seen in the video.
A cartoonish story line is juxtaposed upon the song; that of a young man's dream sequence. The band members appear dressed in black in unusual locations, with props intended to appear as surreal instruments. Throughout the video Anthony Kiedis with his short, platinum hair is seen in a castle tower. His stage persona is different and quite dark when compared to his more energetic performances in other videos. John Frusciante plays a rope down a long corridor as if a guitar. Flea is hanging on telephone wires and playing them as if they were a bass guitar, and Chad Smith is up on a tower with a rotating medieval clock that serves as his drum kit.[2]
Jonathan Dayton: "We did look at Caligari, and we looked at a lot of German Expressionist film. But it was also very important to avoid 'Caligari.' It was both inspiration and something to work around, because it has such a strong, specific style, and there have been other videos that have completely ripped it off."
Valerie Faris: "We didn't look at 'Calagari' all that much, really. We did, but then we just left it. We did look at a lot of the works of the futurist artists from the '30s, and the illustrations of the surrealists and from cubism. We were inspired more by paintings than by films…"
In 2009, Seattle producer Ryan Lewis sampled the song as a backdrop for his song of the same name with emcee Macklemore. The song depicted Macklemore's own personal struggles as well as the wider problems that the hip hop community has with drug abuse.[3]
In 2011, rapper Tru-NC released a remix with the same sample. It is a dedication to a student at Holmen High School who was killed by a police officer.
Peak positions
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Year-end charts
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| Preceded by "All the Small Things" by Blink-182 |
Billboard Modern Rock Tracks number-one single February 19, 2000 |
Succeeded by "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down |
| Preceded by Load Me Up by Matthew Good Band |
Canadian RPM Rock/Alternative 30 number-one single March 10 – April 24, 2000 |
Succeeded by "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon |
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