Red Hot Chili Peppers found their sweet spot in a haunted Laurel Canyon mansion, Rick Rubin stripping away studio gloss to let Frusciante's melodic restraint temper their funk-punk chaos. Under the Bridge proved sex, drugs and Los Angeles melancholy could coexist with slap bass and rap-rock bravado, selling thirteen million copies while maintaining enough grit to keep credibility intact.

The album's success destroyed what it created though, Frusciante fleeing mid-tour, unable to reconcile the band's raw intimacy with arena-sized expectations.