Californication

After Frusciante came back there was a long stretch of songwriting, and the band rehearsed for most of the summer of 1998 in Flea's garage. They began recording with another engineer but felt after a week that nothing was happening, so Rubin asked Jim Scott, who was working in the next studio at Cello, to step in. Scott said all four played in the room together, and that Frusciante added only a few overdubs, among them the slide guitar on Scar Tissue. Vocals went to a second 24-track machine and then into Pro Tools. The mix is dry and mostly mono.

Frusciante said the two-note guitar line in Scar Tissue was a technique he had explored on his 1994 solo album. The record debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and reached number five in the UK, and it was number one in Australia, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. It has been certified eight times platinum in the US. Greg Tate of Rolling Stone wrote that it dares to be spiritual and epiphanal, and Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork called Frusciante the best big-time American rock guitarist going. Some listeners complained of excessive compression. Rolling Stone placed it at number 399 in 2003 and number 286 in 2020.