“Dani California” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

"Dani California" came from Stadium Arcadium, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' ninth studio album, in 2006, and Rick Rubin gave it a clean, muscular punch. Anthony Kiedis wrote the words and shares the songwriting with Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith, and it's a strutting, swaggering rocker with a chorus built for a whole arena to shout back. Andrew Scheps mixed it and helped record it alongside Ryan Hewitt and Mark Linett.

Its radio debut came on April 3, 2006, when Don Jantzen of Houston's KTBZ-FM put it on and kept it there for his entire three-hour show. Plenty of programmers felt the same way: it debuted at number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart, only the second song ever to pull that off after R.E.M.'s "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", and stayed there for 14 weeks running, while also spending 12 straight weeks at the top of the Mainstream Rock chart.

It reached number six on the Hot 100 and number two in the UK, matching "By the Way" as the band's biggest British hit, and it won Grammys for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.