Californication

Released June 8, 1999 via Warner Bros., Californication is the Red Hot Chili Peppers learning to leave space. Frusciante rejoined at Flea's insistence after heroin and cocaine had nearly destroyed him, and he came back playing with startling economy: two widely spaced notes carrying the rhythm of "Scar Tissue" before a weeping slide solo, a 16-second delay drowning "Savior," a deliberately understated solo on "Get on Top." Rick Rubin produced at Cello Studios in Los Angeles, and Anthony Kiedis traded much of the old funk bluster for melody, nostalgia and the sunburnt melancholy of the title track.

Rolling Stone's Greg Tate wrote that the album "dares to be spiritual and epiphanic," while NME and Pitchfork missed the funk. "Scar Tissue" won a Grammy and led five singles, "Around the World" and "Otherside" among them, and the album sold more than 17 million copies. It also became a textbook case of the loudness war: the original CD master was criticised for heavy compression and distortion, and fans petitioned Warner Bros. to remaster it.

Vinyl is where the record gets to breathe. This double LP is cut from the 2012 vinyl master by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, a new master that opens up the dynamics the brick-walled CD flattened, and it carries mixes the CD never had: organ under the first verse of the title track, a single pass through its first chorus, and backing vocals over the solo on "Savior." Fifteen songs across four sides, new and sealed.