"Greatest Hits" is the second greatest hits album and second compilation album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released on November 18, 2003, by Warner Bros. Records. The album includes the band's popular singles from their tenure with Warner Bros., spanning from 1991 to 2002, with the exception of their cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground." Additionally, the album features two new tracks. Along with the album, a separately sold DVD was released, which includes most of the band’s music videos from the same period.
This compilation follows their first hits album What Hits!?, which covered the band's early years from their 1984 debut to Mother's Milk (1989). Greatest Hits focuses on the period when the Chili Peppers became a major commercial force, covering their breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) through to By the Way (2002). The collection includes all of their big hits, including the chart-topping cover of "Higher Ground."
One notable inclusion is "My Friends," the only song featured from their 1995 album One Hot Minute. However, songs like "Warped," the lead single from One Hot Minute, and "Can't Stop," from By the Way, were notably excluded from the compilation. Additionally, while the music videos for "Around the World" and "The Zephyr Song" are included on the DVD, the songs themselves do not appear on the album. The DVD also features videos for "Aeroplane" and other hits, but "Breaking the Girl" and "Parallel Universe" are not included.
Greatest Hits performed well commercially and has outsold several of the band's studio albums, making it their fifth-highest-selling release. It marked a period of reflection for the band, as it encapsulated a time when they had cemented their place as one of the biggest acts in alternative rock.
In 2011, Chad Smith revealed that the band had recorded 16 songs during the Greatest Hits sessions and initially considered releasing an entirely new album from that material. However, guitarist John Frusciante opposed the idea, feeling that his musical style had evolved too much. As a result, only two tracks from those sessions, "Fortune Faded" and "Save the Population," made it onto the compilation. Some additional songs from these sessions, including "Bicycle Song" and "Runaway," were later released as bonus tracks or digital singles. There are rumors of more unreleased tracks, and the band has expressed interest in releasing a box set with all the material from these sessions in the future.
