Years of Rock & Roll, 5 Songs Per Year 1952–1991", with the year being 1991. Pause and Play included the song in their unordered list of the "10 Songs of the 90's"; and the song ranked fifteenth in VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s". Rolling Stone and MTV compiled a list of the "100 Greatest Pop Songs Since The Beatles" in 2000, with "Under the Bridge" coming in fifty-fourth. "Under the Bridge" was also ranked #98 in the list of Rolling Stone "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time" and ranked #328 on their "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". "Under the Bridge" helped the Red Hot Chili Peppers enter the mainstream. David Fricke of Rolling Stone said that the song "unexpectedly drop-kicked the band into the Top 10", while Philip Booth of The Tampa Tribune commented that it was a "pretty, undulating, [and] by-now omnipresent single." Music video The accompanying music video for "Under the Bridge" was directed by Gus Van Sant, who photographed the band during their stay at the Mansion and provided the art direction for Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Van Sant knew Flea due to his role in Van Sant's 1991 film My Own Private Idaho. The band members respected Van Sant, and were elated when he agreed to direct the video for "Under the Bridge". Flea credited the video as "the thing that really made us break through the mainstream of American and worldwide pop culture". The video was shot on the streets of Los Angeles and in a studio soundstage. It begins with Frusciante standing alone on a pedestal wearing a red-and-white-striped collared shirt, brown khaki pants, black and white wingtip shoes, and a purple, green and multicolored chullo, with white stitched wolves. He plays a 1966 Fender Jaguar behind the backdrop of a desert and an inverted cloudy sky. His shadow is projected either side of him. Frusciante's then-girlfriend, Toni Oswald, selected his clothes that day. Frusciante remembered Van Sant's surprise: "When I got [to the studio] Gus Van Sant was just looking at me and going 'God, I'm so glad you wore that hat. I'm so glad you wore that shirt. Oh! Those pants are so great, I'm so glad you wore those.'" The video marked a shift in Frusciante's on-camera behavior; he no longer wished to jump around fervently as in the band's prior videos. As Kiedis begins to sing,