this is not pitchfork

Anticipation is a tricky thing. You wait and wait for something, imagining how awesome it’s going to be until in your mind, nothing less than mind blowing and earth shattering will do. I loved Incubus’s S.C.I.E.N.C.E. so much that I wanted them to make another just like it. The same, but different. I wanted the same funky/metal sound, the same kind of lyrics that make you think, the same sound that made me drag my old ass into the city to see them three times.

I bought Make Yourself the day it was released and upon that first, eager listen, I immediately realized that this was not in any way, shape or form S.C.I.E.N.C.E. It was a kinder, gentler Incubus. I came to the conclusion that both love and the loss of his dreadlocks turned Brandon Boyd into a pussy, and Incubus into a radio friendly band. I hated it so much that I didn’t give the album a chance to be enjoyed for what it was.

A few years ago, I decided to give it another listen. With a different frame of mind and none of that anticipation of it being something it was not, Make Yourself sounded different. It sounded…not bad. In fact, it sounded pretty good. If I skipped over I Miss You, I could enjoy the album for what it was; a pretty good collection of interesting songs that weren’t as hard as the tunes on S.C.I.E.N.C.E, but stood out on their own. Maybe, like Boyd, I had moved past some of the things in my life that made the songs on S.C.I.E.N.C.E work so well for me, and was in a place where the calmer, more introspective feel of Make Yourself clicked.

(That misspelling on the track listing is going to bother me all day, but this was the only version I could find that wasn’t acoustic)

This is when Incubus was great. After this, they were good. Not bad, but not great. This is when they had this funky, jazzy, metal hybrid and experimented with all kinds of sounds and instruments and wrote songs with lyrics like fallacious cognitions/spewed from televisions/do mold our decisions. This is when Brandon Boyd had dreadlocked hair down to his ass and never wore a shirt and when going to an Incubus show meant coming home sore and tired and fulfilled. Back before Boyd found love with a supermodel and cut his hair and started writing lyrics like I dig my toes into the sand/the ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket.*

S.C.I.E.N.C.E. is one of the greatest albums in existence. From start to finish, it is an exercise in musical gymnastics. It is all over the place, in a good way. It explores so many styles of music, you have to listen to it for a month at least before you can fully take in all it has to offer.

*and let it be known that these are not bad lyrics, per se. they are quite pretty and poetic. but i did not want incubus to be pretty and poetic. i wanted them to keep being the band that killed my knees at irving plaza.

Favorite song: Idiot Box
S.C.I.E.N.C.E. wiki