With the loosening and lightening of the music came droves of new listeners who couldn’t get enough of Boyd’s crooning, model good looks, and the skilful hooks drummed up by José Pasillas, Mike Einziger, and the rest of the Incubus crew.įor once, a new heavy rock band weren’t bending to the preference of an 18-40 year old male target audience.
It was a change-up met with mixed feelings from long-standing fans, but ultimately the one the band needed to make in order to establish a unique presence and identity among the throngs of late nineties rock radio titans. This sort of questioning comes with the transitional nature of a person perched between the edges of adolescence and adult freedom, precisely the spot where the members of Incubus stood as humans and musicians in 1999.Īnother shift exemplified here is the sonic one. ' If the wind blew me in the right direction / Would I even care?' Boyd asks in lackadaisical sing-song, pausing briefly to reflect before answering solemnly: ' I would.' When I now, at 32 – and with a decade of experience over this observation – hear that same question, I remain stalwart in my agreement that I would, too. Its transcendental weightlessness feels like a thick wave of romantic, youthful cogitation lifting skyward before the wavering conclusion of the verse grounds the song’s upward movement. A prime example comes right out of the gate with the album’s opener, Nowhere Fast.
The broad appeal of its singles aside, tracks within Make Yourself show the growth of a band on the precipice of stardom and acclaim, fully realising their own desires to create something original, rather than replicate the sounds of their heroes again. A true artist with dedication to his various crafts, Boyd was destined for stardom and Incubus was the ideal vehicle for placing him inside the world’s psyche.
This is not to draw away from his preternatural talent: Boyd’s pipes and impeccable vocal control are feverishly passionate operatic with no hint of schmaltz and capable of turning on a dime from angelic to defiant without stumbling. We were used to the Ken-doll plasticity of Backstreet Boy good looks a little danger in our new sexual icon was beyond welcome. As Boyd's poster boy charm caught the eye of many a millennial teenage girl – and their moms alike – his mussed surfer charm and often shirtless flaunting of a chiseled body drew in a legion of worshippers (and a fair share of haters). Once this, and the album’s other hits Stellar and Pardon Me had hold of popular demand – which was no easy task according to Boyd (opens in new tab) – the album became an instant classic. But the simple choral refrain of ' Whatever tomorrow brings / I’ll be there / With open arms and open eyes' struck a starry-eyed nerve with the public and drove the song from sleeper hit to chart-topping classic.įor those of us with no experience in the arena of love but dying to find out what it was all about? Fucking catnip. Widely considered their most iconic track, the lyrics reportedly pertain to being driven by fear (opens in new tab). Three wildly successful singles were released from the record over the next year, culminating in the mainstream explosion of Drive. Those snippets of musical sensitivity that spoke to my lovelorn adolescence were fully realised when Incubus released Make Yourself in October 1999. I felt represented by the weird, heavy atmosphere on the record, but the burgeoning romantic in me was still present in the modern love songs tucked neatly between space-age riffs. I’d enjoyed the proto-metal sounds of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath swiped from my parents’ collection already, but falling in love with Incubus felt like the first time I’d fully identified with a generationally relevant band. The album was a doorway into realms unknown.
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