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The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Incubus

[#] Make Yourself (1999)

Reviewed July 4, 2021

Mental piracy.

(This is an album that was previously covered on the Rediscovering! Click the link in the table to read a wordier and possibly less accurate version of my feelings on this album.)

In a gloomy world of Stainds and Mudvaynes, God bless Incubus. Describing it as funk-metal with a positive, freethinking spin might make it sound cheesy, and yeah, it kinda can be ("I'll fuck me in my own way" on the title track, anyone?), but man, that's the charm of this thing. This is a time capsule of turn-of-the-millennium metallic-guitars-and-record-scratching goodness, a highly confident band with a soaring voice up front and good tunes all the way down, and it made Incubus quite popular when it came out. "Drive", "Stellar", "Pardon Me", huge singles that only ever age in sound, not in listenability. Hell, the Rediscovering got me to reconsider "Drive", a song I'd written off as sickly sweet acoustic balladry--which, I mean, that's true, but it works. Goddammit, it works.

Make Yourself has three speeds, chunky riffage, soaring choruses, and spare balladry. The former works well enough (at its worst, it's just a bit forgettable), but Incubus really hit high on the latter two. It's this downright pleasurable mixture of tenderness, catchy melodies, and interesting noises ("The Warmth", easily the finest moment on the entire album, has all three) that keeps Make Yourself interesting for the alternative crowd and inviting enough for the pop crowd. Even better is when Incubus feel comfortable enough to hop around speeds and genres, whether it's the cut chemist suite (literally featuring Ozomatli's DJ) "Battlestar Scralatchtica", the wibbly-wobbly pining on "I Miss You", and yes, "Drive"--hence why they sold more copies of this one than there are people in Latvia. They're not all wrong, people!

Essential:	Quintessential:	Non-Essential:	Rating:
"The Warmth", "Stellar", "Make Yourself"	"Privilege"	"Nowhere Fast"
Make Yourself's Rediscovering entry

NOFI | LOFI