When Incubus, who will spend all month as MTV's Posted artist, first blew up around the turn of the century, you would have been forgiven for dismissing them as a bunch of whiny softies with ear gauges and eating disorders (seriously, Brandon Boyd is SKINNY). But songs like "Pardon Me," "Drive" and "Stellar," their biggest mainstream hits way back in '99, weren't really indicative of the rest of the band's catalog. Those songs were slow, about sentimental crap, and hid the band's ability to both completely rock out and sing about weird stuff.
Our handy word clouds make that weird stuff layered throughout Incubus' lyrics clear. On the band's first album, Fungus Amongus, they make prominent use of words like "Marmaduke" and "hilikus," which isn't even a word. On later albums words like "nebula," "vitamin," "pendulous" and "precipice" make appearances. Clearly someone was eager to show off his vocabulary.
But the most interesting lessons from these Incubus word clouds always comes from looking at the one that includes every lyric from every album. In Incubus' case, the words the band has used most throughout its career are "see," "think," "eyes," "know" and "look." This shows us two things. First, Incubus is obsessed with the powers of perception, and, second, no matter how deep you try to make your songs, it'll be the ones that belong on adult contemporary radio that get popular.
+ Watch Incubus live on MTV.com tomorrow (July 6) at 10 p.m. ET, performing their entire new album "If Not Now, When?"
Fungus Amongus (1995)
S.C.I.E.N.C.E. (1997)
Make Yourself (1999)
Morning View (2001)
A Crow Left Of The Murder... (2004)
Light Grenades (2006)
All Albums
