Morning View
Morning View is the fourth studio album by American rock band Incubus, released on October 23, 2001, through Epic and Immortal Records. A companion DVD, The Morning View Sessions, was released on May 29, 2002. Continuing the move away from nu metal, the album ranges widely from soft to hard rock sounds in the style of alternative rock. Morning View was the last Incubus album to feature bassist Alex Katunich, who left in 2003.
With the album producing the popular singles "Wish You Were Here" and "Nice to Know You", Morning View generally achieved critical praise and went double-platinum, making it the band's highest-selling album. A rerecorded version of the album, titled Morning View XXIII, was released on May 10, 2024.
Background and recording
To record the album, the band lived in Malibu, California, on a street called "Morning View Drive". Former bassist Alex Katunich noted that the band had previously "tried to do that for at least the writing portion of Make Yourself, but we didn't have enough clout at the time. When we were getting ready to write this one, we knew that we needed to get into a more creative place. The idea was to not feel as if you were driving to work on a record. You could just get up and it was a natural extension of your day."Vocalist Brandon Boyd stated that the band "needed quick access to the beach because we're kinda spoiled brats sometimes. We need that outlet. At least I do. It's nice to write music all day and be like, 'I'm going to take a break, see you guys in two hours.'" Katunich claimed that the album's title came from the name of the street where it was recorded. Boyd notes that "every time we'd pull into the street we had the view of the ocean and Pacific Coast Highway. I got a big creative boner every time I'd show up to the house. Every time we'd pull up, DJ Kilmore would be like, 'Ah, Morning View. It's time to rock!'"
In a December 2001 interview, guitarist Mike Einziger talked about the decision to live and record in a house rather than in a conventional studio setting. He said, "it defied every criticism from people at the record label and management. There were a lot of people who thought it was a recipe for disaster. But we wanted to create an ideal environment for us to write and record music in. We knew what our goal was going in."
"Drive", the band's final single from their prior album Make Yourself, was released in late 2000 and started gaining popularity by the time Incubus moved into the house to record Morning View. Boyd said in 2012, "we were seeing fruits of our labor for the first time. But also everything that comes on the coat tails of new success; hence the fond memories as well as the challenging ones. I think perhaps that is one reason Morning View turned out the way that it did. It was unconsciously and consciously imbued with very real emotions, hopes, disappointments, and triumphs." Boyd had recently broken up with his girlfriend who he met during the recording of Make Yourself. Before meeting her he had just split from his previous girlfriend who was having an affair. He said in 2021, "I was coming off the heels of two, really just heartbreaking separations, like one after the other. So I was coming into the recording of Morning View excited, elated, filled with enthusiasm, and heartbroken all at the same time. Looking back, I feel really lucky because I was able to experience those things through the lens of music and art." After a month at the house, the band finished recording the album in May 2001, with Einziger remembering in 2002 "we were just on the verge of a musical orgasm after we finished Morning View. We felt like you'd feel after having the best sexual experience of your entire life. Exhausted, but extremely satisfied."
Out of the 30 songs the band sketched out for the album, 13 ended up on the final release. One of the unreleased songs called "Anything" was later released on the compilation album Monuments and Melodies. Other songs also added to Monuments and Melodies were "Wish You Were Here", "Nice to Know You", "Warning", "Are You In?", and "Mexico".
After the success of Make Yourself, Brandon Boyd started attaining popularity among female listeners, and would begin to take his shirt off for them during concerts. He was labelled as "MTV's newest weapon of mass heartbreak" and included on Teen People's list of "The Hottest Guys in Music" in 2001. In an interview with Spin shortly after the release of Morning View, it was noted that Boyd was "always getting chased by girls" as a child, before even forming Incubus. Around the making of the album, Mike Einziger also composed the rock and funk-based soundtrack for the comedy film Sol Goode, which was released in early 2003. The film featured Jared Leto in a small role, with his band Thirty Seconds to Mars later touring with Incubus in 2002.
Music and lyrics
Morning View has been described as an alternative rock, alternative metal, hard rock, and soft rock album, which features a variety of styles such as ambience, aggression and groove. It has an overall softer sound than previous albums, especially apparent on songs like "11am", "Echo" and "Are You In?". The album also contains an acoustic ballad similar to "Drive" – "Mexico", complete with strings. However, Incubus's heavier side is still evident on tracks like "Blood on the Ground", "Have You Ever" and "Under My Umbrella". Mike Einziger stated in a 2001 interview with Spin, "there's pressure to be a heavy band in this whole scene, and we just really turned our backs on it completely. I think the world of rap-metal is just pathetically ridiculous. In my opinion, it's a very horrible place to be. We don't want to be part of anyone's little bullshit scene." Regarding the album's sound, Einziger notes that it "would've been really easy for us to try to replicate certain songs that did well on our last record, which we didn't do. We didn't do anything even remotely close to that. We put pressure on ourselves to make a good record because if none of us were happy with it, we'll all be miserable for the next two years while we're on tour."The final song, "Aqueous Transmission", employs the use of Chinese instruments such as the pipa and features a Japanese-style orchestra led by multi-instrumentalist Suzie Katayama. The pipa used on the recording was given to Mike Einziger from Steve Vai. Katayama later collaborated with Einziger on the experimental Time-Lapse Consortium project in 2003, and he credited her with inspiring his deepening musical comprehension. "Aqueous Transmission" is the longest song on the album at 7 minutes and 46 seconds long, with the last minute consisting of frogs croaking outside the house in Malibu. At the time, Boyd joked that the song was intended to make "the listener pee in his/her pants" from relaxation. He later claimed in 2021 that the song was influenced by the music of Björk, saying "Mikey and I grew up kind of mutually obsessed with Björk’s music. There was so much we loved about it: the weirdness of it, the instrumentation, the arrangements, the choices that she was making and that the producers were making. So we were like, 'let's make a super Björky sounding breakbeat that’s really cool and eerie and mellow'." He adds, "from there, I started messing around with the lyrics, and I remember when he started playing that little riff over that kind of trip-hop sounding beat, I just started singing: 'I’m floating down a river'. That’s what it sounded like. To me, it sounded like we were on this psychedelic river cruise somewhere."
Many believed that the single "Nice to Know You" lyrically revolved around a failed relationship, although Boyd claimed in 2002 that this was not the case. Regarding the song's meaning, he said,
"I had a moment in my life about a year ago where I was way too close to everything that was going on and I was blind. I felt like I was asleep. And the clouds parted for kind of a strange reason and I gained perspective. What happened was my hand had fallen asleep on the airplane on the way to Europe and it remained asleep for about 10 days, which was kind of scary. I must have pinched a nerve or something. But as my hand started waking up, the clouds started breaking away from that emotional state as well. The two happened simultaneously, so I created a simple metaphor for it. So it's basically a song about gaining perspective on a situation."
Touring and promotion
Morning View spawned three retail singles, beginning with "Wish You Were Here". The song was released on August 14, 2001, charting well and gaining significant rotation. In the original banned video for "Wish You Were Here", Incubus are getting chased by a large pack of female fans, and eventually jump off a bridge. According to Boyd, the video was inspired by a scene in the 1968 film Head, which starred American band the Monkees. An alternative music video would end up being made for the song shortly afterwards, as the original version was deemed to be mirroring the September 11 attacks. The alternative version depicted the band playing in a studio against a white backdrop, interspersed with home movies they had made.The follow up single "Nice to Know You" gained substantial airplay as well. The video for "Nice to Know You" was shot on November 28, 2001 in
San Diego at the UCSD's Rimac Arena. The third and final retail single "Are You In?" had a video exclusive to Europe due to its sensual nature and gained little attention compared to its predecessors. "Circles" and "Warning" were both released as promotional singles from the album, with the latter being released on April 8, 2002.
Once they had finished recording their new album in 2001, Incubus began touring with Hundred Reasons in Europe from June until the first week of July. They were also invited to play Moby's Area:One Festival alongside the likes of Outkast, the Roots, Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox, and Nelly Furtado. In August, the band performed their first shows in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Amidst touring, Incubus was still experiencing commercial milestones for Make Yourself, and they continued to headline throughout the remainder of the year. They were one of the first bands to play in New York City following the September 11 attacks, with the event not affecting the band's touring schedule. DJ Chris Kilmore told Billboard in November 2001, "we’re taking the stand that we’re not going to let some idiot who just wants to kill everybody affect our lives. We’re just going to keep doing what we do, and hopefully, everything will be alright."
In January 2002, the band toured Europe with 311 and Hoobastank. Incubus played on the Late Show with David Letterman on February 14, 2002. For the remainder of February and March, the group performed throughout Australia, New Zealand and Japan again as part of their "Pacific Tour", this time playing at a larger number of venues in these countries. While in Australia, they also shot the video for "Warning" in Sydney. They then returned to the US for their long-awaited Honda Civic Tour; joining their long-time friends from California, Hoobastank and Phantom Planet. These shows kept ticket prices low through sponsorship and saw the band give away cars to fans.
Incubus embarked on an American headlining tour on August 31, 2002, supported by Thirty Seconds to Mars. Their last concert during the Morning View touring cycle took place on November 2, 2002. The band took a break from touring and releasing music following this, and their next concerts would be at the Lollapalooza Festival in July 2003. Einziger told MTV in 2002, "we kind of had a seamless transition from our last record to our newest record, and we think maybe that this time around we should disappear for a little while." Boyd added in the same interview, "I think we're all getting sick of ourselves, so we need to run away, but we'll run away together 'cause we can't stay away from each other. Probably go and hang out in some place tropical, hopefully." Bassist Alex Katunich was asked to leave the band in October 2002, reportedly over personal and creative differences. His departure was announced to the media through a statement from Brandon Boyd in April 2003, with no official reason being given; He was replaced by Ben Kenney of the Roots.
On August 5, 2023, the band announced the release of Morning View XXIII, a complete rerecording of their 2001 album set for release on October 6 by Virgin Music. Prior to the release of the album, Kenney departed from the band despite his recovery from cancer. Bassist Nicole Row was promoted to a full-time member, and played on Morning View XXIII. The re-recorded version, Morning View XXIII has three singles: Echo, Circles, and Under My Umbrella.