Skip to main content
GRAMMYs Breaking News
Breaking News
  • MusiCares Launches Help for the Holidays Campaign Apply HERE
  • Recording Academy
  • GRAMMYs
  • Membership
  • Advocacy
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
  • Advocacy
  • Membership
  • GRAMMYs
  • Governance
  • Jobs
  • Press Room
  • Events
  • Login
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
  • More
    • MusiCares
    • GRAMMY Museum
    • Latin GRAMMYs

The GRAMMYs

  • Awards
  • News
  • Videos
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • Awards
    • News
    • Videos
    • Recording Academy

Latin GRAMMYs

MusiCares

  • About
  • Get Help
  • Give
  • News
  • Videos
  • Events
  • Person of the Year
  • More
    • About
    • Get Help
    • Give
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
    • Person of the Year

Advocacy

  • About
  • News
  • Issues & Policy
  • Act
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • About
    • News
    • Issues & Policy
    • Act
    • Recording Academy

Membership

  • Join
  • Events
  • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
  • GRAMMY U
  • GOVERNANCE
  • More
    • Join
    • Events
    • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
    • GRAMMY U
    • GOVERNANCE
Log In Join
  • SUBSCRIBE

  • Search
Modal Open
Subscribe Now

Subscribe to Newsletters

Be the first to find out about GRAMMY nominees, winners, important news, and events. Privacy Policy
GRAMMY Museum
Membership

Join us on Social

  • Recording Academy
    • The Recording Academy: Facebook
    • The Recording Academy: Twitter
    • The Recording Academy: Instagram
    • The Recording Academy: YouTube
  • GRAMMYs
    • GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • Latin GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • GRAMMY Museum: Facebook
    • GRAMMY Museum: Twitter
    • GRAMMY Museum: Instagram
    • GRAMMY Museum: YouTube
  • MusiCares
    • MusiCares: Facebook
    • MusiCares: Twitter
    • MusiCares: Instagram
  • Advocacy
    • Advocacy: Facebook
    • Advocacy: Twitter
  • Membership
    • Membership: Facebook
    • Membership: Twitter
    • Membership: Instagram
    • Membership: Youtube
GRAMMYs

Incubus 

Photo by Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images

News
Oral History: Incubus' 'Make Yourself' Turns 20 hold-wheel-and-drive-incubus-look-back-their-alt-metal-classic-make-yourself-20-years

Hold The Wheel And Drive: Incubus Look Back On Their Alt-Metal Classic 'Make Yourself' 20 Years Later

Facebook Twitter Email
Brandon Boyd, Jose Pasillas, Chris Kilmore and Mike Einziger reminisce with the Recording Academy about their game-changing third studio album
Nick Fulton
GRAMMYs
Oct 23, 2019 - 9:19 am

When the clock struck midnight on Dec. 31, 1999, rock music was in its prime. The Red Hot Chili Peppers dominated the Billboard Charts with songs from their seventh studio album, Californication, which was also nominated for Best Rock Album at that year's GRAMMY Awards. Nu-metal kings Korn, Limp Bizkit and Sevendust had planted themselves alongside rock and roll heavyweights like Megadeth, Melvins and Motörhead on the summer festival circuit. And mixed in amongst all the noise was a Calabasas, Calif. rock band named Incubus.

As the decade came to a close, however, Incubus found themselves in a bit of a bind. Though they'd made their major-label debut with second album S.C.I.E.N.C.E in 1997 and toured through 1998 on the Ozzfest lineup, not to mention with rock gods like Black Sabbath, Pantera and Rammstein, the era's aggressive, testosterone-driven sound never suited the band all that well. 

While S.C.I.E.N.C.E was certainly a solid record, it mostly mimicked what was going on elsewhere in rock music at the time. Its strengths were in the lighter, melodic moments, where lead singer Brandon Boyd sang without the immediacy of heavy metal over a steady swell of guitar and turntable scratches. Incubus would soon move further in that direction.

When they walked into North Hollywood's NRG studios at the beginning of 1999 to record their next record, they went in with a plan to differentiate themselves from the pack. Armed with a series of demos they’d recorded themselves in a rehearsal studio, they began working on what became their most ambitious work to date. Released on October 26, 1999, Make Yourself pushed Incubus into the mainstream. It got them airtime on radio and on MTV and gained them an audience that was no longer mostly dudes dressed in black metal tees, baggy pants and wallet chains. The album’s three singles, "Pardon Me," "Stellar" and "Drive" all charted on Billboard's Alternative Rock charts. The music video for "Drive" was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award alongside Y2K pop titans *NSYNC and Destiny’s Child. Eventually, Make Yourself went double platinum.

This is the story of how it all came together, from Ozzfest to the studio, to back out on the road again where Incubus discovered a new audience to connect with their softer sonic palette.    

Summer camp for rock and rollers

Chris Kilmore (Turntables): [Ozzfest] was like summer camp for rock and rollers. A lot of things happened on that tour that you definitely could not get away with today. All of us are pretty respectful guys with parents that taught us morals, but we were like, wow, this could get crazy if we let it get out of control.

Jose Pasillas (Drums): We saw crazy sh*t go down that I think would make anybody feel uncomfortable, we were [like] freshman in school watching the seniors go crazy. But it didn’t really shake us on our beliefs and how we viewed the world, we knew what we wanted to be and what we didn’t want to be.

Brandon Boyd (Vocals): It was wild. The internet existed but not in the way it does now. A lot of stuff was taken on 35mm disposable cameras, so there’s ridiculous pictures of those, "I dare you to..." moments. I never partied very much so there was probably a lot of stuff that happened that was unbeknownst to me, but I don’t regret not participating in that way. I’ve always been more of a quiet observer. 

Mike Einziger (Guitar): That tour was us, System Of A Down, Tool, Megadeth and many others. It was heavy. We all liked heavy music, we all grew up listening and playing heavy music, but we wanted to be different to the male, aggressive, testosterone-fueled music that was happening at that time. So Make Yourself was our attempt at going a different path. 

Making Make Yourself

Brandon: We started the album working with a guy who we worked with on S.C.I.E.N.C.E, a really wonderful guy [producer] named Jim Wirt. We started it with him and it wasn’t going very well, so we broke away from him and recorded most of it ourselves. 

Chris: I think Jim at that time was in a difficult part of his life, and I don’t think he could dedicate the time that was needed and focus his energy on what we were putting out.

Jose: We spent a couple of weeks recording things and I think we just had two different visions. I feel like we stopped and thought, we can do this on our own and we can make it exactly how we want it. So we kept the same engineer and thought, let’s do an experiment and not have a producer.

Mike: It was a bit of a scary position to be in as 19, 20 year-old kids, in a recording studio that costs thousands of dollars a day. But our A&R person at Epic Records trusted our vision. We had these demos of the songs that we’d made ourselves and they were really good—demo versions of most of the songs on Make Yourself. We’d recorded them in a rehearsal studio and then mixed them in a real studio with a mix engineer. I think based on that the label knew that we were totally capable of delivering a product that was going to sound great.

Brandon: It was kind of fun to have Scott Litt come in because we all held him in such high regard due to his work with R.E.M and Nirvana. When he came in it was always like, “Scott’s here, I hope we’re doing a good job.”

Jose: Mike had been talking to Scott previously, just as a possible option, but I think at the time he had other obligations. It took a few weeks before he came in and started listening to what we’d been playing. 

Mike: We met Scott back in late 1995 or early 1996. He had started a record label with a couple of other influential people in the music business, a label called Outpost Records that was putting out records through Geffen [Records], and they were interested in signing us. So that was how we met, and through that process I got to know Scott really well. I had been working on Scott the whole time. I had been calling him and inviting him down to the studio and I think he was going through some personal stuff at the time that was discouraging him from getting involved with what we were doing. But then there was one opportunity where I got him to come down [to the studio], and I think after he heard the songs and the state that they were in he realized that we had some great music. Slowly he started showing up to the studio more and then he started helping us mix.

Brandon: Scott really honed in on what the singles were going to be and he dedicated a lot of sonic energy to “Drive” and “Stellar.” We definitely got a real sonic boost when he came on board. 

"Battlestar Scralatchtica"

Chris: I'm pretty sure Brandon had a dentist appointment or something that meant he couldn’t be in the studio, and studios are expensive so we didn’t want to waste the day. 

Brandon: I remember coming back into the studio and they had this weird funk scratch situation happening. I was super stoked that it sounded so cool, but I was also butthurt because I didn't have anything to do with it. 

Chris: Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark were in the studio next door, so I just went over there and asked them. I said, “Hey, I think we’re gonna scratch all over this track we just wrote, would you guys be interested in each doing a verse?” They were like, “Yeah, whatever you need,” and by the end of the day we had “Battlestar Scralatchtica.”

Brandon: I said, you guys have got to let me name it, at least, so I came up with “Battlestar Scralatchtica.” It was my only contribution to the song.

Hitting The Radio Waves

Jose: The first time they played "Pardon Me" [on the radio] we were at this little Par 3 golf course in the valley. We knew Stryker was going to play it at 4:20, he’s got this thing where he’ll play a local band or something of his liking at 4:20, and he played “Pardon Me.”

Chris: We were in the parking lot with our car doors open hanging out with each other and they played it.

Jose: We were so jazzed. It was such an incredible feeling to even get the chance to be heard on the radio. It was super special and it was the beginning of a new era for us.

Brandon: It was an exciting moment. It’s hard to describe. I don’t think it was like anything any of us had ever experienced, to hear something that you have put so much time and energy and love and effort into get played to a lot of people, like arguably tens of thousands of people all at that one moment.

"Pardon Me" (Acoustic)

Brandon: "Pardon Me" was the first song that got played on commercial radio, but it wasn't necessarily doing very well.

Mike: Brandon and I went and played [an acoustic version of] "Pardon Me" at several different radio stations, and as soon as we did that, those radio stations started playing the acoustic version that they had recorded of us playing in their studio.

Brandon: Mikey and I would go and perform that song, and a number of others, almost every morning. It was really hard actually as the singer, as I’m sure other singers around the world can attest to, to go and sing first thing in the morning. It was cruel and unusual punishment, but it ended up being really cool, because to my knowledge there weren't many bands actually willing to show up with an acoustic guitar at a radio station and do a live performance.

Jose: No rock bands were doing that. No rock bands would ever come in and play a song acoustically. 

Mike: Then there was a reaction to it and we started getting requests from pretty much every radio station to come and play acoustic at their station. But it just wasn't feasible for us to do that. 

Brandon: I think we were on tour with Primus towards the end of 1999, and on either a day off or on the morning of a show Mikey and I went and recorded an acoustic version. 

Mike: We just couldn’t keep up with the demand of people who wanted us to come and play at their station, so we started sending everybody this acoustic version [that we’d recorded ourselves], and it started getting played a lot. 

Chris: I think that's what allowed radio stations to feel good about playing it, because we were doing something special for them, and I think the fact that we did that pushed that single as far as it did.

Mike: From there, it naturally went towards the album version of the song and our popularity started rising very quickly. KROQ championed the single and MTV started playing the video and the album version of the song blew up.

"Drive"

Brandon: The album cycle was done. We'd finished touring Make Yourself and we were very actively working on what would become Morning View. Our heads were in a different place, so when that song started getting played on television it was an unexpected surprise. 

Mike: We toured behind Make Yourself and we sold about a million albums. I remember when the album went platinum. "Drive" came out after that and on the back of that we sold another million albums. It was a really exciting time for us, the success just kept piling up and it all made perfect sense to me at the time, but looking back on it now I kind of can't believe it.

Chris: I couldn’t believe that "Drive" went to No. 1, but I couldn't believe that "Stellar" went to No. 2 before that, and I couldn't believe that "Pardon Me" went to No. 3.

Brandon: It was exciting, especially the way it gave us that burst of momentum going into the next album. It’s something you can never really plan for.

"Take your f**king shirt off"

Nick Hexum (vocalist of 311): After Make Yourself came out I remember [saying] to Mark McGrath [of Sugar Ray], "What happened to Incubus? They're all the sudden this totally important American band. We liked them before, but kinda got lost and confused by their complexity. Now they’re the sh*t!"  

Brandon: All the way through S.C.I.E.N.C.E, and then quite a way through touring Make Yourself, we would show up places and more people would come each time, but they all looked like us, they were young guys. People were thrashing and throwing stuff, it was like a boys' club.

Chris: During S.C.I.E.N.C.E our crowd was all teenage kids wearing black and they were all men. Once "Pardon Me" started getting some traction the crowd turned into half-girl crowds. Then when "Stellar" and "Drive" came out, those half-girl crowds became all screaming teenage girls in the front row.

Brandon: It was very interesting. I never knew what it felt like to be objectified, and so after I had my shirt off on television, if I didn't do it at shows you'd hear women yelling, "Take your f**king shirt off." 

It was an interesting experience, but I just kind of rolled with it. A lot of undergarments were coming on stage around that time. What the message is, where young women, or women of all ages don’t feel like they need to be wearing their undergarments, the logic behind it, it was a very unusual thing. The other fascinating thing is, like, did they bring an extra pair with them? It's underwear, how did they get those off in the audience? Some magical Zoolander trick? I remember in the original Zoolander movie: in the walkoff scene where Hansel puts his hands down his pants on the runway and gets out of his underwear, I’ve always assumed that’s how women were getting out of their undergarments and throwing them up on stage.

Nick: We toured with [Incubus] in Europe and I remember Brandon saying that his favorite part was in our song "You Wouldn't Believe," where I replace the last chorus with a big 'Whoa-oh' crowd sing-along moment. I said, "Well it makes sense that you like that part because I’m doing my best Incubus impression." It’s nice to let the crowd join in on something really simple, to feel the collective energy. Incubus are the kings of that.

Grappling With Fame

Chris: Things were growing and yes, the record label would pick us up in limos and we got to fly on a private jet every now and then, but for the most part it was business as usual.

Brandon: I think what I noticed the most was how people reacted to me in normal, everyday situations. In the late '90s and early 2000s, magazine culture was a lot more powerful than it is today. I remember being in an airport kiosk getting a pack of gum and I was on the cover of a magazine called Seventeen. I was standing there and I saw it, and this one middle-aged guy looked at it and then looked at me and he goes, "Hey, is that you?" And I said, "Yeah, I think so," and he goes, "Hey everybody, look, it's the guy on the cover of this magazine." He totally called me out in public. Then people started to surround me and began buying it and they had me sign it. A lot of them didn’t even know who I was or what I did, it was just that in America we have a weird celebrity worship culture. There's a darkness to it that’s a little weird.

Mos Def Taught Us What 'Black On Both Sides' Meant 20 Years Ago

GRAMMYs

Brandon Boyd

Photo: Brian Bowen Smith

News
exclusive-grammycom-interview-brandon-boyd

Exclusive GRAMMY.com Interview With Brandon Boyd

Facebook Twitter Email
Incubus frontman details his new project with producer Brendan O'Brien, Sons Of The Sea, and their forthcoming self-titled full-length album
Crystal Larsen
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd recently visited The Recording Academy's headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., to participate in an exclusive GRAMMY.com interview. Boyd discussed teaming with GRAMMY-winning producer Brendan O'Brien for his new project, Sons Of The Sea, the creative process for songs on the forthcoming Sons Of The Sea self-titled album and the importance of the support of Incubus' fan base, among other topics.

"I am continually inspired by the experience of love," said Boyd. "There are many ways to experience love. It can feel like a knife in your back or it can feel like you're being lifted up by winged creatures towards a beautiful blinding light. It can be so many things. In amongst all of that potential, I have found many opportunities to be inspired."  

Incubus were formed in 1991 by Boyd, guitarist Mike Einziger and drummer José Pasillas. (The current lineup also includes bassist Ben Kenney and turntablist DJ Chris Kilmore.) In 2011 they released their seventh studio album, If Not Now, When?, which peaked at No. 2, marking their fifth album to chart in the Top 5 on the Billboard 200. The group scored their first career GRAMMY nomination to date for Best Hard Rock Performance for "Megalomaniac" at the 47th GRAMMY Awards in 2004.                      

Sons Of The Sea, a new project fronted by Boyd, are set to release their self-titled full-length album on Sept. 24. For the 10-track set, Boyd contributed vocals and lyrics while O'Brien (Incubus, the Killers, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine) performed a majority of the music. Tracks include "Come Together," "Space And Time," and a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye." The album follow's Sons Of The Seas debut EP, Compass, which was released in June.

An environmental activist, artist and avid surfer, Boyd released his solo debut, The Wild Trapeze, in 2010. He recently published his third book of paintings, So The Echo, concurrently with the release of Sons Of The Sea.

 

John Lennon in 1970

John Lennon in 1970

 

Photo: Chris Walter/WireImage

News
'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' At 50 john-lennon-plastic-ono-band-50-year-anniversary

Now That I Showed You What I Been Through: 50 Years Of 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'

Facebook Twitter Email
After The Beatles' split and before 'Imagine,' Lennon recorded a jarring audio confessional that remains indelible in 2020
Ana Leorne
GRAMMYs
Dec 29, 2020 - 4:25 pm

John Lennon asked The Beatles for a "divorce," and he got his wish. After the group's breakup in 1970, quarreling and competition were the norm between himself, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. In Lennon's case, this tension added to a slightly tainted reputation derived from the public's disappointment upon The Beatles' end, his unpopular marriage to Yoko Ono and an artistic dispersion. The latter resulted from an ongoing quest to find his spot in a world he'd grown frustrated with yet to which he desperately wanted to belong. As evidenced by his songs and remarks, Lennon's efforts to find himself often left him feeling empty, and he regularly lacked unconditional trust or engagement.

Standing in the way of this self-discovery process was an inability to resolve past traumas, which was one of the main reasons why Lennon decided to undergo Arthur Janov's primal scream program. He had the apparent goal of finally dealing with childhood wounds related to his mother's death and feelings of rejection linked to his father's absence. But the treatment also addressed the recent pain of losing his other family—the one Lennon had shared a life with for the past decade. In short, how could he go forward when he didn't know which way he was facing?

Lennon channeled all this into his debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which turns 50 this month. (December 2020 also marks the 40th anniversary of his murder.) Released as a companion to Ono's concurrent solo debut, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, Lennon's album was therapy in its purest form: raw and self-referential. This intimacy was also apparent in the recording process: Apart from Lennon and Ono, the latter of whom is credited on the album sleeve for contributing "wind," the only other musicians were Starr and bassist Klaus Voormann, along with former Beatles roadie Mal Evans (for "tea and sympathy"), pianist Billy Preston and Phil Spector, who played piano on "Love" and "God," respectively.

When a cycle doesn't end fast enough, there's often a tendency to accelerate it, and Lennon was a man on a mission. The previous year, Lennon had been creatively disengaged from the Let It Be sessions and generally disapproving of the approach McCartney and producer George Martin wanted for Abbey Road, as he attempted to destroy the entity he helped create. This self-sabotaging process, which coincided with his dangerous affair with heroin, often translated into a deafening silence that Beatles scholar Stephanie Piotrowski describes in her Ph.D. dissertation as "part of Lennon's agenda to break The Beatles' myth."

But silence wasn't his sole strategy. It progressively became apparent throughout his solo career—culminating with his GRAMMY-winning final album with Ono, Double Fantasy (1980)—that Ono was his new partner-in-crime in McCartney's stead. For anyone unable to take a hint, in September 1969, he privately told the other three Beatles he was leaving the group. Their financial manager, Allen Klein, asked them to keep this development a secret for as long as possible, fearing the news would undermine sales of the forthcoming album, Let It Be (1970), which was taking forever to mix and master. 

Read: History Of: Walk To London's Famed Abbey Road Studios With The Beatles

Lennon's apparent hurry to break free makes it odd that Plastic Ono Band only came out in December 1970, rendering him the last Beatle to release a proper debut album. (This, of course, if we don't count three previous experimental albums with Ono: Two Virgins, in 1968, and Life With The Lions and Wedding Album, both in 1969. And don't forget the hastily put-together Live Peace In Toronto 1969, which partly consisted of early rock covers and featured Ono, guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Voormann and drummer Alan White.)

Spector was supposed to be producing, but he was missing in action when the sessions began, leading Lennon to publish a full-page ad in Billboard saying, "Phil! John is ready this weekend." His relative absence ended up being a blessing in disguise: Spector's trademark "Wall of Sound" style probably wouldn't have suited the album's ethos. Lennon and Ono's minimalist approach matched the content better, allowing the emotional outpouring to sound adequately barer. 

Revolving around themes of healing, surrender and replacement, Plastic Ono Band is a prime example of Lennon's songwriting particularities. These include his remarkable ability to craft instant hooks, focus on the lyrical element and rely on subjectivity in storytelling, which contrasted with McCartney's general preference for third-person points of view. 

Always with a way with words, Lennon refrained from complicating his message, choosing direct statements ("Hold On," "Look At Me") over the elusive metaphors and cryptic references he often returned to during The Beatles' later years. This aspect made the album vaguely echo his mid-'60s confessional period that produced "Help!" and "In My Life," transpiring as a matured reflection of what it felt like to feel lost in the eye of the hurricane.

For all its sincerity and the psychological commitment that it symbolized to Lennon,

the album encountered a mixed reception at best; it was also quickly eclipsed by the release of Imagine nine months later, in 1971. Similar to what had happened with McCartney's self-titled debut, some critics accused John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band of being a product of self-preoccupation and void egotism. This harsh perception mostly came from the absurdly high expectations following The Beatles' breakup. 

"This is the album of a man of black bile," Geoffrey Cannon declared in a 1970 review for The Guardian. "Lennon's album makes a deep impression, if more on him than us … This is declamation, not music. It's not about freedom and love, but madness and pain."

Read: The Beatles Take Aim With 1966's 'Revolver': For The Record 

Even though Imagine eventually became Lennon's indisputable legacy—the title track was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in 1999, seven years after Lennon's posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award—Plastic Ono Band was still properly cherished. Fans embraced its relatability. It's easier to identify with one's idol opening up about their problems of love and loss than hearing them discuss overly abstract concepts, the renunciatory "God" and tender "Love" being exceptions.

But it also helped that the album didn't become as heavy an institution as Imagine did. Less over(ab)used by pop culture and more grounded in both content and form, Plastic Ono Band felt more human and accessible, despite coming from the myth-ridden colossus called John Lennon.

In September 1980, three months before his death, Lennon gave an extensive interview to David Sheff for Playboy magazine. Sheff asked what Ono had done for him. "She showed me the possibility of the alternative," Lennon replied. "'You don't have to do this.' 'I don't? Really? But-but-but-but-but...'" Although he was referring to his temporary retirement from music to dedicate himself to being a house husband fully, one could see Plastic Ono Band as the dénouement of a similar epiphany 10 years prior. It kick-started a new life Lennon knew would be radically different from everything he had previously experienced.

In addition to representing a threshold moment for Lennon, the album underwent a mutation with regard to its critical reception. Over the decades, Plastic Ono Band received praise that was anything but a given at its release. In 2020, the album ranked at No. 85 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list. "Lennon's [...] pure, raw core of confession [...] is years ahead of punk," the list's album entry reads. 

However, perhaps Lennon acerbically summed it up best in his Rolling Stone interview with four words that remain jarring to read: "The Beatles was nothing."

It's Not Always Going To Be This Grey: George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' At 50

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
George Harrison c.1970/1971

George Harrison c.1970/1971

Photo: GAB Archive/Redferns

News
George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' At 50 george-harrison-all-things-must-pass-50-year-anniversary

It's Not Always Going To Be This Grey: George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' At 50

Facebook Twitter Email
On the 50th anniversary of the chart-topping, GRAMMY-nominated album, GRAMMY.com explores all the reasons why 'All Things Must Pass' remains an important landmark in George Harrison's legacy and his most enduring solo testimony
Ana Leorne
GRAMMYs
Nov 27, 2020 - 7:33 am

In 1970, Let It Be, the documentary chronicling The Beatles' final studio album of the same name, hit theaters worldwide, providing a blunt answer to the whys and the hows for those who might still be in denial about the group's inevitable separation. The film unmercifully exposed numerous cracks in their interpersonal relationships, only letting us see fragments of what had once been a cohesive, seemingly indivisible unit. Although incredibly frustrating to many fans, this portrayal proved crucial for an adequate understanding of each member's personal and professional motivations at the time—particularly George Harrison, whose creative persona was undergoing a vital and revolutionary change.

Those sessions, which author Peter Doggett describes in his book, "You Never Give Me Your Money," as "a drama with no movement or character development," showcase Harrison's growing exasperation with the part he'd been given to play within The Beatles' equation as well as a certain impatience and dissatisfaction replacing his acquiescence of previous years. Recently returned from a stay with Bob Dylan at Woodstock to what he would later call "The Beatles' winter of discontent" in "The Beatles Anthology," Harrison continued to see his musical contributions systematically met with disdain from his bandmates. It soon became obvious that challenging the John Lennon/Paul McCartney power axis would be an impossible task while the band was still together—a realization that further accelerated The Beatles' disintegration.

All Things Must Pass is a direct result of this unmaking. Released November 27, 1970, All Things Must Pass was technically Harrison's third studio album yet his first fully realized solo release following two slightly niche LPs prior: Wonderwall Music (1968), the mostly instrumental soundtrack to Joe Massot's film, Wonderwall, and Electronic Sound (1969), a two-track avant-garde project.

The imbalance in group dynamics made evident in the Let It Be documentary is essential to understand the genesis of All Things Must Pass since the two projects are irrevocably intertwined—perhaps more so than Lennon's or McCartney's respective debuts, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and McCartney, which also released in 1970. While his bandmates had long made peace with their prime status as composers, Harrison's mounting refusal to be repeatedly pushed to second best was reaching a boiling point, and his creativity soared in proportion. By then, the material he'd been putting in the drawer was far too vast to fit in a single album alone. 

For The Record: Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass'

For anyone doubting Harrison's ability to stand on his own two feet as a solo artist, All Things Must Pass must have hit like a ton of bricks. Composed of three records, two LPs plus an extra disc titled Apple Jam that mostly contained improvised instrumentals, the album emerged as Harrison's definite and irrevocable declaration of independence. 

Still, the album was colored with references to a painful recent past: These are visible in the cryptic album art showing Harrison in his Friar Park estate surrounded by four gnomes, often interpreted as the musician removing himself from The Beatles' collective identity. There are also the not-so-veiled attacks on his bandmates in "Wah-Wah," the sad contemplation of a breakup in "Isn't It A Pity?" and the inclusion of several compositions that had been turned down by The Beatles, such as "Art Of Dying," "Let It Down" and the album's title track, which Harrison can be seen playing to the other three in Let It Be.

The album, recorded between May and October in 1970, gathered an impressive supergroup of backing musicians that included bassist (and Revolver cover artist) Klaus Voormann, members of Badfinger and Delaney & Bonnie, Let It Be keyboardist Billy Preston, Eric Clapton and even Ringo Starr, the only Beatle who seemed to have no major feud with the other three. 

Although Harrison had a very clear idea of what he wanted, things did not always go so smoothly. By summer, sessions came to a temporary halt as he made regular visits to see his dying mother in Liverpool. At the same time, further pressure came from EMI, who grew preoccupied with the alarming costs that a triple album would ensue. This, combined with Clapton's escalating heroin addiction and infatuation with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, who he would eventually marry, contributed to a strained ambience that might at times have struck a chord of déjà vu for the Beatle. 

Producer Phil Spector's erratic behavior didn't help either: Having been recruited by both Harrison and Lennon for their solo debuts following his impressive work on Let It Be, he was frequently unfit to function or nowhere to be found, forcing Harrison to take production matters into his own hands.

Despite all the delays and behind-the-scenes tension, some of it still resulting from the ongoing legal disputes between the four Beatles, All Things Must Pass triumphed. The album received a nomination for Album Of The Year at the 1972 GRAMMYs, while its No. 1 single "My Sweet Lord," for which Harrison was sued for copyright infringement and ultimately lost, was nominated for Record Of The Year. All Things Must Pass was ultimately inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in 2014; Harrison was honored with the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award one year later.

While a triple album could have easily been dismissed as self-indulgence as pop crossed over to the individualistic '70s, the reception of All Things Must Pass was so indisputably solid and favorable that some music critics claimed it eclipsed Lennon's and McCartney's solo efforts. Maybe it was the surprise factor, too. Melody Maker's Richard Williams would best summarize this in his review of the album with the famous line, "Garbo talks! - Harrison is free!"—a reference fitting of how it felt to witness "the quiet one" finally raising his voice. 

All Things Must Pass opened the gates to a world the public had only glimpsed during The Beatles years, proclaiming a coming of age that had been delayed for too long. Encapsulating Harrison's serenity without falling into a trap of passiveness, the album acted simultaneously as epilogue and opening chapter by precipitating both public and personal healing.

But the ghost of Beatles past would still come back to haunt Harrison as he, like the other three, quickly realized one doesn't simply cease to be a Beatle. Recurrent comparisons and undeclared fights both in and outside the charts persisted throughout the years, bringing back the vestiges of a narrative he hadn't fully absconded yet no longer defined him. "We've been nostalgia since 1967," Doggett quotes Harrison as saying at the time of the album's release, commenting on The Beatles' inability to escape a very specific, even if outdated, image that had been crystallized in the public's collective imagination. 

Fifty years later, All Things Must Pass remains an important landmark in George Harrison's legacy and his most enduring solo testimony—something music journalist Paul Du Noyer points out on the text "When 1 Becomes 4" as a slight irony, since the title refers precisely to "the impermanence of things." But more than that, the album is a fascinating and detailed snapshot of the exact moment Harrison officially announced he was willing to move on from a game whose rules had long ceased to serve him.

Celebrating The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's' 50th Anniversary

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
My Chemical Romance's 'Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys' Album Cover

Danger Days Album Cover

News
10 Years Of My Chemical Romance's 'Danger Days' my-chemical-romance-danger-days-10-year-anniversary

Look Alive, Sunshine: 10 Years Of My Chemical Romance's 'Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys'

Facebook Twitter Email
Released in November 2010, the band's fourth and final studio album is a bold statement that pushed its creators, and their devotees, to new places
Jordan Blum
GRAMMYs
Nov 22, 2020 - 1:03 pm

Founded in Newark, N.J., in 2001, My Chemical Romance (MCR) were at the top of their game by the start of the 2010s. While their 2002 debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, was a promising and successful fusion of gothic rock and post-hardcore, it was their two immediate follow-ups—Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge (2004) and The Black Parade (2006)—that turned them into full-blown emo emissaries. In fact, those album covers and concepts remain synonymous with the movement, gracing the walls of Hot Topic stores across the U.S. and being celebrated by virtually every genre fan.

Consequently, that also meant that My Chemical Romance's fourth and final studio album, Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, largely lived in the shadows of the band's two breakout releases—at least to an extent. Released November 22, 2010, the album evolved MCR's already-winning aesthetic narratively, structurally and musically, which understandably resulted in some polarization among listeners. Ultimately, that's a testament to the boldness and maturity of Danger Days, as it, like all worthwhile artistic endeavors, pushed its creators and their devotees to new places. As such, it's the group's most striving and sundry collection

MCR recorded Danger Days between June 2009 and July 2010. At first, the band worked with producer Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan, AC/DC) on their new material; however, those tracks were ultimately saved for a subsequent compilation,  Conventional Weapons (2013). The group enlisted The Black Parade producer Rob Cavallo once again. Likewise, drummer Bob Bryar—who took over for co-founder Matt Pelissier in 2004 immediately after the release of Three Cheers—officially left in March 2010. Interestingly, he's only credited with songwriting here, with John Miceli filling in on drums and percussion on all tracks except "Bulletproof Heart," which features Dorian Crozier. 

Read: Hayley Williams On Going Solo, Alanis Morissette & Trusting Her Intuition

Stylistically, MCR uphold their trademark alternative/punk/pop-rock foundation on Danger Days while also digging deeper into electronic, proto-punk and even psychedelic elements. According to Way, this was an attempt to offer a "stripped down" sound and pay homage to '60s and '70s icons like The Beatles, Queen and David Bowie. Therefore, Danger Days feels like a sibling to its precursors that also evokes the catchier, freer and brighter power/synth-pop vibes of Coheed and Cambria, Panic! at the Disco and modern Green Day.

Like its forebears, the record is a concept album: Danger Days takes place in a post-apocalyptic California in 2019 and follows The Killjoys, a quartet of rebellious reactionaries composed of Party Poison, The Kobra Kid, Jet-Star and Fun Ghoul, as they try to take down the nefarious Better Living Industries. Clearly, that Gorillaz-meets-Mad Max kind of colorful cataclysm is in stark contrast to MCR's previously bleaker storylines; the fact that the sequence is framed around broadcasts from a lively pirate radio host, Dr. Death Defying, adds to the friskiness. This technique also places Danger Days in the ever-expanding lineage of albums that unfold like live broadcasts: The Who Sell Out, Queens Of The Stone Age's Songs For The Deaf, Janelle Monáe's The Electric Lady, Vince Staples' FM. It's not surprise that Way sees the album as their "defining work."

Throughout the album's elaborately hyped marketing cycle, which included "secret shows" and a fanciful trailer, MCR released several singles and music videos; most of those showed up in other forms of pop culture, too, such as in the film Movie 43; TV shows like "Teen Wolf" and "The Voice"; and video games like "The Sims 3" and "Gran Turismo 5." There was also a corresponding 48-page book and a three-track EP, The Mad Gear And Missile Kid, the latter of which guitarist Frank Iero billed as being "what The Killjoys are listening to in the car as they're having those gun battles." (Way also created a comic book sequel, "The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys," in 2013.)

Danger Days sold over 1 million copies worldwide within its first three months, peaking at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums charts and securing gold certification by the RIAA. It became a Top 10 hit on the Billboard 200 chart and gained comparable chart placements in Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Finland. True, The Black Parade fared much better—a No. 2 spot on the Billboard 200 chart and a triple-platinum certification by the RIAA—but Danger Days proved quite popular overall, with outlets like The Guardian, NME, Alternative Press, USA Today and Kerrang! praising it.

Overall, Danger Days is awesome. Dr. Death Defying kicks things off with a flashy introduction in "Look Alive, Sunshine," which is peppered with prophetic dissonance. It segues into the anthemic and spunky "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)," a stadium rock gem that embodies how Danger Days frequently repurposes MCR's beloved foundation into a glitzier and freer environment. Similarly, "Sing" places the group's recognizable antagonism beneath a sparser and lighter vibe. 

Afterward, "Planetary (GO!)" offers a bit of unabashed dance-punk that is irresistibly enjoyable. Meanwhile, "Party Poison" incorporates a glam rock edge into its celebratory ethos, whereas "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" is a shimmering ballad and "Summertime" is a synthy slice of impassioned romanticism. In general, these tracks, among others, do a pleasing and commendable job of infusing new timbres and styles into their formula.

In contrast, the angsty forcefulness and straightforward strength of "Bulletproof Heart," "Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back" and "The Only Hope For Me Is You" recall more of MCR's earlier DNA. There's even a touch of post-hardcore heaviness on "Destroya," as well as some requisite emo fatalism and hyperbolic sentimentality on "The Kids From Yesterday." Closer "Vampire Money," written in reaction to people wanting them to contribute a song to the Twilight films, evokes the British attitude of The Rolling Stones and The Kinks before oozing classic rock 'n' roll charm, albeit with far more sharpness.

Danger Days may have been the beginning of the end for My Chemical Romance—at least until the band's very public reunion last year. Still, it's surely MCR's artistic peak, with an expansively entertaining storyline, a wide breadth of stylistic approaches and clever promotional tactics leading to a cumulatively greater sense of purpose and imagination. Thus, Danger Days stands as both their swan song and superlative release—that is, until we finally get that fifth studio album. 

What It Meant To Me Will Eventually Be A Memory: Linkin Park's 'Hybrid Theory' Turns 20

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
Top
Logo
  • Recording Academy
    • About
    • Governance
    • Press Room
    • Jobs
    • Events
  • GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
    • Store
    • FAQ
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Cultural Foundation
    • Members
    • Press
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • COLLECTION:live
    • Explore
    • Exhibits
    • Education
    • Support
    • Programs
    • Donate
  • MusiCares
    • About
    • Get Help
    • Give
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
  • Advocacy
    • About
    • News
    • Learn
    • Act
  • Membership
    • Chapters
    • Producers & Engineers Wing
    • GRAMMY U
    • Join
Logo

© 2021 - Recording Academy. All rights reserved.

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Copyright Notice
  • Contact Us

Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy.