Light Grenades

Light Grenades
Studio album by Incubus
Released November 28, 2006
Recorded January - July 2006 at Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood, California and at Southern Tracks Recording in Atlanta, Georgia
Genre Alternative rock
Length 47:39
Label Epic/Immortal
Producer Brendan O'Brien
Incubus chronology
A Crow Left of the Murder...
(2004)		 Light Grenades
(2006)		 If Not Now, When?
(2011)
Singles from Light Grenades
  1. "Anna Molly"
    Released: September 20, 2006
  2. "Dig"
    Released: March 27, 2007
  3. "Oil and Water"
    Released: June 5, 2007
  4. "Love Hurts"
    Released: October 2008
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
Alternative Press[2]
Blender[3]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[4]
IGN(8.8/10)[5]
PopMatters[6]
Rock Sound[7]
Rolling Stone[8]
Spin[9]

Light Grenades is the sixth studio album by alternative rock band Incubus, released on November 28, 2006 on Epic Records. The album sold 359,000 copies during its first week of release worldwide, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 165,000 copies in the U.S. in its first week; it is the band's first number one album.[10] However, until November 20th, 2016, [11][12] Light Grenades held the dubious honor of having the title of the biggest drop from No. 1 in chart history, falling from No. 1 to No. 37 in its second week on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. The album only achieved Gold, breaking a string of Platinum records beginning with 2002's Morning View.[13]

History

"Earth to Bella" and "Love Hurts" made their live debut in front of an audience at the Make Some Noise concert on April 29, 2006.

"A Kiss to Send Us Off" and "Anna Molly" made their live debut on VH1's Decades Rock: Live Tribute to the Pretenders on August 11, 2006, even though the songs were not featured in the program. The same two songs were also performed at Edgefest 2006 on September 30 at Tempe Beach Park, Arizona.

"Rogues" made its debut at a pair of pre album-release shows at the London Astoria and the Berlin Postbahnhof on November 14 and 16 2006.

The songs "Punch Drunk" and "Look Alive" were recorded during the Light Grenades sessions, but were originally only available as bonus tracks on the Japanese edition of the album. Live versions have since seen release worldwide on the Look Alive live DVD. The studio versions of both songs are also on Monuments and Melodies.

Musical style

Mike Einziger, Incubus' guitarist, commented in an interview with MTV that the album "sounds like 13 different bands playing 13 different songs... Every time we're about to start making a new album, I tell myself, 'Okay, this one's going to be cohesive,' and it never happens."[14] For the most part, Light Grenades expands upon the sounds previously explored in 2004's A Crow Left of the Murder....

Other songs showcase a new direction for the band. For example, Brandon Boyd describes the curious recording technique behind "Paper Shoes": "There's a song called 'Paper Shoes' where Michael and I mic'd our bodies with ambient mics and did the percussion tracks pounding on our chests and skulls. The galloping rhythm is us pounding on our chests. It was really funny. We were trying so hard not to laugh because we were sitting there like cavemen beating our chests!"

Themes

When asked about the album title, frontman Brandon Boyd explained: "There's a song called that on the record and it felt like the most pertinent conceptual aspect of the album, the idea of throwing ideas at problems and the ideas explode with light and good results and intention on consciousness. So I started imagining imagery of students in different countries protesting and throwing Molotov cocktails with masks over their faces. But there's one brave student who runs up to the police line and, as opposed to throwing rocks or things that destroy, there's this concept of that one courageous, lonely student running up and throwing ideas and having them actually change things. It just seemed kind of a cool concept: the redefining of weaponry."

Track listing

All tracks written by Incubus. 

No. Title Length
1. "Quicksand"   2:14
2. "A Kiss to Send Us Off"   4:16
3. "Dig"   4:17
4. "Anna Molly"   3:46
5. "Love Hurts"   3:57
6. "Light Grenades"   2:20
7. "Earth to Bella (Part I)"   2:28
8. "Oil and Water"   3:49
9. "Diamonds and Coal"   3:46
10. "Rogues"   3:56
11. "Paper Shoes"   4:17
12. "Pendulous Threads"   5:35
13. "Earth to Bella (Part II)"   2:58

Singles

Charts

Album

Year Chart First Week Sales Position
2006 Billboard Top 200 165,000 1

Singles

Year Single Chart Position
2006 "Anna Molly" Billboard Hot 100 66
Modern Rock Tracks 1
Mainstream Rock Tracks 4
Billboard Pop 100 81
2007 "Dig" Billboard Hot 100 94
Canadian Hot 100 72
Modern Rock Tracks 4
Mainstream Rock Tracks 17
Pop 100 96
Adult Top 40 17
"Oil and Water" Modern Rock Tracks 8
Mainstream Rock Tracks 38
2008 "Love Hurts" Modern Rock Tracks 1

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ Alternative Press review
  3. ↑ Blender review Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Entertainment Weekly review
  5. ↑ IGN review
  6. ↑ PopMatters review
  7. ↑ Rock Sound review
  8. ↑ Rolling Stone review
  9. ↑ Spin review
  10. ↑ Katie Hasty, "Incubus' 'Grenades' Ignite At No. 1", Billboard.com, December 6, 2006.
  11. ↑ Jeff Giles, "Bon Jovi’s ‘This House Is Not for Sale’ Takes Steep Tumble on Sales Charts". Ultimate Classic Rock, 2016-12-01
  12. ↑ Keith Caulfield, "A Tribe Called Quest Returns to No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart After 20-Year Wait". Billboard, 2016-11-20
  13. ↑ RIAA certifications, Recording Industry Association of America, retrieved 2016-12-02
  14. ↑ Chris Harris, "Incubus Find Explosive Cure For Boredom: Light Grenades", MTV.com, August 1, 2006
  15. ↑ "Incubus-Earth to bella (live) pt.2". YouTube. 2009-04-02. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
Preceded by
Kingdom Come by Jay-Z		 Billboard 200 number-one album
December 10, 2006 - December 16, 2006 		Succeeded by
Ciara: The Evolution by Ciara
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