This single is from Incubus's fourth album. In hindsight, I should have stopped after their second, but I've never been very good at that. I think for most people, when a band releases an album they're not into (let's call it Morning View) they stop listening to a band, assuming they've "gone shit". I've always been willing to give bands the benefit of doubt, which usually means buying the album after the shit one too. In almost every case, this has been a mistake as, invariably, the next is even worse (let's call it A Crow Left of the Murder). I'll never learn, but one day it'll pay off and I'll be glad of it.
Talk Shows On Mute was from A Crow Left of the Murder, an album I'd bought a few months beforehand, which means I knew the song wasn't very good. However, it's quite likely that when I saw this 7" in my local HMV I couldn't remember exactly which song it was; playing it now, it is remarkably unremarkable for a single. It's unmemorable for a b-side, let alone a late-album filler track, so how it ended up a single I don't know.
How it ended up in my record collection is an easy mystery to unpick - it's on coloured vinyl, and has a live version of Vitamin, a song from the era of them being the band people wanted them to be. That said, the bongo solo emphasises that they were just preppy dicks really (something I should've noticed much earlier). Somewhere in there, apparently, is a cover of Hello by Lionel Richie, but if there is it's just a verse and hard to pick out. Side B is basically just one song, so implying there are two on the sleeve seems a bit misleading.
Format: 7"
Tracks: 3
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: HMV, Lancaster
When: 07/06/04
Colour: Yellow
Etching: none
mp3s: no
