Music news: Incubus follows Taylor Swift trend, and Billie Eilish does live debut

Taylor Swift is an excellent performer, of course, but she's so much more than that. She's a fantastic businessperson, a great songwriter, and, among many other things, a trendsetter. The band Incubus is now following that trend. Sort of.

Incubus released Morning View in 2001. The album produced singles "Wish You Were Here," "Nice to Know You," Warning," and "Are You In?" The LP sold over 2 million copies and was Incubus' best-selling record at the time. To be fair, however, while Morning View isn't a bad record, it's not exactly as important as anything Taylor Swift has ever done.

A big difference between what Swift is doing compared to Incubus is that Swift is re-recording albums so that she has more control over the masters of the record. This means she gets to choose how the music is used well after the album has been recorded instead of a record company using the songs for commercial use. Incubus appears to be re-recording Morning View simply to give their fans "a fresh new take on the songs."

Incubus resembles Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish does a song live for the first time

A cynical way of looking at would be that Incubus simply doesn't have a lot of new ideas and are just rehashing old ones. Swift is re-recording old records but also producing excellent new music. But if you are an Incubus fan, you'll be happy to hear the band is performing Morning View XXIII, as the re-recorded album will be called, live at the Hollywood Bowl on October 6th.

Other music news and analysis

Speaking of live performances, Billie Eilish performed single "What Was I Made For?" at Lollapalooza. This is the first time she has done her single from the Barbie soundtrack live. In classic Eliish style, her singing was extremely emotive and tender.

Eilish, like Swift, continues to evolve and not rely on her past successes to keep fans liking her. She has a unique style as well, obviously. What she does over the next decade will be very interesting to watch.