I don't make it a secret, Linkin Park is my favorite band. While they have millions of followers/fans/stalkers, there are a number of people who have as much hatred for them as I do love. They toss around such labels as 'sellouts,' 'manufactured,' etc. I respect people's opinions, even if they are wrong. It's just who I am as a person. But it's the opinions of people who claim that they also love the band but hate them now that baffle me. I've seen more people who say, "I use to like them, but now they suck," than people who just out and out say they don't care for them.
I'd point out a line from one of their new songs from A Thousand Suns, their latest effort that was released yesterday. From the song "When They Come for Me:" "'Cause once you got a theory of how the thing works/ Everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first..." So, from that I gather the band knows that critics and listeners are expecting more of the same (which is what the "fans" want), but the band doesn't want to repeat themselves. It's actually an odd song, and my girlfriend cracks up when Mike swears. She's right, it seems unnatural. I know, he's sworn in songs before (Bleed It Out comes to mind), but it still sounds funny.
As for the album itself? It is an odd duck. The band has said that A Thousand Suns works best as a whole (there even appears to be an option to by the album on iTunes as one, long track), which I agree with. Unfortunately, the sum of its parts doesn't quite match up to the whole here. There are 15 tracks, the most off of any of their studio efforts to date (non-remix/collaboration albums).
However, that number is misleading. The first two tracks "The Requiem" and "The Radiance" are really just one intro track broken into two for the sake of fluffing the album. Track 5, "Empty Spaces," is just that. It's 18 seconds long. 18! Was that really necessary? There's also the track, "Wisdom, Justice, and Love," which, much like "The Radiance," is a soundbyte meant to sound dramatic. I know everyone in the band said that this was to be an experimental, concept album. But really? Did we need four tracks that are just filler?
What music there is on here is pretty good. I don't know if it tops Minutes to Midnight, Meteora, or Hybrid Theory, but the songs are pretty good. Notice I said songs. Not weird, grainy voice clips or 18 seconds of filler.
When the band said they were experimenting with styles, they were not lying. I felt a bit of a Jack Johnson (sorry if I got that wrong) vibe on one track, and there seems to be a hip hop influence (though with LP's usual edge) on another. The rest are a mix between the 'revolution' message that started with M2M and something a bit more introspective. While I felt the standouts were "Wretches and Kings" (I'm a sucker for Shinoda's flow, what can I say?) "Robot Boy" "Burning in the Sky" and "Iradescent," the rest of the album is decent and it'll be stuck in your head for days. That is, if you give it chance (and you like LP's music...)
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