Linkin Park Band • Page 129

I feel like opinions vary on what their creative peak is, lol. But most people’s favs are probably amongst those first four albums, with the other three being more polarizing.

One More Light is uneven, but it has more gems than some people give it credit for. I think the group could do poppier material quite well when things clicked into place. Like, “Heavy” is top tier for me, personally.

 

A thousand suns might be my favorite overall.

 

kinda funny take, because I think Minutes to Midnight is absolutely their safest album that takes zero chances haha

 

I swear, the way people describe “safe” just doesn’t feel consistent and coherent to me, lol.

If I had to use that word to describe one of their releases, it’d probably be for Living Things, my least favorite one. Though The Hunting Party, which I like more than most, could also I guess be argued as very “safe”?

But also, I tend to feel like “safe” in a negative way is different from cases where a band or artist is doing something familiar, but at a confident, “in the pocket” level.

 

Interesting. It was, at the time, absolutely a change-up from the formula of Hybrid Theory and Meteora at least, sometimes in ways that's hard to quantify.

But I think mainly it marked a willingness from the band to not be beholden to an expectation. Mike raps sporadically. Mike sings lead for the first time. Their first real guitar solo. The gospel on Hands Held High. The U2 vibes of Shadow Of The Day. And the album overall leaning far less into anger and heaviness, and turning toward more explicit social commentary.

Maybe these are minor things in retrospect but at the time it seemed new for them and exciting. I've always felt Minutes To Midnight walked so A Thousand Suns could run.

A Thousand Suns is by far the more ambitious album, but I don't think they would have made it if they weren't emboldened from Minutes.

 

I think every album has taken some risks as they became more comfortable with not playing into expectations.

Living Things has stuff like Castle Of Glass and Until It Breaks, and The Hunting Party went in a rawer kind of heavy direction than I think people were expecting.

The disappointment of course usually just goes back to some people just wanting Hybrid Theory.

 

For me, Minutes to Midnight being safe is quantified by the majority of the songs shifting to alt rock radio sounding, mainstream, less aggressive, more broad-reaching, straightforward song structures, less sonic diversity through the album

 

I disagree. There's quite a lot of sonic diversity. Something as heavy as No More Sorrow on the same album as In Between or Valentine's Day?

You can't tell me Given Up, Hands Held High, and The Little Things Give You Away all sound like they use the same formula.

If anything, Hybrid Theory and Meteora are the ones that can mostly be boiled down to Mike-rap-verse, Chester-sing/scream chorus.

 

Hybrid Theory and Meteora are their best for me but there's a lot to love on the albums that followed.

Probably their last two or so albums are their weakest for me?

 

I really firmly believe the band was firing on all cylinders in basically every regard from 2006 through 2010. It sounds dismissive of the work that came before and after, and I do love those albums too, but MTM and ATS are truly leagues above anything else this band made besides Reanimation in my opinion.

They were just trying something new. Mike was specifically writing songs on piano or acoustic guitar first before building the track around it after doing the opposite for nearly their entire career, and since he was already completely switching up his songwriting method, I guess he decided to add something else to the mix

 

I do like that their last couple albums were “a heavy album” and “a poppy album.” Something fun about them starting to take elements of their sound and see how far they could go with each one. If it weren’t for the loss of Chester, wonder what would’ve come next.

 

I always thought, while good, "Meteora" was their safest album because it was basically Hybrid Theory Part II.

 

It's fascinating to look back on their music because at the time Minutes and A Thousand Suns were released, I HATED them. I wanted more music that sounded like Hybrid and Meteora.

Looking back though, I appreciate the later albums way more now because the expectations are gone. I think A Thousand Suns might even be my favorite LP LP.

 

Yeah, I remember being disappointed with the shift in sound on Minutes and A Thousand Suns and the lack of Mike on vocals.

Bleed It Out absolutely rips though and Mike has such a good b-side.

 

LP was my first favorite band, band I was obsessed with.. Listened to day in and day out... I loved Minutes to Midnight, I went to Projekt Revolution 2007.. but the album after that... Completely made me stop listening to the band. I never really checked out anything after that.. I still listen to Reanimation the most out of anything by them.. I love HT and Meteora but something about Reanimation I love.

 

No Roads Left and Across the Line are top tier b-sides

 

yea for this reason, I feel like seeing M2M called safe (and I’d argue it’s not very cohesive) is a wild take. There’s a weird paradox in music, however, where deviating from your trademark sound is risky in that you alienate your core, but pivoting to more marketable music feels intrinsically safe as well. It all comes down to execution evidently. I guess the most accurate way to describe it is that it imposed a safe floor for them, but how it would affect their ceiling was a risk.

It seemed like everybody loathed M2M when it came out, perhaps moreso for what it represented than the quality of the music. Granted, non-heavy alt rock makes/made for good marketable radio music so at the very least, casual listeners will (and did) buoy the albums’ financial success (much in the way taylor swift’s pivot to pop angered a lot of country fans but it was hard to argue a mega star making poppier music is a “risk”).

For what it’s worth I feel like their career had a pretty unique trajectory. They didn’t capture radio as much after M2M, which isn’t too uncommon for mega artists who have the freedom to do what they want, but I felt like each release garnered less and less attention even though it seemed like they were trying to regain status for a while. It really felt like they just weren’t relevant much. Then again their tours stays gigantic. Idk, weird career imo.

still loathe a thousand suns. I’ve said it here before but I’ve never been so mad at an album lol

 

That's okay, we all hold weird opinions sometimes that don't make sense, and we can't explain them.

 

a very good album with maybe their best song on it, Waiting for the End

I get it though, I have an irrational... loathing is a strong word but aversion to Living Things. that album feels so anemic and bland to me every time I try it

 

Live in Texas is the live DVD that made me want to pick up a guitar for real. Brad is also why I still to this day play a PRS with DiMarzio Tone Zone and Air Norton pickups.

My dream was to have his red hybrid theory guitar.. that paint job is saweeeeeeet!

 

The only bad thing about AP.Net being nuked off the internet is not being able to see the initial reactions to now-loved albums. People really hated most of M2M. Lots of “Where’s the hard rock?” and anger that Shinoda was rapping about Bush.

 

I understand the humor and sentiment here but I feel like it’s a perfectly rational opinion given, well, the album (or lack thereof). But again, kudos to them for being bold, it’s an achievement regardless.

 

Linkin Park's twitter account just posted this.. if u click on Linkin Park official website link it shows a countdown!! So thoughts and predictions?

 

New music/ tour