Linkin Park v Radiohead

[Jordan]

That's such a subjective claim though. People had been using effects on instruments long before this album Loveless (that I admittedly know nothing about) came out. "Instruments started to sound a lot different" doesn't exactly hold up as a good argument as to why the album was a game changer.

Dude from Boards of Canada said it better than me:

Mike: Well, that's a great compliment. Of course we are massive fans of My Bloody Valentine. Loveless is probably one of my top five favorite albums of all time. I think that, even if we don't sound like them, there's a connection in terms of the approach to the music. The idea of making music where it's really difficult to figure out which instruments you are listening to but you just don't care. At the same time we also tried to get away from the notion that our music is entirely contained within electronic boxes. It never has been and we are not big fans of laptop music. So this time we really wanted to try and break out. We're not trying to be an IDM band and we're not trying to be a Warp band or anything.

Loveless was the first album to use the "making music where it's really difficult to figure out which instruments you are listening to but you just don't care" approach. Instruments had effects on them before sure, but not as extreme to the point where they were being used as textures as on Loveless.

Why does it matter about whether or not the bands it influenced had to influence "anything important"? The fact that it made musicians change the way they made music should be important enough.

Good job avoiding my first question: what else did Radiohead influence?

And it matters because Loveless influenced Boards of Canada, Nine Inch Nails, M83 and Radiohead who all went on to influence more stuff vs. Radiohead influencing Coldplay and Muse, doesn't look so good in a comparison of importance.

[Louis]

So, let's just calm down for one second before we continue, and take a breather, because this thread is absurd.

We're comparing Radiohead and Linkin Park, not other bands. So, why don't we stop bringing other bands into the discussion and solely focus on what we'e been talking about here.

I also just want to say that, as others said, the comparison between the two is difficult, considering how vastly different the genres and time periods are. I'll still argue that Radiohead is the better band all things considered, and they've released much better material over the course of their career. However, someone commented earlier that Radiohead's been around for a hell of a lot longer than Linkin Park, which is a valid point. It's hard to compare the careers of both of these bands because Radiohead comes from a different place and a different time. Radiohead surged when Grunge was popular, they tried their own take and decided to continually reinvent themselves because they hated the idea of being just another rock band. Linkin Park surged when Nu-Metal was popular and perfected the art, and then decided that the genre was a dead horse to be beaten, and are making efforts to expand outward. The stories are strikingly similar, but here-in lies the issue:

OK Computer is arguably one of the best albums of the last 25 years, without question. Radiohead smashed Brit-Pop and opened the gateway for a hell of a lot of bands to come in. Yes, Radiohead drew a lot of influence from other bands (i.e. The Pixies, The Beatles, etc.), but what they made was very unique in the scope of what was popular at the time. Then, they went away from it entirely with Kid A and Amnesiac and since then have been continually changing every single time with every single album. Every album is good. Every one of their albums has been critically acclaimed on a wide scale, and honestly, imagine Linkin Park trying to sell a record on their own and ask people to pay what they want. Radiohead got more money off of less records. Do you think Linkin Park could do that?

The answer is no. Linkin Park can't do that, mostly because of the nature of the fan base. Not that I would describe any of you here as fickle, but generally, this is what the fan base is. That's why this site gets popular when albums come out but almost dies when the band tours or stops touring. Radiohead fans are quite different, and I'm not saying they're better in any way, but they have a reason to continually keep coming back and maintain a high level of commitment to Radiohead.

What I'm saying is that Radiohead has given listeners more reasons to keep coming back. You can listen to Radiohead's music and you can hear six or seven different bands, really, so there's a widespread appeal there that Linkin Park simply does not have. Linkin Park perfected one genre, and ultimately is creating something of their own (I've never heard anything like A Thousand Suns before), but there's another problem here: Most Linkin Park fans want the old nu-metal stuff, which really hurts the band. I'm sure in retrospect people will appreciate ATS, but in the meantime, people on a wide scale aren't digging it that much.

Radiohead's Kid A was different because people embraced it despite the major change. It was a huge deal for people, for Radiohead to make such a change. Linkin Park, with their historically mainstream popularity, did not receive that kind of attention. And there's a reason for all of this. There's a reason why everyone has constantly been looking at Radiohead and not at Linkin Park. Radiohead is a better band with more talent. If you take every single person in Radiohead and line them up with every single person in Linkin Park, there's no comparison. The talent is better, the musical coordination is better, the music is better. The innovation is more impressive.

This is all my opinion, but I think it holds some validity considering the historical contexts of each band's discography. There's a reason why Radiohead can afford to sell an album and have people pay what they want. There's a reason why Radiohead concerts to this day sell out in seconds. Are they the most influential band ever? No, and no one should be trying to say they are. Are they the most innovative band ever? No, but of present-day? Yes. There's no other band right now who can match the level of innovation that Radiohead has. There's no other band reinventing themselves and still making good music to the extent that Radiohead is.

Is that to say that Linkin Park can't do that? No. Linkin Park has so much time ahead of them to be on that level, and they have the capacity to. What other band do you really know of, coming from the same era as Linkin Park, is so hell-bent on pushing their levels of creativity just to do something different? No one else. A lot of other bands who came out of the same genre are still doing the same things because they do not have the musical capacity or desire to try anything different.

So there's nothing elitist about saying Radiohead is better or saying one band is better than the other, and I want to make that clear. Just because I love Radiohead and appreciate their fan base more, it does not mean that somehow I look down on Linkin Park. Linkin Park means just as much to me as Radiohead does. Linkin Park has been a part of my life since I was an adolescent, and I won't stop listening to them because I know they've got nothing but better times ahead of them. I don't know if you guys realize just how insanely different A Thousand Suns is from anything else Linkin Park has done, or from anything else out there right now. It's tremendous, and the potential is there. We just have to be patient.

Until then, you guys really have to calm down because this is not worth getting upset over.

[Shao Tsung]

Btw, I was wrong about Loveless and OK Computer being released in the same year (actually six years apart lol), but I guess the two are still comparable in being two of the more critically revered albums of the 90s. As far as Radiohead having more of an impact on the mainstream I don't know if I can exactly agree. Loveless influenced albums like Boards of Canada's Music Has The Right To Children (fairly well documented) and Daft Punk's Discovery (gonna have to trust me on this one as I can't really find where I read this, but a lot of the weirder guitar synths at least sound loveless-influenced) that went on to be incredibly influential on the mainstream, and Loveless definitely represented a shift in music where instruments started to sound a lot different than their natural sound.

I guess you can't exactly credit Loveless for creating overuse of reverb on vocals or turning guitars into swirling electronic instruments, but similar to what you said with Radiohead, MBV were pretty much the first band to bring that kind of experimentation to a wider audience - probably because their songs followed pop structures.

With that said, in 2012, how many singles have sounds that aren't heavily altered by effects? I also have to state that Radiohead were most certainly influenced by MBV.

Derek: Music is waaaay more serious to me than politics and religion.

I had a nicely-written response to this, but Firefox decided to crash.

To sum it up: it's probably a wash, to be honest. I specified "mainstream" because, I'll admit, I don't think underground musicians are trying to push the envelope because they listened to Radiohead. But some of the bigger bands like Arcade Fire? Yeah, I think Radiohead had a bigger influence on those types of bands than MBV. Even then, I think the influence has less to do with sound and more to do with approach. However, as your post points out, tracing influence can be difficult -- just because I think a band has a certain influence doesn't mean they do. I do like both bands, though, so I don't have a dog in this race. (See, Louis, we can be civil!)



As for Radiohead and Linkin Park, they're not comparable as far as I'm concerned. I don't think Linkin Park will have much of a lasting influence on music, but most bands don't. It's not a bad thing.

[Shadester]

This is perhaps one of the best articles on Radiohead's impact:http://www.mulevariations.com/featur...nturies-part-1

It's long, but worth it if you're a fan of music at all.

[Louis]

This is perhaps one of the best articles on Radiohead's impact:http://www.mulevariations.com/featur...nturies-part-1

It's long, but worth it if you're a fan of music at all.

This is a fucking excellent article. Somewhat lyrically inaccurate, but very well written regardless. I don't like what it has to say about Hail to the Thief. That was a fucking great album, but everyone has their opinions.

[Jordan]

Until then, you guys really have to calm down because this is not worth getting upset over.

I might read through everything you guys have written when I have time, but I have a problem with this statement. Do you seriously think that writing a few paragraphs means the users involved have an emotional investment in the argument? You just wrote 8 paragraphs so I assume you understand that, and really shouldn't accuse people of it.

[Derek]

What's really odd in my opinion is just how much Linkin Park's career trajectory seems to be mirroring that of Radiohead, albeit completely unintentionally. While it can be argued that Linkin Park's debut album broke new ground more than Radiohead's did (with all due respect to Louis...Radiohead's debut was simple grunge, whereas Hybrid Theory was unfairly tagged as nu-metal despite being something "different"), the paths are eerily similar. Both bands released similar sounding debut and sophomore albums (that introduced new ideas but ultimately were similar), but broke out of their old conventions with their third album, eventually following the third album with a game changer for album #4.

As much as it hasn't been labeled as such yet, and likely won't for a few years...A Thousand Suns is a very important album and is certainly a game changer. It is an album that dared to call itself an "album" when 90% of mainstream artists were releasing songs filled with "singles", with little attention given to the cohesion of those albums as a whole. ATS deliberately marketed it as an "experience" instead of a CD, and I felt that was very risky for a band of Linkin Park's size and recognition to do at this point in their career. When you look at it in simple terms: the comparisons to Kid A are extremely warranted. Both albums completely polarized their respective fan-bases (with some fans wanting the older sound back, and others embracing it full stop) and spit in the face of mainstream rock music of it's time, making something "new" and "fresh" and unheard of previously.

It's not correct to say Kid A was widely accepted when it first came out because it wasn't. I still know people who wish Radiohead were "grunge" again, and I feel Kid A's reception exactly mirrors what the Linkin Park fanbase is encountering with A Thousand Suns right now. It was the album for Linkin Park that made them totally break away from nu-metal conventions, and create something that only they could create and that wasn't heard before that point. It is the "line in the sand" (so to speak) between the Linkin Park of old, and the Linkin Park of now and both bands did this on their 4th album. If Radiohead's history is anything to go by, Linkin Park are just getting started.

Provided they stay together, I have a big feeling Linkin Park will be to a future generation, what Radiohead is to this generation. They have the potential, and they've shown it many times already.

[Louis]

I might read through everything you guys have written when I have time, but I have a problem with this statement. Do you seriously think that writing a few paragraphs means the users involved have an emotional investment in the argument? You just wrote 8 paragraphs so I assume you understand that, and really shouldn't accuse people of it.

No, not necessarily. But I've observed some tension, and I've been on these forums long enough and posted here frequently enough to tell when people are emotionally invested and when they're not. I can tell when people are getting in each other's faces, and that's happened throughout this thread multiple times. And you're most certainly a culprit of this, so I'd be mindful of what you say if I were you.

But honestly, there has to be emotional investment if we take the time to sit down and write a lot. If you had no emotional investment, why would you write so much in the first place? My posts in this thread have been extensive because I love both of these bands but have taken on a serious appreciation of Radiohead. Naturally, I'm going to write at length as others have. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm just trying to make sure people aren't bashing each other's opinions in doing so.

[Jordan]

I argue things to pass time and for fun, rarely because I actually care. When I write a lot it's because I have to prove a point by making my argument more solid, not because I love something so much I have to defend it. I don't get why everyone on the internet reads peoples' arguments with an angry tone, when forums are pretty much designed for debating.

[Louis]

I argue things to pass time and for fun, rarely because I actually care. When I write a lot it's because I have to prove a point by making my argument more solid, not because I love something so much I have to defend it. I don't get why everyone on the internet reads peoples' arguments with an angry tone, when forums are pretty much designed for debating.

Forums are designed for dialoguing. Debating implies that there's always an argument, and that someone always has to win or lose, and that's simply not the case. If you're posting on forums for the simple sake of trying to out-argue people, then you have the wrong idea. That doesn't make it fun for anyone.

[El Muerto]

That's what does make it fun. If you're just typing shit out and don't care if you're wrong or right, that's just a waste of time.

[Jordan]

Louis: I have no idea what you mean in your second sentence. Forums are the only place, outside of school debate teams, where due to the convenience of you already being on the internet, you can have a decent debate backed up by facts and quotes etc. So why wouldn't you use forums for it? Debate is a trillion times more fun than posting friendly bullshit, smileys, memes, youtube videos or w/e.

[Xero21]

As much as it hasn't been labeled as such yet, and likely won't for a few years...A Thousand Suns is a very important album and is certainly a game changer. It is an album that dared to call itself an "album" when 90% of mainstream artists were releasing songs filled with "singles", with little attention given to the cohesion of those albums as a whole. ATS deliberately marketed it as an "experience" instead of a CD, and I felt that was very risky for a band of Linkin Park's size and recognition to do at this point in their career. When you look at it in simple terms: the comparisons to Kid A are extremely warranted. Both albums completely polarized their respective fan-bases (with some fans wanting the older sound back, and others embracing it full stop) and spit in the face of mainstream rock music of it's time, making something "new" and "fresh" and unheard of previously.

As much as I love A Thousand Suns, and as much as I agree with most of what you said, I don't believe the bolded statement is or will ever be true. A Thousand Suns was a game-changer for Linkin Park as a band, but not for the grand scheme of music. The fact that the band stuck with the idea of presenting an "album" rather than a "collection of singles" is completely admirable and certainly has more artistic integrity, but so what? What makes A Thousand Suns so special in that regard? Are we saying that it's the only mainstream "album" to be released this decade? What about Kid A? Year Zero? The Suburbs? Fear of a Blank Planet? The Resistance? Give Up? Transatlanticism? My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy? Those are all just examples from taking a quick glance at my iTunes, and there are of course many more.

Why is it that A Thousand Suns should/will be getting special hindsight recognition as a "game-changer" but those other albums won't? ATS wasn't even the only mainstream artistic "album" to come out in 2010, much less the past decade. Just because the album had a similar reception to Kid A initially doesn't mean it will have anywhere near the same impact.

I've thought for the longest time that Linkin Park is currently stuck between a rock and a hard place in their music vs the rest of the music industry. This is because their fanbase wants a bunch of pseudo-metal pop nonsense like Meteora, but the band doesn't want to just be that. On the flip side, the more critical and artistic side of music dismisses Linkin Park because they made nonsense like Meteora, so they don't give the new stuff a chance. So Linkin Park is constantly in this struggle of not wanting to completely abandon their teenage-angst ridden original fanbase, while trying to make music that is truly artistic, and thus far the result seems to be that they only get a small bit of both.

[Bennington_Hahn]

As much as I love A Thousand Suns, and as much as I agree with most of what you said, I don't believe the bolded statement is or will ever be true. A Thousand Suns was a game-changer for Linkin Park as a band, but not for the grand scheme of music. The fact that the band stuck with the idea of presenting an "album" rather than a "collection of singles" is completely admirable and certainly has more artistic integrity, but so what? What makes A Thousand Suns so special in that regard? Are we saying that it's the only mainstream "album" to be released this decade? What about Kid A? Year Zero? The Suburbs? Fear of a Blank Planet? The Resistance? Give Up? Transatlanticism? My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy? Those are all just examples from taking a quick glance at my iTunes, and there are of course many more.

Why is it that A Thousand Suns should/will be getting special hindsight recognition as a "game-changer" but those other albums won't? ATS wasn't even the only mainstream artistic "album" to come out in 2010, much less the past decade. Just because the album had a similar reception to Kid A initially doesn't mean it will have anywhere near the same impact.

I've thought for the longest time that Linkin Park is currently stuck between a rock and a hard place in their music vs the rest of the music industry. This is because their fanbase wants a bunch of pseudo-metal pop nonsense like Meteora, but the band doesn't want to just be that. On the flip side, the more critical and artistic side of music dismisses Linkin Park because they made nonsense like Meteora, so they don't give the new stuff a chance. So Linkin Park is constantly in this struggle of not wanting to completely abandon their teenage-angst ridden original fanbase, while trying to make music that is truly artistic, and thus far the result seems to be that they only get a small bit of both.

I don't think that was the point Derek was making. ATS was JUST a game-changer for LP as a band - Exactly that like you said. I doubt Derek meant it like in the "grand scheme of the things". If it was, critics would have raved about it and it would have gone on to be one of the most lorded albums of the decade. which sadly it was not. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Louis]

Louis: I have no idea what you mean in your second sentence. Forums are the only place, outside of school debate teams, where due to the convenience of you already being on the internet, you can have a decent debate backed up by facts and quotes etc. So why wouldn't you use forums for it? Debate is a trillion times more fun than posting friendly bullshit, smileys, memes, youtube videos or w/e.

Let me clarify for you:

Yes, forums are a great way to debate with people, and discuss certain issues and make an argument towards particular viewpoints. However, on a more general note, forums aren't made to debate. It's made for you to interact with people with similar interests. Naturally, there will be debate, but I personally feel that if the only reason you're posting is to out-argue someone and make yourself look better / smarter, you're wasting your time. You alienate people. You end up going into threads, like this one, that could have been just a simple, "I think Radiohead is better and here's why" or "I think Linkin Park is better and here's why" and then start telling people why their opinion is wrong when opinions can't be wrong or right.

I suppose the point is, not everything is a debate. You can't make everything a debate. Some conversations end up not being so fun when it turns from just talking about it to, "Here's why you're wrong and I'm right." Someone ends up getting hurt, because inevitably someone has to take something personally and insult the other. Then it's really not fun. Linkin Park v. Radiohead isn't about trying to outargue someone. It's about just expressing your opinion and seeing what people think about each. Sometimes, it's just dialogue, not debate.

[Jordan]

You're talking about so much stuff that's irrelevant to what I'm saying. a) I don't debate to make myself look better or smarter - I guarantee that in most arguments I get in on forums people think of me less because of it - I debate to pass time (time that I'm choosing to use this way, time that is not wasted in my eyes) and for fun. b) in this argument (radiohead vs. mbv in influence) it's not a matter of opinion - most of what was argued could be backed up by facts. c) if somebody takes offense to something said on the internet from a faceless person to another faceless person, they shouldn't be on the internet. d) radiohead vs. linkin park was an incredibly boring discussion (that was a troll post), and we're several pages past it. e) "here's why you're wrong and I'm right" is the basis of every debate ever, and although no argument is as black and white as that, I don't see anything wrong with that mindset.

And how can you say that forums are made "to interact with people with similar interests" any more than I can say that they're made to debate. That's like telling me my opinion is wrong... And we're debating about debating right now, I'm pretty sure I CAN make everything a debate.

[Vdalem]

This should be over and done with. It's starting to get old and trust me I'm nearly old! lol

[Louis]

You're talking about so much stuff that's irrelevant to what I'm saying. a) I don't debate to make myself look better or smarter - I guarantee that in most arguments I get in on forums people think of me less because of it - I debate to pass time (time that I'm choosing to use this way, time that is not wasted in my eyes) and for fun. b) in this argument (radiohead vs. mbv in influence) it's not a matter of opinion - most of what was argued could be backed up by facts. c) if somebody takes offense to something said on the internet from a faceless person to another faceless person, they shouldn't be on the internet. d) radiohead vs. linkin park was an incredibly boring discussion (that was a troll post), and we're several pages past it. e) "here's why you're wrong and I'm right" is the basis of every debate ever, and although no argument is as black and white as that, I don't see anything wrong with that mindset.

And how can you say that forums are made "to interact with people with similar interests" any more than I can say that they're made to debate. That's like telling me my opinion is wrong... And we're debating about debating right now, I'm pretty sure I CAN make everything a debate.

For the sake of not prolonging this and getting back on topic, perhaps I am just misinterpreting what you're trying to say. At the end of the day, I just don't want this particular thread becoming a bash-fest, which is what was happening. That is all.

[soun'wave]

Kid A wasn't always cemented as the album that changed mainstream music. Infact when it came out it was very polarising, and alot of radiohead fans and critics viewed it as either commercial suicide or just electronic garbage (the title track is nearly always cited next to that comment). Of course there were some critics that put it straight on a pedestal and its remained there since, but it was only really in the aftermath that Kid A has ascended to "most important album of the 21st Century" status, with alot of genres like electronica and areas of indie to the mainstream. With the lack of single and everybody expecting them to make OK Computer part 2, I think making the opening three songs drop guitars entirely was a bold gamble, that has paid off.

I find that LP are more consistent throughout albums, whereas Radiohead will make 3 or 4 great songs and then throw a curveball that isn't too interesting. I find its an unfair comparison to compare ATS to Kid A. While on the surface they seem comparable (fourth album ,electronic influenced, unexpected turn in style), Kid A was made at a time where electronic music wasn't as popular or accessible, alot of albums were still being recorded onto tape, so computer manipulation and experimental instruments was very alien, but in this day and age, you can put together songs quickly using plugins and a laptop.

in terms of who writes the better songs I think its a preference even on a technical level. Yorke tends to alienate people by alluding to a subject (such as idioteque) without really giving a definitive stance on anything, which is desired effect, Thom loves to alienate but alot of LP's stuff is emotively written, to allow people to connect and feel it, rather than promote thoughts, although alot of ATS contains alot of depth, and is open to alot more interpretation. Musically, I find that Radiohead trumps due to differing time signatures, and experimental instrumentation and key's, they're not afraid to go completely out of the box (which is alot easier for an unsigned band), but I really enjoyed the soundscapes of a thousand suns alot. I'd like to see LP push the boundary alot more as I find their compositional style alot more emotive, plus I enjoy the hip-hop elements weaving in and out, which Radiohead lack (unless Ed starts to rap)

I was reading some reviews for ATS the other day, and it was sad that they were still incorrectly branded as nu-metal pop, they never really belonged there and both MTM and ATS have been alot better all round than "critically acclaimed" bands like Coldplay (who ride on the coat tails of the Radiohead success) and I think this skews their image alot, and their attempts to break the stereotype is always labelled as an attempt to "stay relevant" in a nu-metalless world

tl;dr - Linkin Park are more consistent, but Radiohead have innovated alot.

[cloudscream]

What exactly was Radiohead's impact on whatever after the release of OK Computer and Kid A? Was it some kind of a worldwide phenomenon?

Or was it just the case of critics simply talking to themselves and magazines just trying to sell stories?