My thoughts on Living Things: The point of this album is to sell records and get LP back in the mainstream, but what if it doesn't? This will surely bring them back to the same position they were when they made Hybrid Theory, making songs literally to survive, but this time it would be for their reputation musically, rather than financial reasons being on top of that. Thoughts?
Hybrid Theory was fluke in terms of it's sheer sales, literally nothing they could do would get them another diamond album. Eminem, one of the most prolific and praised artists of the decade, hasn't had a diamond album in a decade, just to demonstrate how hard it is to hit those heights. 10 years ago, the type of music Linkin Park made was extremely profitable, and whether they intended it to be or not, that helped them enormously. However, they've never been a critically praised band at all. People who talk about how horrible the band is now and how far they've fallen off seriously don't believe people when they tell them that the band has more or less always been a joke. I guess what i'm getting at is they've never been that celebrated, but at the same time even at their lowpoint they've never exactly been tanking, either. You have to remember it's been a decade since they've debuted, and very, very few bands stay monstrously big 10 years after the fact.
If the rest of Living Things go in the direction of A Thousand Suns (more creative experimentation), they could continue building more fans who appreciate creative and artistic music. If Living things is more of a mainstream record, there's a good chance that they'll lose a lot of the A Thousand Suns fans. If this record resembles Meteora in any way, I will be very, very dissapointed.
I'd just like the explosiveness of the first two albums back with the meaningful lyrics of the last two, I hope they are pushing in that direction when they talk about the new hybrid theory.
I agree with most of what you said. Right now I'm hoping BID isn't a true representation of the album. Not that it's a bad songs by any means. I've never disliked it and it's grown on me with more listens but it's a safe song. It feels like what ATS would be if LP had been too afraid to push things to the limit on ATS. Lyrically it's nothing to write home about. I can bop my head to it but it falls back into the Meteora Linkin Park with lyrics that are too vague with cliches and anger at someone's "lies."
I remember during both "Minutes to Midnight's" and "A Thousand Suns'" album cycles some people were saying they would be the most important albums of their career. I'm just going to assume that whenever a new LP album comes it, it must be the most important-- Ever.
I'm not sure it'll be the most important. Minutes was pretty important, but in saying that, they didn't really nail it and are still here today, making music and feeling happy about their music. From now on, it's a case of trying to find that one album that will be remembered for being one of the best albums anyone has heard. They are popular enough, and making the music they want to make, so it's really about getting everything right. 99% of bands fail at this task.