Now we have had plenty of reviews of this album but I think the best time to review an album is right before the next one comes out. Why? Simply because you figure out how you really feel towards it before ignoring it and being sucked in by the next chapter. Living Things in my final opinion ties with Meteora as Linkin Park's worst record. Even the more diverse and "experimental" tracks on this album aren't too special and really show nothing new brought to the table. The first five songs sound like a more electronic and polished version of a handful of Meteora songs. "Lost In The Echo" is a battle between I will never give up lyrics and broken promises "In My Remains" lyrically doesn't even connect, and "Burn It Down" easily could've been a car commercial instrumental. "Castle Of Glass" shows an improvement in their songwriting but overall is bland and the buildup to the final chorus is nothing special. "Victimized" and "Until It Breaks" are pro tools cut and paste songs that lack structure for the sake of lacking structure. Until It Breaks shows some Fort Minor-esque verses, but even then the song just doesn't make sense. It's a disaster and even Brad's random singing just doesn't do it justice as it resolves a song that was a catastrophe to begin with. "Roads Untraveled" and "Skin To Bone" are highlights of the album, the first lyrically and the second instrumentally. The closing track combination of Tinfoil/Powerless is something just so predictable from the band. They aren't awful, just bland and forgettable. This album as a whole is forgettable at best and seemed like a step backwards in the band's mindset. Claiming to have written folk songs as demos surely doesn't make this album any more groundbreaking, but just kind of throws people off. This album is pretty much like the movie Groundhog Day. No matter how many times you listen to it and no matter what mood you're in, it gets repetitive quick, and doesn't fully satisfy you. They said this album was a fire cracker, and that's exactly what you get. A compacted trip down memory lane with dance-y reincarnations of Meteora songs. Overall: 5/10. Now that I'm older I can redo the ever so popular album chain equation thingamajig. MTM = ATS > HT > LT > Meteora
Yeah I don't agree with like 95% of the people on the LPA. I love Living Things. My second favorite album after Minutes to Midnight. Don't know what it is about Lost in the Echo, In My Remains, and I'll Be Gone, but I just love those songs. It's probably their catchy-ness. Burn it Down... Meh not really good. Lies Greed Misery: Don't really listen to it, ever. Castle of Glass: Awesome song. Relatable lyrics, Mike singing, it's got a bit of that catchy-ness to it, and it has an awesome music video for an awesome game. Victimized: Again, meh. I like that first verse, though. Roads Untraveled: No need to say anything. One of my all-time favorite songs. Skin to Bone: Pretty good, but zwieE.Z.'s remix makes it ten times better. Until it Breaks: Nice to hear Mike rapping and Brad singing. Tinfoil / Powerless: Tinfoil is an awesome instrumental (almost as good as Session) that goes along with an awesome closer song. Minutes to Midnight > Living Things > A Thousand Suns > Hybrid Theory > Meteora Sorry if that's a bland review. I'm not good at explaining things, especially when it comes to music. I either hate it, dislike it, like it, or love it.
I'm mostly pretty happy with the second half of "Living Things". The songs are different from the ones on "A Thousand Suns" and, yet, they're still kind of interesting. "Breaks" is one of my top-favourite Linkin Park songs (pending new album)
I find Powerless to be up their with the likes of TLTGYA and Waiting for the End. Oh well. MTM = ATS > Reanimation = Hybrid Theory > LT, Pt. 2 (Castle of Glass to Powerless) > Meteora >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> LT, Pt. 1 (Lost in the Echo to I'll Be Gone)
I think that it's a good album. LITE to me was a great modernized version of old school LP, Mike's third verse is epic and the song stands up as one of the bands best rap rock songs. IMR is a good song, Chester sounds amazing on it, Mike's part is good and the one by one gang vocal line up was great. BIT is decent, it's just a fun pop song that's great for radio. LGM I'd put among their worst songs, Mike's club rapping was kind of neat and the final scream part was fun but over all the song is pretty meh. IBG is just a decent song, nothing special. COG is great, one of their best songs for me. Victimized is decent, it's neat but overall really sloppy. RU is a good song, some of their deepest lyrics. STB is great, the whole electronic folk instrumental is great and the simplistic lyrics really work on the song for me. UIB is also great, Mike is great on it and Brad's vocals are a huge highlight of the album. Tinfoil is alright, nothing special really but I'm glad they didn't stick it on Powerless. Powerless is great, another song that I would rank among the band's best. Overall I have LT tied with MTM for their second best album behind ATS.
LIVING THINGS is definitely my favorite album to listen to when I wanna enjoy myself. I use it very often to workout and my friends thoroughly enjoy some of the tracks off the album. The only complaint I would have is the fact that it isn't very consistent, but who am I to determine what is consistent or not, the guys must have chosen the order the album played in for a reason. The only songs I don't enjoy off the album are Roads Untraveled and Until It Breaks, which in my case, means I enjoy LT a lot more than Meteora and even more so than Hybrid Theory. The album did exactly as it was intended to be, very energetic based. Something I noticed among the LPA community is that they shun off Meteora and LIVING THINGS which definitely had some of LP's more energetic and pop infused tracks. Argue with me all you like, but 90% of you guys favor songs like SOTD, Iridescent, TLTGYA, and pretty much all their very mellow and slow tracks. That just isn't me. I'll take LIES GREED MISERY over the majority of MTM almost anyday (tho it really does depend on my mood). LIVING THINGS might not come off as "intelligent" as the "all mighty ATS" did, but I'm not making the mistake of comparing it to their previous works which simply diminishes the feel of the album.
For me, the first half is kind of shit, a huge step back from ATS. A modern version of Meteora, the second half is awesome though I love every song that comes after I'll Be Gone
Meteora gets a bad rap, but next to LIVING THINGS it isn't so bad when comparing the motive between each respective record. The band intended on unleashing a sophomore album that ebbed a vibe of the grandoise. It didn't pan out that was of course, but the passion behind the production bled through and the success garnered from Meteora cemented the band's status. Subjectively, it was one of their worst; indefinitely it was their double-edged sword. Alternatively, LIVING THINGS comes off as a record the band put together with ease. It was a little 'cookie-cutter' with a strong dash of their experimental approach. Presumably, the album was remolded into a more accessible and radio-friendly release. A solid offering, but was ultimately an uneventful release. In hindsight, Linkin Park has yet to release a completely terrible record. Highlights: CASTLE OF GLASS ROADS UNTRAVELED SKIN TO BONE TINFOIL 6.5/10
Having this new album coming up soon helps me appreciate LT more. I mean, as a final record, LT was kind of frustrating because I felt like it could have been better and there was nothing more recent to make me more satisfied, but as a part of their discography chain, I can enjoy it for what it is. I dunno if it makes sense. I guess I used to see LT as an half-empty bottle, and now I see it more as an half-full one. As far as the quality of the song goes, I like them. IBG is really the only one song I don't enjoy, because it seems a little bit uninspired and there's nothing that makes it stand out in my opinion. Other than that, all the songs have, to varying degrees, appeal to me. Yeah; those from the first half too. LITE, IMR, and even BID are fun electron pop-rock anthems, and LGM has to be one of their funniest tunes overall. My biggest beef with the record is that it feels like 2 EP mashed together. It brings down the cohesion of the record, especially since it's only 37 min long and hasn't much time to build a clear identity. My second beef are Mike rap parts, which sounded dumbed down in some of the songs. But overall, ok/fine record. Yeah, I feel like moody/slowest mature ballads are generally seen as better songs than short fun firecrickers ones. Ask anybody which is the better song between LGM and Roads Untraveled, and most of the time, they will laugh at the comparison and say RU by a miles. I'm not a fan of this conception as it's like saying "peers are better than apples!", but I guess you can't change it.
My top 3 songs, if I had to pick, off of Living Things would be I'LL BE GONE, LOST IN THE ECHO and TINFOIL/POWERLESS. Yes, there was a lot of hate thrown at IBG, and yes, it kind of sounds like another version of WID, but it is catchy, addictive and I can appreciate what the band was trying to do lyrically in the song. LITE has this "What Papercut would sound like if it was released where the band (was) currently at while writing LT" vibe to it, which is cool to me. Plus, the chorus is absolutely amazing, IMHO. TINFOIL/POWERLESS, which I still consider one song, has this epic build up, a long with a sense of "I couldn't be there for you when disaster stuck, but I'm here now." It's one of my favorite tracks that the band has ever put out. Yes, there are more on the record that I like, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents.
It should definitely have been just one song. Tinfoil alone hasn't much value, but it's a great intro to Powerless.
It's not a bad album by any means, however it is their worst according to me. Right behind Minutes to Midnight. I do listen to LITE, IMR, BID and Powerless pretty often, and the rest are just lurking in the shadows - somewhere in my iTunes library. Maybe a 6 out of 10. ATS and HT are easily 10 out of 10. I'd say ATS -> HT -> MT -> MTM -> LT.
I personally do favour those songs over a lot of the stuff on "Meteora" but, all the same, they're not favourites of mine either. And that correlation between "90% of [us]" favouring those songs and those songs being "soft and mellow" might be pretty evident ... but, with Linkin Park songs, whether or not it's a heavy rock number isn't usually the most important factor for me. And I'll bet that many others would say the same thing. But, also, there's nothing wrong with "Tinfoil"; within its short running time, there's nothing for me to dislike.
Yeah, sonically speaking, I love it. But when I listen to it without Powerless, I'm always like "Oh, that's a good sound. Love this. But...wait, so what happens now? It's already over?" And even then, that would still have been enough to make it interesting on its own, if only the next track hasn't anything in common with it. But when this next track is build on the exact same elements, it just feels like Tinfoil would have benefited so much of being mashed with it.