Simple question: Why does it take a few listens to enjoy new Linkin Park music? Up from MtM, it was either you liked it or you didn't, but the trend started with Valentine's day for me. I listened to it with an open mind, knowing the whole album would be different, and figured it was not my cup of tea. Soon after a year or so, I found myself less and less skipping the track. Same thing went for their other albums. The one song that is famous for me for this next was Blackout. The introduction sounded very childish and silly. It wasn't until later in the song that made it stand out and be able to sync up versus on its own. There are other examples of not liking the first few listens of Linkin Park's music, and not until later that I turn on the radio and realize that the uniqueness of their music makes it stand out. Does anyone else experience this?
Its the nature of anything not just LP music for me. Also, I actually liked blackout instantly It made me like ATS. I was so surprised by blackout.
With any music, I generally know after the first listen of an album whether I like it or not. I rarely experience grower music.
This wasn't the case for me. I liked all the songs on "The Hunting Party" upon first listen, although my opinions have steadily changed over time. Obviously, it's all to do with your tastes
It really depends on one's tastes. One listen is nearly not enough to process 3-5 mins of material. To me it happens little, there has to be something really different/bonkers for me to raise my eyebrow and go "whoa", and also when I think I like a song on first listen the first thing I do is play it again to check so it kinda loses its purpose Also LP's more "substantial" music takes a while to process IMO.. I had to listen to MTG and ALITS a few times before I fully understood their structure. Not because I didn't like them but because I wanted to "understand them" a bit better. I don't think listening to a song more than once before liking it has to be a negative.
While it took weeks for me to accept Minutes To Midnight material (months for stuff like The Little Things and Hands Held High), I'm definitely an exception to your idea. The Catalyst was very abstract and A Thousand Suns absolutely mind-fucked me, but I instantly found a passion for the album. Everything on Living Things I enjoyed the hell out of on first listen, and still generally love. And I had a mental orgasm listening to Guilty All The Same when it released and later on The Hunting Party left me in awe. I will agree though that a lot of their music I've grown even more admiration over through time which says a lot to me about their musicianship as a whole.
It took me 5 years to get into Shadow of The Day. The Little Things Give You Away is still on my shit list. Might turn a new leaf over...eventually.
When ATS came out, I didn't like it. I kept listening, though, finding new things each listen to love about it. It has since become one of my favorite albums of all time.
By virtue of being new it means you don't know it, ergo you need X amount of time to learn it. The more involved the music is, generally, the more time needed to learn it and figure out if you like it. Sometimes there are immediately obvious hooks (riffs/melodies/beats) that will catch your ear on first listen, sometimes the hooks are buried deeper and need multiple listens to surface. Odd, I usually need at least 10 or 12 listens of an album to decide if I really like it. There's first impressions of course where the obvious hooks have most impact, but I find more listens are absolutely required to find out if there's depth/layers/quality songwriting under the immediate stuff. Like Living Things. I was really into it the first few listens, loads of immediately catchy hooks. After 12 or so listens I found it didn't have much more to it than those hooks and I was pretty much done with it. Shallow record. On the other hand, most of my favourite albums needed several listens before I could "dial in" to what they were doing. They still had the immediate hooks but usually the first couple of listens had me unsure of how much I liked them, or even sometimes whether I liked them at all.
It usually takes me a fair amount of listens to like any album. Originally, when I got into LP, my favorite album was Meteora, and I detested A Thousand Suns. After listening to The Full Experience ad nauseam, it grew to be my favorite album. I can never get enough of the album from the start of Empty Spaces to the end of The Catalyst (the other tracks are more or less average). But it hasn't been this way with Living Things or The Hunting Party for me. I find the entire album of Living Thigns to be too simple overall. There's nothing that on later listens I can discover about the songs. On the other hand, I'm still learning more about Hybrid Theory's instrumentation as time goes on. Just last week, I found out that there are scratches in the bridge of Runaway, which just completely blew my mind. I still can't stand Skin to Bone after two years. And I've tried listening to it with an open mind, looking for little nuances that will make me appreciate it, but I get nothing. It seems it's going to be this way for Wastelands and War. I absolutely detest War. With a passion. If I ever like it after so many listens, it'll be a long time from now. I feel Wastelands might grow on me eventually.
It depends of your likes and it can happen with any other music other than Linkin Park. I took two months to enjoy "Until It Breaks" and "All For Nothing". Maybe in a few months (or years) later I'll enjoy "Victimized".
I didn't love all my favorite records from the first listen. Some albums take longer to digest and get into, which sometimes can be a good thing because when you finally "get it" it feels like such a payoff. Like you expanded your musical horizon. The Money Store, Kid A, A Thousand Suns, The Downward Spiral, Still Life, Wildlife, 10.000 Days and Labor Days are example of records that did that for me.
I'm like this with a lot of bands I like. Sometimes it just takes times for songs to grow on you. Oftentimes, the ones that grow on you, you end up liking more. At least, that's how it is for me.
To me there's three levels when it comes to LP's music: First listen blows me away, and it never stops being entertaining to me. This happened the first time I heard the intro to LITE, and I still freaking love that song. Same for The Catalyst, Numb, In The End, and Faint. There's never been a time where they felt overplayed for me. Then there's the ones that sound INCREDIBLE the first time I hear them, and slowly over time they lose effect. The first time I heard Mike say "This is something for you people on the block to, blackout and rock to" I thought it would be my favorite song of all time, but I pretty much never listen to UIB now. Same for Wretches and Kings, easier to run, Forgotten, etc. I still like them for what they are, but they don't give me the same entertainment they did my first few listens. Then there's ones that I don't like the first time I hear, but grow to love and appreciate. The Reggae influence in WFTE was really offputting the first time I heard it, but now I love the song. The rhythm to WTCFM was really weird at first, now I can get into it. By Myself's guitar was also really annoying at first, now I love it. GATS, War, AFN, and others fall into this category. Not everything is like this, some songs I just plain don't appreciate like MTG or the original My December, but this is the general trend for me. As for why this happens, I would say it has to do with why some of us like music in the first place. I think a lot of people here like unpredictable songs, but naturally everyone likes something catchy. Blackout, for example, isn't really predictable at all. You don't expect the screaming, and you definitely don't expect anything that comes after the bridge, so the first time you hear it it's not something that's like stuck in your head, though the melodies are there. But once you hear it multiple times and memorize the pattern to it, you enjoy the fact that you know the melody by heart when the song was originally very unpredictable and different. At least, that's my theory. Or, the song isn't really catchy at all, but you grow to like it because you like the band. I doubt I would like a lot of LP songs if they were sung by someone else, but I can listen to LP and imagine Chester jumping around to it and it makes me eventually get into it too.
There's a psychological consistency among a lot of people that basically makes them grow more fond of something the farther removed from it they are, time-wise. It's the same reason you might hear a newly-married couple complain about how their honeymoon wasn't what they were hoping it would be, that they argued the whole time, etc...but if you asked the same couple about their honeymoon a few years later, they'd say it was wonderful. It's something that isn't exclusive to Linkin Park or even music in general, it's just one of those weird ways our minds work, and it shows up in all kinds of different areas of life.