The majority of their music is beauty, in many different forms. There may be bands out there that do certain individual elements better than LP, but there is no band out there that does so many elements collectively so well. Without trying to make this too over-emotional, the material created by this band has got me through a lot of tough times, that's all i'll say on that. There's so many situations that you can relate to when listening, songs like The Messenger, Iridescent, Final Masquerade, LOATR, TLTGYA, SOTD.. there's genuinely so many songs that can really open your eyes and mind in differing negative situations. For a band that is generally seen as "teen angst screaming and rapping", the messages of hope they offer through their lyrics is honestly incredible. As others have mentioned too, their charity commitments have helped so many people over the years and raised awareness to people that otherwise wouldn't really be clued up on these things. And it's not like other bands who have just put their name towards their "charity work", they really actively and passionately care about what they support. It really saddens me that the regular person doesn't experience the thrill of playing ATS back to front, and just disregards LP as 'that angry boy band that did a song with Jay-Z"
I find LP's old stuff more relatable than their recent stuff, disregard the teen angst. I'm in my late 20's going on 30 and i can still relate to their old stuff songs like papercut, with you, in the end, a place for my head, pushing me away and so on. Their old stuff has more of an affect on me because of what i go through on a daily basis . I think well mostly everyone can relate to something linkin park, whether it be you suffer from anxiety, depression, relationships or whatever. That is the beauty of linkin park that we all have a connection with their music and their lyrics. I know it comforts me i'm my troubled times.
Like many I got into Linkin Park in the Hybrid Theory period. I was 11 years old and living in Dubai at the time, and Papercut was getting good airplay on a video channel called Channel U, which only tended to play pop stuff, so it was nice variety. I quite liked the song and my dad watched the video with me, thinking it was great. Neither of us had heard anything quite as heavy at the time. My birthday had been a few days before the single was released, so I went out and got the Hybrid Theory CD with some birthday money. I quickly fell in love with it, insanely consistent album (largely, in retrospect because all the songs have similar chord structures). "With You" and "Cure For The Itch" became my favourite tracks, largely because of their melodic sensibilities. "In The End" coming out as a single got them a lot of attention and I was really happy with it. I also saw the video for 'It's Goin' Down' and picked the single up when I was back in the UK on holiday. Linkin Park also got me into metal in a big way, leading me to buy Kerrang 3: The Album, which turned me on to quite a few bands. When I got back to the UK in mid 2002, I saw the astonishing video for Pts Of Athrty and picked up its double A-Side single with H! Vltg3, followed by the Reanimation album when it came out. I was astonished to find how Reanimation had turned such a heavy album into an intricate, well arranged hip hop influenced album, with its scores of guest artists and rewritten tunes. Nothing could have prepared me for "My Dsmbr", which got me straight to the core and is still my favourite Linkin Park track. I hadn't heard the original at that point, and still prefer the remix greatly. It's so good that I would continue to listen to it even when I wasn't in an LP phase. Reanimation increased my interest in electronic, orchestral and hip hop production, and above all else, solidified that Linkin Park were geniuses, standing above the crowd. It makes me sad when people ignore it, because it's not an average remix album, it's an entirely new work in itself. A lot of time passed. The school I went to when I got back to England I hated immensely, due to bullying, very long days till 5pm (and taking at least an hour each way) and Saturday mornings (private school). I was also missing Dubai a lot, for a multitude of reasons, it was much nicer over there. My parents, contrary to what they might say, forced me to stay there. When Meteora came out, the darkness and anger on the album was very cathartic for me. I had pre-ordered it, and amazingly, it arrived from Amazon before I went to school that morning, so I heard it for the first time on my Discman on the way to school. The single "Somewhere I Belong", which I believe I'd heard on the radio before, I instantly loved and felt very close to. The other tracks that I thought were great on the album were "Lying From You" (very innovative string sample), "Faint" (such a dance tune), "Breaking The Habit" (amazing electronic sounds) and "From The Inside" (very unusual time signature and slightly foreboding music). I knew even at the time that the album was patchy, and would always skip over "Easier To Run" and "Nobody's Listening" (I like them better now). Though I thought "Numb" was a Pushing Me Away clone and couldn't really understand why it was such a big hit single, I realised it is a better song, and the lyrics work perfectly well with the music about being too tired to care anymore. It's become obvious over the years that the band could have made Meteora a much better album if they had been allowed to experiment with melody more. Collision Course came out. Having enjoyed Jay Z's Black Album as well as Linkin Park's work, I liked the collaboration. Numb and Encore went particularly well together. The EP has never had much replay value for me though. I'm sure that I checked out the Hybrid Theory EP and the Xero demo tape around this time, because I was excited when the live Reading My Eyes came out. I was very much into all kinds of metal around this time, Metallica, Rammstein, Rage Against The Machine etc, which more or less faded once I discovered System Of A Down, Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Iced Earth. I owe a lot of this to Linkin Park. It was partly because of my love of these bands (especially SOAD) that I made a lot of my earliest internet friends. Years passed, I grew a lot older, and the LP Underground 6 CD came out, I heard QWERTY and loved it, and was excited about Minutes To Midnight coming out. What I've Done also came out and I liked that too. Cue massive disappointment when the album itself came out. I liked Given Up, Bleed It Out and What I've Done, and in years have grown to appreciate Leave Out All The Rest and Shadow Of The Day, but I retain my view that the album was a concession to the popularity of alt-rock and emo music, and lacks the hip hop and angry edge that Linkin Park had. After holding onto the band after years of people telling me they had outgrown them, I felt like the band had betrayed me, and I felt I had outgrown them myself. By 2010, I was finally out of school and pretty happy, living in Sweden. Not having thought much of the band in years, a friend linked Burning In The Skies on his Facebook page. I thought it was beautiful and I instantly checked out A Thousand Suns. Cue the second coming of my love for the band. This was the moment where the true roots of Linkin Park became clear - the core of the band was always electronic production - it doesn't matter what musical style they do. Mike being so conscious about that in "When They Come For Me" made me stand up and take notice. A Thousand Suns reminded me of Reanimation, but it also reminded me of the ambition of prog rock bands. It was obvious that the band had enough creative control to make something worthy of their talent. This fact was further confirmed with the past five Underground volumes (9 to 14) which contain some of the best and most varied work the band has ever done, much of which was deemed too experimental for their earlier albums. I didn't know about New Divide before, but realise it was the catalyst in making more interesting music, and love it. Living Things came out and I initially found the first single Burn It Down a bit pop-leaning, but quickly grew to love it for precisely that. The rest of the album was great - Castle Of Glass made my jaw drop - the band had never done something quite like that, nor had they with Lies Greed Misery. Victimised was their heaviest track in years. It was a great follow up to A Thousand Suns and on a track by track basis, far more consistent. A Light That Never Comes was good, but I prefer the remix I did for the contest. Not being a big fan of dubstep I quite like Recharged. The Hunting Party I haven't listened too much, on first impression it seems like a bit of a step down, but it is still good. Linkin Park are a band I have grown up with, and I've watched them grow up too. When I was younger their music helped me through hard times, now I am older, their music has matured to have a rich variety and is influential on the electronic music I make myself. It is far too simplistic to say that people only listen to Linkin Park for the angst. A band like Korn, for example, got a lot more respect from metalheads at the time, but every one of their songs is angsty, even to this day. Linkin Park have a lot of life-affirming stuff. Linkin Park may be huge but they still are very helpful to their fans and have shown on multiple occasions that they care about what fans want and don't want, whilst maintaining an interest in evolving musically. This is why they are still here when every nu metal band of the time has become irrelevant.