The Catalyst is probaly the most amazing on the album. As a single, it was pretty good, but as the context of the album, Its the best song, and its also meant to be that way. If you look at how the album is, you can almost feel how the hole album builds up to this 5-6 min masterpiece. No offence but its the CLIMAX of the album. When its finish you turn on a cigar and listen to The messenger and relax. Im not saying that this is meant to be the best song on the album, but its the climax of the album, so in a way it is. I have no favourite song of the album through. my least favourite is Robot boy. and TC is in the most favourite part for sure. Oh and btw, It has amazing lyrics!
The synth is creepy, depressing, or sad, depending on what my mood is at the time. Everything before the bridge seems very unhappy to me.
I pretty much just posted this in the thread about the songs we liked least on ATS so you can probably tell how this post is gonna go. I don't hate The Catalyst. I think it's a good song and I do like listening to it, but I honestly thing it's one of ATS's weaker tracks. It just doesn't really do for me what the rest of the album can. I think it belongs in ATS and I believe it adds to the album but I just don't like it as much as other songs on its own. That's all.
Yeah I might take back what I said before. But regardless there IS a "dance" vibe to it, at least IMO.
At the time of the initial release, I thought it a risky choice for a single. Sounded completely different and almost alien to anything I'd expected coming from the band after Minutes To Midnight. First time I heard the track, the radio station had cut the entire piano part / lift me up, let me go part from the song, just quickly fading it right before that - I thought the song was awful. Hearing it properly once it hit the web and wasn't being chopped to pieces by radio edits changed my perspective, but I still wasn't 100% convinced I liked what I was hearing. When the album dropped and I listened from start to finish, when The Catalyst came on... it clicked, everything just fell into place. It made complete sense, and I understood why the band had chosen The Catalyst for the lead single. Reminds me of when MTM leaked and Mike said something along the lines of "if you download it early, at least listen to the tracks in the order we intended them to be in to get the proper experience and overall message" - to me, those words ring far more true for ATS.
For me, there's one thing that makes this song. I said it in the podcast and I'll say it here. The whole section of the song where they sing, "Lift me up, let me go" is the single most beautiful and incredible musical moment of Linkin Park's career. I know that's a bold statement, but I truly believe that. I always, always get chills at that part. That makes the album for me. I really do think The Catalyst is the best song off of the new album.
I really like this song, one of the best on the album imo. I love the synth especially in the breakdown and I also love Joe's stratching. The "Lift me up, Let me go" part is amazing.
The Catalyst remains one of my all-time favorite LP songs even when the album dropped. Just hearing it as part of ATS made my experience even more better. And like everyone else, the "Lift me up, let me go" part was just...DAMN. I always get goosebumps and feel something so epic whenever I hear that part. I usually repeat it every time I happen to hear it. It's also like the best motivational part LP has ever done, minus "Iridescent".
I agree with most of the people here. The Catalyst, while strange as a stand-alone single, is the masterpiece of A Thousand Suns. It is the heart and soul of the album.
It's the climax of the album. Goddamn do I love this song. It really is the defining song of the album for me. The energy, the buildup, the tenderness, the epicness, it's just all so incredible.
I agree with in.the.shadows. The song is epic and it does belong on the album but it doesn't do what songs like Waiting For The End, Iridescent, and The Messenger do for me. Lyrically it is the most repetitive and outstretched. The radio edit in my opinion was better.
I agree with those saying the song works better in context than as a lead single (or a single in general). I especially dig how it re-focuses on the "letting go" theme that runs through many of the songs ("the weight of the world will give you the strength to go," "it's hard to let you go," "we've been waiting to collect what you've let go," "remember all the sadness and frustration and let it go") and turns it into an enormous wall-of-sound cry to the heavens. It's not the most sophisticated thing in the world, but I'll be damned if it's not effective as hell.