Right, but what does that have to do with this topic? Because they aren't great musicians, it's ok to think Reanimation is their best album even though a lot of it isn't done by them?
It has everything to do with the topic. It means that it's no surprise that a lot of people consider Reanimaton their favourite LP record.
Wrong. LP might have picked artists to remix their songs, but LP, especially Mike, was always there supervising everything. To me, it sounds like LP even did more work than the remixers themselves. Basically, what I think is, LP got together with other artists to recreate the songs, and let them do their thing, but always supervised everything to make sure it was to their liking. it's like, imagine you are putting a remix album together of 12 of your tracks. when you get the remixes back, it is YOUR album. They didnt wanna just make a remix album, but a recreation of their original album. If that was you, you wouldn't just slap the songs on a CD, you would listen to them, and give your opinions on whether you like them or not. Reanimation isn't a remix album, it's an entire new album in my opinion. Sure, the songs were written previously, but all the work that went into re - producing every track, the art, the concept, the track order, interludes, seguess from one track to the other, is truly a masterpiece. I don't like it when people call it just a remix album because it's so much more than just that. LP didn't just hire people to remix, they sat down and worked with them till everything was 100% perfect the way they wanted it. More like a collaboration than a remix. Reminds me alot of ATS, may be even the closest thing to ATS LP has done. my 2cents.
It's no surprise that LP fans like Reanimation the best because LP aren't great musicians and had a lot of artists do the work for them?
This is kind of what I'm talking about. People glorify their role as supervisors on the album and act as though it's some transcendental work of genius on their part. You might as well credit every album you've ever liked to whoever produced it.
That I don't dispute this point; I never found them to be exceptional musicians, so I don't really hesitate to call Reanimation their best album since I don't care about insinuating they need 16 or so other people to make their best work.
Exactly. Or maybe you think that Brad is a great guitar player, or that Rob's drumming is super awesome or that Phoenix is really creative the bass guitar? All of them are average musicians, and I'm pretty sure Mike's the one that made the difference and prevented Linkin Park from being just another run-of-the-mill band out there.
Artists do a lot of remix albums that other people appear on and remix, and I do think that Reanimation is no exception to that.
When i hear fans talk about their favourite LP album, Reanimation hardly comes up. Reanimation gets just as much glorification as the idea of LP being "exceptional musicians or being completely unique."
Well it's not like Meteora is underrated or anything. Go read comments on Linkin Park related YouTube videos, all those 14 year olds think that's the most epic shit ever.
lol I hate to agree but it is true. With a few exceptions here and there Phi has been so reluctant to show his true potential. Just root notes all the time. Sometimes I think Brads a better basist in LP than Phi is. Just listen to the HTEP, awesome basslines & fills here and there.
1. You're forgetting WTH>YOU and all the interlude-type tracks. 2. "Pushing it?" Those tracks were remixed ENTIRELY in-house by the band. With the exception of Aceyalone's verse on WTH>YOU and possibly the interpretation of the guitar parts that Stef Carpenter did for BY_MYSLF, everything on those tracks was written by the band. Stephen Richards' and Aaron Lewis' guest vocals are no more their original work than the bridge of One Step Closer is the original work of any of the numerous guest vocalists who performed the song live with LP during their early years. That's like trying to credit Chester for all of Mike's lyrics that he just happened to end up singing. People seem to forget that Reanimation started with the intent of it being a project contained entirely within the band (they wanted to do a remix EP - I've always held belief that the project began with the intention of it becoming the 2nd LPU CD). It wasn't until other people started sending the band their remixes that they decided to expand it into a full album (the original Humble Bros. remix of One Step Closer being the track that made them reconsider), and it's not like the band would've had the time to take on a project of that size anyway, given that the majority of Reanimation was done by the time they finished touring in early 2002. The fact of the matter is, of the 20 tracks on the album, half of them are unquestionably Linkin Park compositions. Members of the band also had significant input on a couple of the other tracks (Brad co-produced PTS.OF.ATHRTY, and Joe did the scratching on FRGT/10). The majority of which weren't played by Brad (Kyle Christner was the band's bass player at the time), and I really don't hear anything "awesome" in the bass playing on the HTEP anyway.
Minus the annoying and pointless interludes (SHUTUPIDONTWANTTOHEARYOURANSWERINGMACHINE) and maybe it could be a better remix album. I only really bought it because of Jonathon Davis was singing One Step Closer and even that was a pissy attempt at it.
Even when you point out the things they contributed besides the tracks they're usually given credit for, it's not really genius on their part. Messing with the pitch of the vocals and an interlude here, a slightly different guitar part and some token scratching there. No great shakes. And if you put their contribution at around about half, hey, still not their album. I guess what I ought to say now is that I don't think Reanimation is that great in the first place. I wouldn't call it a work of genius by anyone for the vast part.
It's just a more interesting listen than a lot of their other stuff, simple as that really. They talk about 'genre bending' and all that mess, but that's really the only actual time they pulled it off.
Not really. IMO A Thousand Suns is a bigger departure from their signature sound than Reanimation. Other than making the songs more electronic/beat driven and adding more hip hop elements it's not much of a genre bending album.