I think you need to look at LIVING THINGS as what the band advertised it was: a fun, return-to-our-roots album. Not once did the band say LIVING THINGS was an extension or evolution of their sound. I feel it's unfair to criticize them on that basis.
If it wasn't an extension of their sound, then why did they play up the folk influence so much? Saying that it was supposed to be a back-to-basics album just seems like a cop-out. Like when Limp Bizkit came out with their last album, it got a bunch of glowing reviews because, hey what do you expect from a Limp Bizkit album? It's Significant Other with better chops, what are you complaining about? They used that to shield their lack of creativity from criticism. I don't care if it's good for what it is. What it is sucks and is uninteresting.
Sorry, but you're not objective at all here. A vast majority of tracks that follow the old LP formula? At most, there is LITE, IMR, BID, LGM (which I don't agree at all, but let's say it follows the old formula), and IBG. That's 5 out of 12 tracks. It's not a vast majority, neither a majority at all. If you include Victimized in it, it simply means that you're hostile to tracks that blends rap and screaming, because that song is as creative as anything on ATS. But a vast majority of that collection was presented under a slow/mid-tempo format. Always making song with the same slow tempo isn't that creative. None of those risks is way over-exagerated. If you release both Irridescent and Victimized as singles, which one will get the mainstream appeal, and which one will be considered as risky? Anyway, it's fine some people don't like LT. But I don't get why, instead of humbly saying that they don't like the direction of that record, they need to pretentiously affirm which directions are right or wrong, and what LP should do and not do, and how they are a better band, and how those who like LT are wrong, and so on.
What the hell happened to this thread? Lol it exploded on posts almost out of nowhere Yes, the band in their interviews made pretty clear that LIVING THINGS was "Linkin Park in their comfort zone" more than anything else. They always talked about how they wanted to just use the tools in the , and how they were comfortable in their own skin, and how they wanted to slow down, get away a little bit from the huge effort, stressed-filled creative process that an album like ATS demanded. They never said they were pushing for "new grounds" and if anyone believed that, they're fools.
If Meteora has taught us anything, adding a new instrument or influence (see: pan flute in Nobody's Listening, strings in Faint) does not completely change the band's sound, as long as the Linkin Park formula remains. And the band didn't play up the folky influences so much as the reviewers did. People who expected an evolution of the band's sound after hearing everything the band said about LIVING THINGS prior to its release were basically setting themselves up for disappointment from the outset.
It's my thread, I post in it when I want to. You people... what you did to this thread is not acceptable, go back and read the OP so I don't have to repeat myself, then I expect an excuse... FROM ALL OF YOU! You know what you did...
We will get back to what the OP was supposed to be once Linkin Park goes back to what they're supposed to be. Fuck techno
I don't take the blame for any future posts in this thread. I simply found it when Kevin thought it was deleted.
To Me MTM will be a very speical album way then the rest because that's the first LP album i've waited for , more then 2 years and made me realise what the band really is about. first i hated the slow song , wanted more songs like GV . BIO , NMS. and thought What the hell is in between?! mike singing?! where is the rap! then the music grew up on me , all my friends was like : this album is shit. whats wrong with you how can you like it this is not lp! but i understood what the band wanted and to do , and fell in love with every song for days listening to the album frmo the first track to the last , and i can say 2007 was such a good year because of MTM. ATS and LT are not importent to me as MTM But I Cant Truly say that in ever lp album there is a bunch the spicael songs that i still gets shivers when i lisent to them. and that's what makes lp to such a good band to me. and the fact that chester is a live beast!
I always see this stuff on LP sites. I like everything the band has done, I just prefer MTM music to most of it.
When musically your album takes 10 steps back from your last effort that rebuttal goes out of the window.
Good, that's the point. It's not meant to be serious, at 100% I still mean much of what I said, but it's also supposed to be funny.
Why do you guys even care about Linkin Park making songs like "Lost In The Echo" and "Burn It Down"? I don't even understand how those songs are really that bad anymore. I always had the same mindset of "uhhh this is them backtracking where's the forward progress at?" but then I realized two things. First of all, with them releasing two albums that were far left of their original sound, hearing something like that (Especially with more electronic twists and better lyrics) makes it fresh again. They also didn't flood the album with songs like this so it keeps them even fresher by not making a Hybrid Theory 3.0. Second, if there was only a few of them on the record, what makes them so wrong to begin with? If seven of the twelve songs are considered mainstream lazy Linkin Park, then 60% of the album is them trying new things meaning more of the album has your perception of forward progress anyway. But let's get into this. Can you even say those songs are forward progress anyway? Castle Of Glass is like Burning In The Skies with the back and forth singing and radio playability. Roads Untraveled is something along the lines of the sound from Minutes To Midnight but the structure creativity of A Thousand Suns (at that point, two past albums). Tinfoil is a generic instrumental that could easily fit in with the likes of Session or Unfortunate. And Powerless is always forgotten in discussion being so much of a radio emo/dark power ballad it would fit well in a Twilight movie. So my points being that there are way too many points that people come up with that contradict each other. The songs that you claim/think are going back to the roots in the sense of gaining back a fanbase or pleasing the radio are actually fresh considering we haven't heard a new song in that style from them since 2003. The album doesn't have much progression in sound at all considering the songs that you think are experimental (tracks six-twelve)..for the most part you only really get two or three songs from that bunch that are (Victimized, STB, UIB).
LIVING THINGS is easily one of my favorite LP releases and I hate how everyone criticizes it so much. Especially the second half of the album. Such a great album. If you guys want to listen to Hybrid Theory or A Thousand Suns, put the CD in and listen to it.