Sorry for the delay, guys, moving on to "Waiting For The End" now! "Waiting For The End" is the eighth track and second single off A Thousand Suns. The single version was released on October 1, 2010, less than a month after the album release. The digital single contained the "Guitarmagedon DIOYY?" remix of "The Catalyst" while the CD single contained the remix of "Waiting For The End" itself from The Glitch Mob. The demo version of the song was titled "Meadowlands", but it hasn't seen the light of day (yet). While being probably the poppiest track on the album, the track is essentially flawless. It combines the catchy melody of their previous singles like "Numb" and "What I've Done" with experimentation and matureness the band has only shown on A Thousand Suns. The critics obviously loved it just as much as I did, as it was one of the tracks off the album to recieve an almost unanimously positive reception. Chester Bennington also noted "Waiting For The End" and "Iridescent" are tied for his favorite song on the album, although later on, in 2012, he chose "When They Come For Me" instead. A music video for the song was made, directed by Joe Hahn. Just like the song itself, the video recieved praise from both fans and critics, proving to be one of Linkin Park's darkest, yet most visually interesting videos. The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #96, but it kept moving forward to #42, staying on the chart for a total of 23 weeks. It also reached #2 on the Rock Songs chart and #1 on the Alternative chart. In an interview with MTV, Chester spoke on the song's success, saying: Another working title was suggested for the song, "Chicken Basket". I don't think it was ever confirmed "Chicken Basket" tured into "Meadowlands" or "Waiting For The End", but if it was, correct me. I'll drop a quote from Mike on his blog about "Chicken Basket" just in case. "Waiting For The End" starts off with a fast, glitchy guitar riff, similar to the one that appeared later right on the beginning of Linkin Park's newest album, "The Hunting Party". The guitar riff is joined by a loud, smooth synth that is repeated through the rest of the song and helps build melody. After not even ten seconds, a smashing drum line from Rob Bourdon appears, joined by A Thousand Suns' signature synths. This drum line is virtually repeated through the entire song. Mike starts his reggae-like hip-hop verse as the song gets a new element, an incredibly powerful guitar tone from Brad Delson. This is only repeated a few times during the song. And you'd expect the song to just keep building, because that's what basically every Linkin Park song does, but "Waiting For The End" is an exception. As Chester begins his slow, nostalgic, quiet verse, all that's left of the instrumental is a high pitched synth and that synth from the beginning. This doesn't go on for long, as he's soon accompanied by that loud drum line once again. He's also backed up by Mike's "ooh"'s in the background. In the second verse, a loud bass line from Phoenix appears. The drums also continue to build as the song seems to be speeding up. As he begins the pre-chrous, he's joined by Mike once again. After over two and a half minutes, Mike begins his second rapped verse, backed up by one of the best beats the band has ever made. The entire song builds towards the hypnotic breakdown, holding small samples of Bennington's vocals through the song, something that Linkin Park hasn't done before that or after. The ending, or as Mike called it, "the payoff" is a classic moment in Linkin Park's discography, holding almost every element that the song has, aswell as Mike rapping and Chester singing simultaneously. The making of LPTV episode for "Waiting For The End" detailed the recording process of the vocals, and the band creating the melody. It's embedded above for your viewing pleasures. In an interview after the album's release, Chester mentioned that the inspiration for the melody of the song were The Beatles, specifically Paul McCartney. It worked, Chester, it worked. The lyrics of the song are, once again, open to interpretation. The simplest way to see it, and my personal favorite, is once again - relationships. Whether you're thinking of your significant other, parents, friends... "Waiting For The End" applies to all of it. It captures the denial a person is going through when a relationship is over - "it's hard to let you go" and "holding on to what I haven't got". This concept goes on and on, saying "the hardest part of ending is starting again", so a person just waits until the feelings are completely gone before ending a relationship, hence the "we dead it, forget it, let it all disappear" line. Another way of interpreting the lyrics, the one that would fit the album more, is humanity's co-existance with technology, as we seem to have completely forgotten what it's like to live without computers and mobile phones, and we feel like we couldn't live without them. Once again, what the song is about depends on you. I'll drop some quotes from Chester about the song's meaning below. He also spoke on the chorus, saying: A music video for the song, as I previously stated, was directed by Joe Hahn. It was produced by Ghost Town Media, who have often collaborated with Joe Hahn and Linkin Park. The video relies heavily on special effects, as band members are seen individually playing their instruments, while rotating. The video also explores the concept of time, and how it changes things, which is shown as band members morphing into each other. What's fun to note about the video is that Rob can be seen playing drums, but his kit wasn't there. He was just pretending to be playing, while the kit was added in post-production. Many of the effects used in "Waiting For The End" reappeared later in the video for the third single off the album, "Burning In The Skies". The video, while eye-catching, was one of the easiest for the band to film, as Mike spoke: "...I thought "Breaking The Habit" was the bar... but this one is easier". The atmosphere on the video shoot was very nice, as the band seemed to be joking and having a good time. You can view the Making Of LPTV Episode above. Speaking of the video shoot, director Joe Hahn said: As I previously mentioned, a remix of the song by The Glitch Mob was included on the CD single. The remix is astonishing, turning "Waiting For The End" into a dark, wubby, 5 minute banger. It also heavily altered the vocals from Mike and Chester, even changing the melody, and centers around banging kick drums. All in all, it's pretty diddly awesome, fellas! For the sake of not crashing your Flash player, instead of embedding the video, I'll just post a link. You can listen to the remix here. When performed live, "Waiting For The End" is a banger that really gets the crowd going. It's really hard to write this paragraph because the song has been performed at virutally every Linkin Park show since it's release. It had it's live debut on the first of the three promotional shows for A Thousand Suns, on September 7, 2010, when the band also debuted "The Catalyst" and "Iridescent", the other two US singles from the album. Through the years, a lot of memorable performances happened. The version embedded above is embedded purely 'cause it's official, not necessarily good. The band asked the fans to reocrd their performance of the song in Chicago on January 28, 2011 and later released it as an official video o their YouTube channel. But, because in 2011 not everyone had their brand new iPhone 6's with the incredible 8MP iSight camera which has 1.5µ pixels and ƒ/ 2.2 aperture [/Apple advert], the quality of the video is quite poor, with the highest resolution avaliable being 360p. The audio in the video also comes from the show. The band also performed the song on February 5, 2011 during their SNL performance. It was a very good performance, but due to poor recordings and Vimeo embed not working, I won't post it. There are tons of great pro shots from basically every festival the band has headlined through the past 4 years. During the A Thousand Suns tour, the track usually had "Jornada del Muerto", it's album intro attached to it. Through the most of the Living Things era, Mike rapped a verse from the then new track "Until It Breaks" over the "Waiting For The End" beat, before the band started playing the song. Because I love this version I'll embed it below. Through The Hunting Party era, the band continued to do this. When performed live, the track has an outro titled "Wall of Noise outro" attached to it. It features a rapid drum beat from Rob accompanied by Chester singing the key lyrics of the song and the band purely... rocking out. What do you think of "Waiting For The End" and it's live performances? I'm in school until December 23, so I apologize in advance if there are any other delays.
I waited for this to come , wished i had strength to stand Seriously, one of my all time favorite songs. The beginning with Mikes reggae-rapping and CHesters "natural" voice combined are so damn amazing. "All i want to do , is trade this life for something new , holding on to what i havent got" and "What was left when that fire was gone? / I thought it felt right but that right was wrong / All caught up in the eye of the storm / And trying to figure out what it's like moving on / And I don't even know what kind of things I said / My mouth kept moving and my mind went dead / So I'm picking up the pieces, now where to begin / The hardest part of ending is starting again" are also one of my favorite lines the band has ever written. Chesters line is so emotional and Mike is just damn catchy and powerful. Rob did as always a great job. The verses are just perfect to sit somewhere down (maybe in a empty room ) and think about something. The build up after the second "Chorus" is just perfect , the transmission of Chester and Mike is perfect. And the bridge So funky. The way the song ends with Chester singin over Mike rapping , Mike rapping over Chesters singing is so chaotic but at the same time powerful. That means: amazing. ANd how you said Filip , i like to connect the lyrics with relationships. Thats why this song (or maybe the whole album) is a really personal one to me (all later in Irdescent) Live: I am blessed that i was able to see both WFTE performances, the one with JDM and the one with the UIB Intro and the Wall Of Noise Outro and both are purely lovely. The Outro is just amazing, because it ends with a "Sound Explosion" , atleast it feels so One of my favorite live songs , because its "quite" and also full of energy. The UIB intro makes it much more catchy in my opinion , the JDM intro more "emotional". Both ways the played it are great. The way Mike wants all FISTS UP IN THE AIR is just cool How i said earlier , this song goes into a chaotic direction. At the highlight of the chaotic it ends and turn into the next song ,called "Blackout".
I feel terrible for not commenting on the first half of the album before this (school sucks, I don't blame you at all, take your time, Filip), so I'll come up with a basic rundown of my thoughts of ATS later. But I'm going to comment on WFTE specifically because oh my goodness. This song. THIS SONG. This is easily my second-favorite Linkin Park song of all-time, behind Iridescent. This is still one of the most beautiful and most complete songs I have ever heard in my life. The instrumental is perfect, the lyrics are perfect, the singing is perfect...this was the most played song on my old iPod for the longest time. There's something about "Waiting For The End" that makes me so emotional that I can't describe it. I just get so lost into the song, and that's what I love about it: I can perfectly relate to the song (the ENTIRE song at times). Mike's reggae raps are awesome, since I always tend to have more fun rapping to this song than any other LP song. Seriously. What I also loved about WFTE is the fact that for a radio-friendly single, it's anything but, and it's easy listening for many people I know; so many of my family and friends love "Waiting For The End" that it surprises me how much they do. Heck, my parents aren't that much into Linkin Park, but they told me they love WFTE a lot and wished Chester would sing like this more often (which he does, obviously). There was a funny moment where my dad thought Mike was screaming during the raps, but that was during his first listens to WFTE and due to his knowledge of the earlier LP songs I blasted. So yeah. If you have never listened to "Waiting For The End", you must be living under a rock somewhere. Go listen to it. Now. This is so awesome. I didn't even think about that until now. Wow.
Best song off A Thousand Suns, hands down. Except maybe Iridescent. This song is perfect in almost every manner. The first verse is formed out of a catchy beat and lyrics, then we have the chorus which is beautiful, Mike's second verse which builds up to the bridge and outro, and the bridge... The bridge, man.... There is no thing more beautiful than it. I love to pieces. And to add to it all, the Wall of Noise outro is also fantastic, especially when Chester hits that high b. One of LP's best (if not the).
By far the best song on the album, and one of their best in general, only to be topped by The Little Things Give You Away. The the thing that really captivated me when I first listened to it the day A Thousand Suns came out was Mike's almost reggae part, which is incredibly unique. The song contains my favoriet LP moment ever, when Chester sings the last "Holding on to what I haven't got." It's done so well, and absolutely perfect.
One of the best songs on the album, everyone know that ! And... AND THIS IS MY FAVOURITE LINKIN PARK SONG EVER. I litteraly fell in love with WFTE when I first listened to it.
Probably the best song on the album, and one of the most unique in LP's discography. After "the hardest part of ending is starting again" is one of the most magical things ever. The music video is probably one of my favorite music videos ever. I'm glad they still play it live, because I feel like it's pretty good live and also shows their range to casual concert goers. One thing I love about the song is the vocals, how natural they sound. I hope they make more music like this, the closest thing I've heard to this is the Rick Rubin Reboot of ALTNC, but that song gets really old really quick.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the high-pitched part is actually an octaved guitar with a lot of reverb. Waiting for the End. This song gives me the chills still because the outro is so powerful. It's a soft song for a majority of the time, lacking drums for a good portion of Chester's parts. The sampled piano-like sound (don't hold me to that) is the first thing that gets me hooked, then Rob's drum line. The lyrics are amazing, and nothing short of it. Is there anyone who can dislike this song?
"Waiting For The End" wasn't quite my favourite song on "A Thousand Suns" when I first heard it. I really didn't think much of it. But, then, the video came out and it completely changed how I heard the song, something which has happened with past Linkin Park videos, I guess. Suddenly, I really liked the sense of spaciousness in it, the dramatic dynamic shifts (and the fantastic use of contrast therein), the way it blurs all of these different elements into a cohesive whole ... and, on top of that, some interesting guitar work, a strong, thick rhythm section that doesn't block out any other elements ... and, of course, vocal performances and harmonies that are just top-notch. Chester's lead vocal line alone is enough to make the song good, especially the earnestness with which he delivers "holding onto what I haven't got". The mixing on "Waiting For The End" is among the best on "A Thousand Suns", best evidenced by the crystal-clarity of the vocals. So, so many vocal lines, and all of them are handled perfectly for the song's climactic outro when they all burst out at the same time. There are layers upon layers of harmonised backing parts, a re-sampled vocal edit line that Hahn manipulates, and Chester's lead melody plus harmonies going along with that. That outro section is nothing short of amazing but I also really love the second verse, and the way the lead and harmony parts go together. The way "this was never meant to last" is sung reminds me of The Beatles, though I'm not a Beatles fan and can't get more specific than that. This is on top of minimal-yet-dense instrumentation that builds throughout the song. I love the way this song uses live bass, and I love all the interesting guitar tones that appear as well. "Waiting For The End" really exemplifies how the band went out of their way to create unique sounds and, to a much lesser extent, interesting structures. It might not have the most out-there song structure (it's really just intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus) but the way that the standard song structure is dressed up with all of these interesting switch-ups and cool sounds makes that matter less. The band did such a good job arranging this song, and, the more you examine it, the more apparent that becomes. Lyrically, "Waiting For The End" is kind of positive and bleak at the same damn time. The lyrics just have this depth where you can take them either way; the melodies and the vocal performances help it float between optimistic and dejected. Either way, I feel that the lyrics keep it grounded and I don't get a sense of melodrama from them like I do with certain other Linkin Park songs. To me, "Waiting For The End"'s video visually explores the blur between humanity and technology, how those two things co-exist, and how that relationship morphs over time. I think that it's absolutely beautiful. The song's mechanical-sounding drums sit alongside a mournful piano motif, lively basslines and some of the most emotional singing Linkin Park have ever delivered, and I think that sort of reflects what you see in the video too. Beyond that, though, I don't really know how the visuals connect to the song conceptually. Anyway, it's one of my favourite videos from the band, set to my absolute favourite song out of all the ones that they've made to date. I hadn't really listened to The Glitch Mob before the "Waiting For The End" rmx was released, and that's when I was motivated to check them out. I'm a big fan of their work now, and I know there are a bunch of other fans in this community as well. Knowing that The Glitch Mob would be delivering a track with vocals in it, I expected something along the lines of "Between Two Points" -- the vocals in that song are quite digital-sounding (they're artificially tuned and subject to various effects) and, yet, they're so emotive, and that's what I figured would be done to "Waiting For The End". In the end, I love the remix that we got because the beat is monstrous but I'm not totally taken by the vocal treatment. There've been a couple of other official or semi-official "Waiting For The End" remixes that we got to hear over the years. One of the members of The Kickdrums produced a strings-driven rmx of the song that really highlighted the chords and melodies and makes it sound more Beatles-esque than it did already. Dave Dresden, with DJ Lynnwood, produced this house rmx of the song that I don't feel did the song justice. "Waiting For The End" is great live but the live version isn't particularly special in comparison to the album track. After I first watched a live video of the song (the MySpace video), I really noticed the tremolo guitar throughout the song that Shinoda plays live and things like that. Seeing the band play the song - much like watching the video - helped me to appreciate the song a bit more at a time when I didn't really care for it. The song's live intro now features a verse from "Until It Breaks", another song that's one of my top-favourites from the band - two favourite Linkin Park songs in one. This adds yet another twist in the song, and also highlights the hip-hop rhythm. I used to have a personal issue with pre-recorded vocals being used in live performances, but my bias meant that, when I learned that Linkin Park used them as well, I let it slide because they're providing what vocals they can to the best of their abilities. The backing vocals just augment parts that are already being sung live. I started to notice that, when the band had done "Waiting For The End" without the pre-recorded backing vocals underneath the live ones, it really didn't sound as good ... although the MySpace video already just doesn't sound too great in general, so there's that. After that, I think I warmed up to the whole idea, and, now, I feel that artists who aren't slacking off when it comes to live singing deserve to use backing tracks.
I didn't really realize how much I loved this song until I saw the play count on my itunes a few weeks ago. And I can't deny that it's just the perfect storm of a song. The mixing is crisp, and the harmonies in this song are on fucking point. Most notable is that second verse. Mike harmonizing with Chester here is one of the highlights of not only A Thousand Suns, but LP's discography for me. I really love how Mike's voice isn't just thrown to the background like most harmonies. It really adds a unique and beautiful feel to the track. And for the rest of the song, I remember listening to the acapella for the first time and basically jizzing my pants when I heard everything I hadn't noticed in the album version. Once you hear them once they make the song that much better, like in the second chorus and that outro which is so densely packed, yet everything can still be picked apart and appreciated. And live? Christ, the song is a monster. The UIB verse fits perfectly, and the wall of noise outro is also fucking beautiful. Definitely one of my favorite live songs by the band.
The fact that no one said anything about the Apple commercial in the middle of the post makes me think no one has read it.
Filip your posts about each song are awesome. My favorite version of this song is the curent one they play live with the awesome outro, Chester even adds some oooohs along with it now, just sounds so great.
"Holding onto what I haven't...gOOOOOOT!!!" Man,the outro though.. As for live performance,I like the current version with Wall of Noise outro,but my favorite is definitely the one at 2011 iTunes Festival.The ending part got me cri evrytiem...
'This is not the end this is not the beginning' I can always relate to those lyrics. The best verse Linkin Park have ever written is this: 'Sitting in an empty room Trying to forget the past This was never meant to last I which it wasn't soooo' Beautiful. Just beautiful. Not as beautiful as Chester's singing in Hardly Breathe though. I always wondered why the first rap line was so much better than the second one. Mike, you could have done it faster!
Chester's section in "Rock And Roll" may as well have been sung by a computer. I'd argue that "Waiting For The End" shows off his singing talents far better - especially given that they're almost a decade apart and I do feel that Chester's singing has improved greatly over that period of time
"Waiting for the End" is probably my second or third-favorite track on the record. I think I fall in the line of various others who actually weren't big fans of this song in the beginning. I didn't really know how to handle a lot of what the song was throwing at me, including Mike trying to sound Jamaican. The weird tradition into Chester's singing and how slow I felt it was didn't sit well with me. I admittedly got frustrated with the song in the beginning, because I just don't think I could see where it was going. However, that melody in the chorus stuck with me. I'd hum the song often. The song grew on me fairly quickly after that. This album as a whole came after a really rough break-up for me. I had stopped talking to her, but I couldn't really shake the feeling of her. Constantly, even in my efforts to meet other people and perhaps even find someone, she was on my mind in particular. This song became emotional the more I listened to it, because this song is really, in every way, about what that kind of loss feels like. "This is not what I had planned; it's out of my control...thoughts were spinning in my head, so many things were left unsaid - it's hard to let you go." When people say Linkin Park can't write good lyrics because they're so simple, this is what I want to throw back at them. And that's not even the end of it. "I know what it takes to move on, I know how it feels to lie. All I want to do is trade this life for something new; holding onto what I haven't got." Ugh, you know the twinge when you remember something painful? The melancholy that comes? This song does all of that for me. "This was never meant to last, I wish it wasn't so." This song kills me sometimes, even though it's been so long. The music sounds so summertime as Chester likes to describe it, but the lyrics are so painfully sad. It gives me chills every time - every goddamn time. The music makes this song what it is - the melody of the song. The way that it starts strong but then falls into Chester's part (once again, rises and falls people) - and then this slow build to what is really a powerful ending. The excellent use of layers, a good mix of electric and acoustic sounds (e.g. the bass). This song does it all, and the way the harmonies are placed on top of each other is done incredibly well. There are few songs in which I feel the band really aces their harmonies, and this is probably the best one. Like others have said, it's well-mixed and is really just well-composed. The unconventional orientation of the verses, the chorus, and otherwise is pretty great - it's an excellent way of keeping the song interesting without making it feel like it jumps all over the place. I don't know, I think if you were to give a song the title of Linkin Park's best all-around song ever, I might even throw this one out there even if I like "The Catalyst" better. It's that well done, in my opinion.
Crap, I forgot about this thread. Robot Boy- I really liked the atmosphere it gives off and the way the vocals are on done on the album really set the mood. The vocals are super amazing and really hope that one day they clone Mike so they can perform this . But seriously I really hope they figure this song out some day. Jornada del Muerto- I really like it as a transition for a lot of different songs and when I put it in my playlist, it is the first transition song I will use first. Alright Waiting for the End- Let me tell you about this song. This song IMO is a freaking masterpiece. I remember the first time hearing this song on the radio, not realizing Linkin Park had already released it. Hearing Chester's voice is fantastic on this song. And not just the album version. Originally Chester definitely struggled with this song but nowadays it just performed so well. But before I digress, lets take this song little by little. The song starts off with a really awesome synth sound that slowly builds to even more synths which when layered on top of each of other gives this high energy to the song especially at the end. Mike's first rapping part on this song is just a little teaser of where this song is about to go which is another fantastic part about the song. The lyrics for his rap are really good too. Combined with the imagery from the music video it creates a an awesome image of someone really torn about a relationship and their actions. Like I said earlier, I really like Chester's singning on this song. The instrumentation with the vocals gets really good here where as Chester's singing, the song slowly builds up after the teaser at the beginning. That bassline from Phoenix is such a nice touch with the drums from Rob, you gets a really good backdrop for what's to come which is just an explosion of musical genius. The backing vocals provide this undertone which I didn't appreciate at first but if you listen a couple times, the ooooohs really build this song to that epic ending. And the crescendo keeps going with the second rap from Mike and my personal favorite rap lyrics from Mike. The way the lyrics flow into that breakdown with Chester's voice is fantastic. Also, I really like how Chester's voice is just underlining his the rap providing a super nice harmony. And then you get the explosion from Joe Hahn laying down those samples of Chester's voice and Brad coming in with the guitar just creates this sudden peak in the song that really can only be topped by the magical ending. The final part of the song is wonderful concoction of all the musical elements of this song combined into one intense finale. Chester behind Mike's rap is one of the best layers of vocals anyone could ever make. Everything really comes together in this song for the big ending. I really enjoy that video of Mike and Chester finishing the ending because I love how everything just pulls away at the end to leave just Chester singing at the end. The highlights of this song are definitely the slow build up that comes up with a massive ending that brings together all the best parts of the song into a fantastic 30 seconds of musical explosion. And that's Waiting for the End. First few review for a song so probably wasn't the best but it is by far my favorite song by the band and I will probably cry the day Linkin Park writes a song that surpass this song.