"Session" - Song by Song, Let's Talk Linkin Park

Discussion in 'Linkin Park Chat' started by hawk, Jul 2, 2014.

  1. Nicholas

    Nicholas Well-Known Member

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    I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin to analyze or break down "Wisdom, Justice, and Love"/MLK's speech and how it plays into the album. Hearing MLK's distorted voice in a repeated loop at the end just gives it this really airy and also somehow dense feeling. If I had to describe the tone of the interlude in one word I'd probably pick "evocative" or like others have stated "haunting". I don't think they could have picked a better way to transition into "Iridescent", a song dealing with loss, despair, and desperation. The tone and power of MLK's voice encapsulates (I hate this word, lol) it all. I love how each interlude circles around the theme of the next song while also flawlessly transitioning into it, making ATS flow as one whole piece rather than bits that have no relation to each other.

    It's one whole interconnected story and as amazing as ATS is, the context of the album and its subject matter is flat out depressing (Try to catch up, motherfucker!). I mean, of course a multi-concept album based on human fear and conflict would be depressing >_<


    They really accomplished something truly special with ATS. I don't know what it is, but it's perfect. Maybe I'm overrating it or thinking to deep into it, but compared to their other albums this one just really sticks out.
     
  2. Tocaraca

    Tocaraca A part of me screams away silently

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    The interludes are the worst thing about the album.
    Well, not Jornado Del Mueto. But I don't like the others.
    The Requiem/The Radiance is good for an intro, but the fact they are 2 separate interludes is just annoying.
    Empty Spaces... the second most pointless song on the album. It could've been part of When They Come For Me.
    Jornado Del Muerto is epic.
    Wisdom Justice and Love is creepy :dafuq:
    Fallout is the most pointless song on the album.
     
  3. Michele

    Michele Praise Brad Delson, our Lord and Savior. LPA Addict

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    :rofl:

    i am sure someday you will change your mind :lol:
     
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  4. Tocaraca

    Tocaraca A part of me screams away silently

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    Stop laughing. I never did anything to you.
     
  5. Michele

    Michele Praise Brad Delson, our Lord and Savior. LPA Addict

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    nahhh , i am honest.

    As ATS released i thought almost the same , it just took 1-2 years for me.
    Its ok to not like them , i just find it funny how you describe it , i respect your opinion :chuck:
     
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  6. Captain-EO

    Captain-EO Also Prog Nerd Now, Thanks Gibs LPA Super Member

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    Someone has no respect for the wise words of Martin Luther King, Jr.
     
  7. minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    IKR? Blatant racism

    /s
     
  8. Qwerty19

    Qwerty19 Well-Known Member

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    Just as The Radiance (and Fallout), I hold not interest in WJL. Nothing exciting to my ears.
     
  9. Jesse

    Jesse Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

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    What? Fallout is amazing, bro.
     
  10. Michele

    Michele Praise Brad Delson, our Lord and Savior. LPA Addict

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    Lets talk about it later :)
     
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  11. Captain-EO

    Captain-EO Also Prog Nerd Now, Thanks Gibs LPA Super Member

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    That's if we ever get through Iridescent.

    ...I feel like there could be an ALTNC pun there, but I can't think of a good one.
     
  12. Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    [​IMG]



    "Iridescent" is the fourth single and twelfth song off A Thousand Suns, and the second one my mom loves. "Iridescent" has achieved moderate success. The single debuted at #86 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and later peaked at #81, spending three weeks on the chart. Despite this, the official video has gathered almost 40 million views on YouTube. At almost five minutes in lenght, this piano ballad is nothing short of breathtaking. It was the theme song of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, continuing the bands involvement with the franchise before those god-awful Imagine Dragons took over. As if the song was not good enough on it's own, the artwork and visuals created for the song only enhanced the song's experience. The band asked fans to create original artwork for "Iridescent", and the winner was Wan Muhammad Azzim. His artwork was showcased in front of over 30 million people online during the legendary Transformers promotional concert the band had in Moscow. I know what you're thinking - "wait, 30 million people follow Transformers?". Yeah. I know. The song wasn't just a fan favorite, it was one of the bands favorites aswell, with Chester saying:

    The third Transformers movie seemed to be aiming for a darker tone, so they needed a darker song than "New Divide" to be played at the end. By 2011, Michael Bay had already realized having a Linkin Park song at the end of your movie was like hitting the jackpot, so guess who he called up? That's right. And the band, known as avid gamers with interest in movies, television, comics... of course they liked the idea. Mike spoke on the bands involvement with the franchise, stating:

    The song was released as the final single off the album at the time of the albums release. As I've said before, it had moderate chart success, but proved to be a fan favorite. Mike spoke on this aswell, saying:

    Below is embedded a pretty cool (one of the thirty) promos released for "Iridescent", however this one features Steve Jablonsky talking about the band and the song, so I thought it was interesting to share. Come at me bro.



    "Iridescent" starts off with a simple, choir-y synth and a beautiful, haunting piano line before Shinoda kicks in with his first verse. The backdrop is one of the bands most atmospheric and beautiful works ever. Right at the beginning of Bennington's chorus, a line of sampled strings appears, backed up by glorious kick drums from Rob Bourdon. With "Iridescent" running at 120BPM, this is one tasty drumline. As the chorus is over, the background is filled with bouncy new synths, an unmistakable guitar line from Delson or Shinoda, as Bennington and Shinoda sing the second verse together, creating a beautiful harmony. In the back, there's also a melodic bassline from Phoenix. The second chorus is, just like Mike wanted it to be, a step up from the first, including lots of additional elements. "Iridescent" owes a lot of it's beauty to the great mix of the album. In that way, it's quite remarkable how crispy and clear all those synths sound before the breakdown of the song, even though that part is mainly centered around a guitar and drum line. Before the climactic ending, "Iridescent" has something that doesn't appear very often in the bands music, or at least something that wasn't used a lot prior to A Thousand Suns - gang vocals. Before the ending, the entire band sings the chorus again, together. This was documented in the LPTV episode "Iridescent Gang Vocals", embedded above. Mike and Brad also talk about the structure and overall sound of the song. If someone can explain what the hell is Phoenix doing at 2:11, that'd be great aswell. Sure, I've taken that sidestep to unglue my balls from my thigh but this guy brings it to a whole new level. This is getting too personal. The song finishes in the most Linkin Park way possible. A huge mix of synths, guitars, bass, drums and all kinds of freaky instrumental godliness. I don't even know what the hell I'm saying. However, the last piano line in the song hints at sorrow and loneliness once again. Does "loneliness" rhyme with "godliness"? Is "godliness" even a proper spelling? Is it even a word? That should be Hamlets life dilemma.

    Lyrically, the songmeanings.com user "pmahones" says it's a song about letting go and moving forward. Yeah, no shit bro. Did the "let it go" part of the song make you believe this? The song certainly has a very human end to it. It feels sincere. With the verses describing a situation, and the chorus being words of encouragement. The second verse is more linked to the album. It has some of the best imagery the band has ever put in words - "and in the burst of light that blinded every angel/as if the sky had blown the heavens into stars". This can once again be interpreted as the vision of a survivor of a bomb dropping, while the next lines in the song hint at a person who feels alone, "with no one there to catch you in their arms". It holds a nice point. Let go of the past, move on, don't look back. At least that's the way I see it. What do you think?


    A music video for the song was directed by Joe Hahn. It featured the band members and Mike's homeboy Trevor - more commonly known as "the snake from the Iridescent video". It is based on the short story "The Country of the Blind" by H.G. Wells, but set in a post-apocalyptic future. Apparently, prior to the shooting of the video, the only information Mike got from Joe was the sentence "in the valley of the bling, the one eyed man is king". As the leader of the band, Mike got the role of the one eyed king. The video has some of the best shots Joe Hahn has ever captured, in my opinon. It also has references to The Last Supper and of course, Transformers, because... why not? The making of the video was captured for an LPTV episode and can be seen above. The atmosphere on the shoot was light and the band joked around a lot while planning the rest of the video. Speaking about the video, director Joe Hahn said:

    While the one eyed king himself stated:


    But then, in 2014, something unexpected happened. The band had announced an all new video for "Iridescent" would be released in partnership with the Stars of The Season fundraiser. Fans were pretty surprised with this, but the brave young soldier Filip found a way to calm everyone down with the exceptional news post he wrote for that video. That news post was totally not entirely re-written twice. Totally not. Would I lie to you? The video centers around ill children the foundation takes care of. The only band member in the video is Chester, as he's been a long time supporter of the charity. It's quite an emotional and beautiful watch, and I recommend it for anyone that hasn't seen it.



    Guess what? "Iridescent" live has been a breathtaking, amazing experience. Betcha didn't expect me to say that. It had it's live debut on Septemer 7, 2010. An LPTV episode which documents the band rehearsing the song was released on Linkin Park's YouTube channel, and is embedded above. Why do I even write this? It's so obvious. The band performed the song in it's original album form through most of the album's touring cycle. The most known performance of the song happened on June 23, 2011 during the bands Moscow show for the Transformets premiere. This was also captured for another episode of the band on MTV World Stage. This time, the band performed an "Energy Up" version of the song. But what does that mean? The band performed the radio edit. The last known full performance of the song in it's original form happened on September 25, 2011 the already well established end of the A Thousand Suns tour in Singapore. During the Living Things and The Hunting Party touring cycles, the band started to perform a "Ballad Medley". It's exactly what it sounds like. The band mashed up "Shadow of the Day", "Leave Out All The Rest" and "Iridescent" into one great performance. "Iridescent" was the finale, the climax, as it's the most energetic of the three songs. This ballad medley recieved unanimously positive reviews from the fans and is likely to be played for a long time. I'll embed one performance below to hopefully crash people's Flash Players with all the videos in this post. Ah who am I kidding. Technology is good enough for that not to happen nowadays. Still, here it is, from the 2014 Camden Carnivores Tour stop.


    For the next ten days, there isn't going to be a schedule for the track. I'm busy in school and I when and if I get a chance to post, I'm gonna post. Whachu gon do?

    [​IMG]
     
  13. brady

    brady I am the LPA LPA Super Member

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    Linkin Park worked with Hans Zimmer on the collaboration with Transformers 3?
     
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  14. Michele

    Michele Praise Brad Delson, our Lord and Savior. LPA Addict

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    Finally we are here, the song i expected the most for this thread. Iridescent. My favorite (Linkin Park) ballade and in my all time top 5. This song is just beautiful. Beginning with the piano and Mikes singing it just a really haunting mood (like Wisdom, Justice and Love). It hits into Chesters part with one of my personal favorite Chester vocals of all time. A voice of an angel to me. The guitar playing for the seconde verse is amazing and Robs drumming..., it always gives me a dreamy mood. Well , if there was someone who thought until ATS, that Mike cant sing , this song proof him wrong. As far as i like his rapping skill, this song take for me his vocals to another level. After Chesters second amazing chorus my favorite bridge starts. A moment of "a guitar breaking silence" before the gang vocals kicks in , one of the most amazing things i ever heared in a song. To be honest, this part make me always cry. :cry: And the powerful final of the song. INCREDIBLE! Robs drumming harmonized so much with all the other elements. One of the best things in the song. So powerful. The piano through the song is also one of my favorite LP instrumental elements. "Remember all the sadness and frustration, and let it go, LET IT GO". Damn you ,Meteora, nobody needs frustrating lyrics. This song is such an build up song. To be honest. There was a time, i was in a really , really bad depressing mode. It was the school leavers ball and i decided (thankfully to BTH) finally to the one girl i like(d). Well , you surely can think what happened. She broke my heart and also if i finally did it, was in a one of the worst moods i have ever been. It was so frustrating. I thought i had a chance, but ...well i havent. I really cried a lot this time :cry: Back to topic. This song saved me. I listened to this song so many times, until it finally , well what should i say , i "LET IT GO". This song is defintly with Breaking The Habit one of my most personal song. So now wonder this songs make me always cry (in a really, beautiful and positive way :cry:)

    Live its a really great song to. I am happy, that i was able to see this song in its studio version live (MUCH BETTER THAN THE "Transformers Thing" that destroys the mood for me in the song). It also works great in the Ballade Medley also if i hope, that they will someday dropp LOATR and put it in full length into the set. The bridge from SOTD into Iridescent fits perfectly, the drumming over Shadow is really haunting. One of my favorite things when i remember my Hunting Party Concert. Always an amazing moment if i remember this day :worship:
    To the music videos. I prefer the normal version with Chester only over the original one. Also if i think that the Moscow performance was pretty good, the speed-up version kills the mood to me.

    To the fact, that Chester said somewhere, that they could do more Iridescents. I hope they will do it someday. Ballades are one of my favorite things in music general. Something i can dream too and become quite and positive :) .

    Lyrical whise one of the most positive songs LP has done so far. They should continue with it :). The whole song is a damn amazing song with beautiful lyrics, instruments, mood and voices.

    Yeah, this song will be never boring for me. NEVER.
     
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  15. BTorio

    BTorio Well-Known Member

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    The song took a really long time for me to get into. I still think it was a very poor fit for the Transformers film, it didn't fit the mood at all imo. But I love the song now, and the ballad medley is one of my favorite things ever.
     
  16. minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    The things that I love most about "Iridescent" are the lovely synth arps and keyboard parts that run throughout the song, and Shinoda's singing. Although it's a fairly boring vocal line, I think it's some of the best singing he's ever done on a studio recording. I also quite like the guitar line that comes in after the first chorus. I like its role as a part of the medley, and I don't mind that the verses are excised because Shinoda's live singing there is not fantastic.

    Although I kind of understand why people are all up in arms about it, I don't have that big a problem with the "Transformers" edit of "Iridescent". I definitely prefer the original edit because Shinoda's first verse sounds far better without drums, but, on the whole, the differences, to me, are not so major that I would want to punch a hole in a wall over it.

    "Iridescent"'s video was, for the longest time, one of my favourite Linkin Park videos ever and, although I still like it a lot, I don't really call it a favourite anymore. The "New Divide" video creatively blurred the lines between the band's performance footage and the film footage ... but, with the "Iridescent" video, Hahn took that cohesiveness to the next level. It is easily the best music video for a movie soundtrack single I've ever seen. I also like that, especially in terms of colour, it's completely different from what you would expect for an "Iridescent" music video, especially given the song's title. :) And, in true "A Thousand Suns" form, there's still more going on than just Linkin Park standing around and "Transformers" characters appearing.
     
  17. hawk

    hawk because the internet LPA Super VIP

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    much like BTorio, it was quite a long time before i actually liked iridescent. i like it more now than i have before, but it's nothing notable for me.

    it's place on transformers was strange. it very very noticeable just how much michael bay wanted to shove it down our throats, which was quite funny in the movie theater. but i did enjoy hearing it.
     
  18. Abel

    Abel Chester Bennington saved my life.

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    What else could I really say that hasn't been said by me or anyone else on the forum? "Iridescent" is my all-time favorite Linkin Park song. Yes, all-time. This song means the world to me. I can't really explain how much this song has helped me in my life, and I have admitted that I've actually cried hard during my second listen of ATS. "Iridescent" is practically my theme song.

    Now getting off the personal aspect and moving into the musical aspect...absolutely, in my opinion, the best ballad Linkin Park has ever written, and it's no wonder the band (especially Chester) loves the song. The slow, sorrowful, depressing intro with just the piano and synth in the background before Mike's verse about being impossibly alone, only to be followed by Chester's "words of encouragement" chorus (which is my second favorite chorus right after "Waiting For The End") really sets the tone for the rest of the song. The echoing guitar, the many layers of instruments that are surprisingly found in the little sound (details!), the tinge of hopefulness...there's a whole lot to be said about "Iridescent" musically, to me.

    And the whole build-up to the end.

    Yesssssssssss.

    I don't care what anyone says, I loved the gang vocals and I still do. And that whole last part where just about everything in the band's studio kicks in somehow. Beautiful. Cathartic. Epic. Like, if you're ever feeling like total crap and/or you're trying to get over some of the worst times in your life, just play the whole song and let it out, ESPECIALLY during that part.

    Live? Total monster. Everybody's just so into the song, and I think I cried to this while I was at the ATS World Tour in Vegas (February 19, 2011; I never forget.) because I was just so lost into the performance. The Red Square performance remains one of my favorite live performances, next to the iTunes London Festival version.

    Heck, "Iridescent" made Transformers: Dark of the Moon good to me. The TF3 music video, I admit, was confusing at first, but I got around to accepting it (I never hated it, to clarify). The SOTS video, however? Amazing and just wonderful. Definitely played the song's theme to a T, and it's such an admirable video for hopefully everyone to enjoy.

    "Iridescent" remains one of my most-played songs ever and one of the biggest reasons why Linkin Park is my favorite band of all-time.

    Absolutely, you dirty liar. :kappa:
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2014
  19. GraveDigger388

    GraveDigger388 Nothing's gonna top my Jacky

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    My friend always listens to sad,moody-downer songs.And every fuckin' time we met,he always looked like he'd been give up on something.Then I told him how people's personality can can be affected by type of music they listen to.And I said "Listen to some motivating music for once" he replied "whatever,this is my music".Which I replied "yeah but we are tired of how you complain all the time,over the same damn thing".And then one time I was listening to Iridescent and he liked it.And now he plays Iridescent all the damn time :(....

    There goes your bedtime story,now go to sleep...
     
  20. lime treacle

    lime treacle You are not alone Über Member

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    I've always liked "Iridescent", but the excessive airtime the video for the Transformers remix got on television ruined the song for me to a point.
     

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