It's varied but it's not like all the songs are jarringly different to one another - the only part where I think that's the case at all is having No More Sorrow sandwiched in between Hands Held High and Valentine's Day. There's probably less variation than on ATS actually, certainly not more, but that album has the advantage of having about a third of the tracklist being made up of interludes among other things. I don't think what's there on MTM flows as badly as people say to be honest.
Given up to LOATR: These songs have 0 similarities. Nuff said LOATR to BIO: Again, nothing in common. At least they had the "bar voices" start at the end of LOATR. BIO to SOTD: A party song with screaming to a pop ballad? Hmmm SOTD to WID: This was actually pretty solid. These songs definitely belonged back to back. WID to HHH: not as good as sotd to wid, but these songs also went ok together HHH to NMS: You said it yourself. NMS: Valentines Day: Again, like you said In Between/In Pieces/TLTGYA: These flow pretty decently I suppose. So I guess looking at there are some good transitions. But there are a lot of awkward moments as well. Did ATS cheat with interludes? Not in my mind. Is it cheap that there's only 9 whole songs? I don't think so but that's a different argument.
Minutes is their most cohesive album besides ATS due to the themes involved. Once again if the songs don't sound remotely close to the previous that proves the album can shock you and give you alot of unexpected moments.
Basically there's 3 groups of lyrical ideas. So how is that cohesive? To me it sounds like they took demos from 2-3 different albums and merged them into one.
How is random fade in and outs cohesive. Example, the little 3 seconds in between Dont Stay and Somewhere I Belong. What the hell was that? Some of the other transitions tease or hint the next song. Pure laziness. The whole album was "my life is the equivalent of eating donkey poop and tripping down glass stairs with spikes on the bottom" while Minutes displayed groups of songs that connect emotionally, and the last track wraps all of the themes together, or most of them. That's how it's cohesive.
For me me MTM is about even with HT (under ATS at the top & Meteora dead last). Where HT is consistantly good straight through, none of it's song reach the heights of TLTGYA or are as good as HHH & V-Day. But at the same time it doesn't reach the lows of GU or WID. LOATR to me is like a redo of Numb, though better written. Yup. MTM, for me, would have easily placed over HT if the final tracklist was different. Cut GU, WID & LOATR, replace them with NRL, ATL & Blackbirds. By itself WID isn't a political song. It only got political overtones from the music video. Agreed. The structure and the "samey" lyrics make those albums cohesive more than anything else.
Who care's how "lazy" it is? It works. It's better than not even trying. But I respect your opinion with the lyrics. It's obviously a huge deal with you, which is fine. For me I'm more about how music sounds, then I look at lyrics. Yes, M2M is lyrically better than HT. And yes, Meteora has shitty lyrics. But I'm fine with that. To each their own.
Musically, everything was built the same in the first albums. That's why I loved Reanimation. It always suprised you with new sounds and structures whe the first album droned on the same sounds and structures. Although you can say it's cohesive because of that, I'd rather look into the themes and emotions. It almost tells a story not reads the same chapter everyday. (mtm tells a loose as hell story)
Reanimation is another album like ATS where even though there are different sounds, it still all belongs together.
And I could never look at lyrics second. It's like if I wrote; rap verse: yo my life sucks but it's already been said/ I hate life ever since I was kicked out of the bed/ boo hoo cry here cry there because there is no tommorrow/ my heart bleeds over all of the pain and the sorrow/ singing chorus: my life is sad and it blows/ need a tissue for my nose/ (x2) rap verse: have we established how hurt I am/ or do I have to repeat myself over again/ you lied I cried you hated I waited/ but it seems like all of our happiness faded/ singing chorus: my life is sad and it blows/ need a tissue for my nose/ (x2) screaming bridge: MY LIFE (sucks really bad) MY LIFE (is the worst you can have) MY LIFE (sucks really bad) MY LIFE (is the worst you can have) singing chorus: my life is sad and it blows/ need a tissue for my nose/ (x4)
Songs don't have to be similar to flow. Think of the first few like this: Wake and Given Up build up to a crescendo. LOATR is the calm after the storm, the calando. Or whatever the correct term is. Then there's Bleed It Out. It picks up the tempo again slightly and is stylistically different, but is the transition that jarring? Not really. It's barely heavier and it has a pretty laid-back swaggery tone really, as opposed to one of aggression... oh yeah, and the vocals in the bridge don't tell the story of the whole song. Then the album settles into a groove for a few songs. Between HHH and NMS there are actually a few similarities. Both stripped down, both with similar lyrical themes, military-style drumbeats. Come to think of it, the two actually don't go too badly together. Two sides of the same coin. Then NMS to Valentine's Day, which is the closest thing on the album to a poor transition. It's another storm/calm dealy, I suppose. Or not. Oh well. After that, the album ends with a set of songs that are relatively pretty similar musically, and lyrically aside from TLTGYA which is kind of tacked-on in that respect. So, while the album doesn't flow 100% perfectly, it's not exactly horrible in that respect either. More often than not there are actually threads between songs, and shifting dynamics =/= songs not fitting together. While I'm there, what happens when an album doesn't flow well BECAUSE the songs sound so similar? Meteora. Good thing they avoided a repeat of that by and large, I think. Finally, I wasn't accusing ATS of cheating with the interludes and I said nothing about the amount of full songs on there.
Yeah I didn't say it was you who thought that of ATS. And I see your point. Perhaps I'll try to look at M2M that way next time I listen!
Plenty of people. "You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might." Why bother if you're barely even going to try?
Dean is right. Read my lyrics, it all happened and came to me in 2 minutes. Throw some average drums, weak riffs, and like 2 piano notes in the end of the bridge and you got yourself and effortless mess.
The songs don't need to flow together or have any similarites. It's just a CD. It's not a collection of songs for a concept album.
You guys are trippin'. That album is weak. I learned to appreciate it more but it's far from innovative, creative and beside No roads left, Bleed it out, in pieces and maybe TLTGYA the rest sounds like U2 and a Cover band trying to sound like Linkin Park but fails at it.
Hahaha I love the constant U2 comparisons. I'm sure U2 has written a rap/rock party song about death, a rap song with military drums and a church organ, made a ska song go crescendo, and screamed for sixteen seconds over loud guitars, bass, hands clapping, and keys jingling. This thread was to appreciate how good this album is since it's always overlooked, not hop on the critic bandwagon and compare them to U2