A Thousand Suns General Discussion

I think you've hit the nail on the head here, Minus. It's hard for me to say, comparatively to the rest of the band's discography, that this album isn't excellent. In truth, it's an excellent record in comparison to everything else. If you were to ask me to create a top 10 list in regards to Linkin Park's best works, a majority of the songs on that list would fall on A Thousand Suns. It's just hard to ignore how much stronger the record is in comparison to all of the others. The lyrics, as a whole, are so much better. The song structures are, in large part, unconventional and as such keep the songs interesting. The band does a good job introducing certain lyrical and musical themes, and then bringing them forward and back. When you think of a conceptual album that is trying to make a serious point while at the same doing so through good songwriting, Linkin Park did pretty well here.

At the same time, we have to accept that in the context of the rest of the music world - Linkin Park hasn't hit their potential yet to be considered "good" or "great" along the likes of others. They've proven that they can take some risks and create a solid album, but when will they truly put everything on the line and try to raise the bar? A Thousand Suns is considered to be so good because none of the band's other albums (save maybe Reanimation) can even compete. However, there are bands out there who put out more solid albums consistently (e.g. Radiohead).

I want to disagree with you, Tony, but I see where you're coming from. For me, personally, I think The Hunting Party comes as advertised. It is the "hardest" album for Linkin Park, but at the same time I wouldn't call the album cohesive. The album really has three parts, and for me it goes downhill after "War." The first five songs, I think, are really indicative of what the album was trying to do (and I believe Chester has expressed as much). However, "Wastelands" and "Until It's Gone" to some extent sit on the opposite spectrum - they're largely uncreative and to me fall flat. "Rebellion" sits on its own, but it's hard for me to evaluate it because of how much it screams "System of a Down." Afterwards, I feel what the band was trying to do largely becomes lost. Save "Drawbar," and all of the other songs are either too conventional or try too hard to be different. "Mark the Graves" and "A Line in the Sand" have their moments but bounce around too much.

To me, The Hunting Party is much more an album of moments than A Thousand Suns is. I don't find it to be nearly as cohesive. I actually find the album frustrating in that I feel it really veered off course after the fifth track. The album to me *peaks* at "Guilty All the Same." That's how difficult this album is for me because I only sincerely love three tracks (the other two being "Keys to the Kingdom" and "War").

I'd be interested to hear how and why you feel the album is more cohesive, because for all I know I could be missing something.

They aren't bound to any one idea but I do think there is a concept to the album - and I believe the band has asserted as much. A Thousand Suns really reflects the distancing of humanity from what is humane (which takes place in a variety of different ways, from violence to the digital age to weapons of mass destruction) and really sort of asks the question of "Who besides us can save us?" Granted, that is my interpretation, but I think this may have been what the band was going for. It's a powerful album in that way, and with the implementation of the quotes I think all of the songs fit into that context.

But you are absolutely right in that each of the songs goes a different way with it, and that's really a part of why I genuinely love this album. Every song is just a little different, some of which are talking about a much more concrete issue and some of which move away into personal feelings and emotions. Each song has a different feel and genre to it, which makes the album interesting. However, the band does well through the use of intervening themes to keep everything linked together. In that way, for me, the album is a strong one.

I am not going to disagree with anyone and say that the album is perfect, because it isn't. No album really is at the end of the day. I don't want to say it's over-rated, largely because for me it is one of my favorite albums. It's certainly Linkin Park's best effort for many of the reasons I've already described. I largely love it because to me it really showed the band at a vulnerable moment. Minutes to Midnight was in some way risky and certainly a miniature departure, but that album was not nearly as polarizing as A Thousand Suns was. I recently watched the "Meeting of A Thousand Suns" video, and it does a good job of showing some of the turmoil the band was going through close to the end. Chester's statement at the end is really indicative of where the band was, and I really want the band to be there again. The band at that point was really on the same page - they just didn't want to sit in the box that everyone made for them. And while I think the band still has that ethos (I mean, that's what The Hunting Party is), it's not coming from the entire band. This time, it came from Mike, and in some ways it made me a little uncomfortable.

I'm not going to say that everyone should like this album. I actually like that there are such a range of opinions, and I think the band likes that it triggered so many different feelings. I do hope everyone appreciates what the band was trying to do, though, and at least understands that in some way it had to be done. There's a really interesting storyline of the band that is carried through with these albums, showing that the band is sincerely trying to put music out there that no one else is really making.

At the same time, I think the band needs to delve back into the "how can we shake ourselves" mentality, again. Do what some other bands do and leave the country for a while and record the album somewhere else. Take the time to explore different influences and see how you can incorporate them into your music. For example, one of the things I love about Muse's album, Black Holes and Revelations, was that you could tell that each song came from a different place internally and geographically. The band had been around and recorded the album in different places, and you can see where each song came from to some extent. I think it'd be neat to see Linkin Park try that sort of thing.

I dno, I know my opinion is particular - but I just want to be able to put Linkin Park on in my car and have people ask, "Wait, who is this?" That's what A Thousand Suns was, and I want them to return to that form in some capacity.

 

Yeah! I've said before that "A Thousand Suns" is Linkin Park finally pulling off "Reanimation" with basically no outside help.

 

LP are my all-time favourite band and there are some things that they do better than everyone else, yeah. But, in some areas, they are far from what I consider to be "the very best", I'm certainly not blind to that.

 

Are you just trying to appeal to people's egos here?