Linkin Park Have Gotten...Sorta Lame.

First before you read this consider the following: I love Linkin Park and have done for going on 15 years now. Hybrid Theory was the first ever rock album I owned and I've followed the band ever since. I've been a member of this fansite for eleven years, being on staff for around two of those years. I've played an active role in promoting the bands music through news articles on this site and via word of mouth to my peers. I've identified with the lyrical content on the band's albums and have been inspired to push the boundaries of my creativity by the band's innovative, genre-transcending sound. So why do I think the band has gotten lame?

1. The live show has deteriorated - big time.

I've seen LP eight times over the years in all manner of different venues and locations. It's really disappointing to say, but the most recent shows have felt, well, laboured. Let's go back to last year at Download Festival. As awesome as it was seeing Hybrid Theory played live in full, an experience I will never forget, one of the big issues I have was the quality of which the band performed those songs. To an extent, it seemed to me like the band had forgotten some of those songs (ironically Chester completely missed the opening lyrics of Forgotten). There were missed lyrics, missed notes and at times the vocals were pretty dire (best highlighted by how cringing I thought Crawling was). Chester's vocals have deteriorated immensely over the years so much so that he seems totally incapable of performing those songs in the style they were recorded/previously played live.

Fast forward a few months and I was seeing the band at the O2 arena in London and I was pretty shocked to see that the band had started skipping verses - something which I cannot understand any self-respecting artist would do. Either play the song or don't. There was also a total equipment meltdown during BID when one of Joe's many samplers took on a mind of its own and sounded like a clusterfuck of distortion.

Fast further forward to their headlining performance at Amensia Rockfest in Montebello, Canada - this was the most laboured performance I've ever seen by a headlining band. Fair dues, the band were on at midnight, but their overall performance lacked energy and enthusiasm. It was like they couldn't wait for the show to be finished so they could go to bed - real rockstar attitude there.

Okay so it's obviously not possible to be 100% on your game every show, but this band used to command such high standards of themselves and that seems to have disappeared. The setlists are now totally predictable, less varied and a lot more prone to error. I also think it's pretty lame that the band have now released 3 albums of which there are songs they haven't performed live in full. There are still many songs off LT and THP that have yet to be played live and the shortened version of Robot Boy is just pointless. Again, play the full song or don't play it at all - don't play some half assed version you think is going to appease some people just hearing some of that song - it's not.

I also have serious reservations about the band's actual abilities on stage now. All these songs from THP...why the hell aren't they being played live? The only explanation I can think of is that they can't play them live because, as the critics have always said, Linkin Park is a studio band. It's fairly obvious that Brad is a pretty mediocre guitarist - even the solos on THP (bar maybe the solo on War - 'modern guitar god' as one critic put it hahaha) are pretty 'safe' solos in the sense that you don't have be a highly skilled guitarist to perform them. Frankly I'm a little tired of waiting for this dude to step up. I'm not saying constantly solo the shit out of it, but this band has toured with some phenominal guirarists - Mike Einziger, Mike McCready, Darron Malakian to name a few. You'd think that being around those guys would inspire him to take his playing to the next level, but his playing has stayed pretty average and pretty disappointing. Aside from this, the fact that they had Paige Hamilton on stage with them recently and they didn't play All or Nothing is a testament that there is definitely something wrong with this band's live capabilities.

Furthermore...visceral visceral visceral. That's all we fucking heard in the lead up to THP and yet the setlist has pandered to the casual fans with pretty much 90% of it being singles. I was excited that maybe the band would bring back some of the harder matieral for this touring cycle and would go a little old school, but instead they just threw in some of the new songs in between one of their radio hits. It's really disappointing because I think there's been a big demand for several years now for older, lesser known material to be played. How awesome would it be if the band threw a total curve-ball and broke in to Forgotten, By Myself or even something off Meteora or MTM. I'm literally craving for this band to vary their setlists up a bit and stop feeling the need to appease the casual listeners. No one's saying "stop playing these songs altogether", but how about a rotating setlist? I think with all the talk of going back to their roots with THP, they missed a big oppertunity to actually go back to their roots.

Aside from these points the Castle of Glass 'experience' and 'Ballad Medley' were nice at first, now they're just annoying. Get rid of them.

2. Their last two albums have been mediocre

I honestly hope that the band didn't peak with ATS - an album in my opinion is as close to perfection in terms of cohesion, experimentation and artistic vision that you can get from a band like LP. I do tend to get the feeling like this might be the case as I feel like we're now on a new cycle in the bands careers in which they're now just repeating themselves. Let's compare a few things: Hybrid Theory - an album of 12 tracks, no swearing, track 11 an instrumental. The exact same can be said for Living Things. Meteora - much heavier than the previous album, contains one track as an interlude, one track is an instrumental - very similar to The Hunting Party. Why do I feel there's a pattern developing here? Why is the band repeating themselves?

Putting it simply, there are some tracks off the past two albums which I truly believe previously wouldn't have made the cut on previous albums. This is best presented by the fact that a song they had originally recorded for ATS (I'll Be Gone) was a lot more interesting and creative in demo form than the final version. Living Things in general was very formulaic which was off great disappointment considering how they threw the book out on that one with ATS. It almost felt like the band was eager to really push the boat out and experiment with ATS, but scrambled to try and regain some of those fans they might have lost during that phase with LT.

THP was a big improvement but still not good enough. Again...Visceral visceral visceral but then two of the poppiest songs make the cut and get marketed as the two singles with accompanying videos. Let's put this in perspective as well: this band has been going now for almost 20 years and they thought the lyrics to Until It's Gone were sufficient to be on one of their albums? I'm sorry but even if in some round about way they were talking to label executives with that song, those are by far the worst lyrics on any LP track. Which brings up a whole new issue altogether - why have the bands lyrics stagnated so much? How can the band go from:

We held our breath when the clouds began to form
But you were lost in the beating of the storm
And in the end we were made to be apart
In separate chambers of the human heart

to:

'Cause you don't know what you've got
Oh you don't know what you've got
No you don't know what you've got
It's your battle to be fought
No you don't know what you've got
'Til it's gone
'Til it's gone
'Til it's gone

No. Just fucking no.

Also, you don't get Tom Morello to feature on your album just to play on what is essentially an interlude. I can't believe how much of a missed oppertunity that was. I cannot believe that's the best they could come up with just jamming. Tom Morello is one of the most unique guitarists alive and the best they could come up with was him playing two minutes of what was a near-three minute interlude. So disappointing it's ridiculous. Also not too fond of how similar GATS and ALITS were. To me it sorta seems like they had two directions for the same riff and instead of deciding on one they stuck with both. ALITS is a decent track, but it feels like a lot of it was cut and pasted. If not for Rakim's verse, GATS would have been a bit shit in all honesty.

3. The Hybrid Theory 15th anniversary was shit and proves the band have lost touch with their fans

Sorry but the way you celebrate a 15th anniversary of an album isn't to market some crappy merch to people. Let's be honest, the prices for the band's merch is inflated above reason as it is, but then they try to flog these 'specials' to us for silly prices with none of the designs being particularly outstanding. If they wanted to truly celebrate 15 years they'd tour playing Hybrid Theory in full or they could do a series of scaled down LPU gigs. Alternatively if they wanted it to purely be a marketing ploy, they could have released some live material on DVD like the full HT performance from DL'14 (although considering my previous observations, it doesn't suprise me they didn't). Truth be told with such high prices for tickets, merch and anything else associated with the band, I can't help but feel a little ripped off. I don't bother with the LPU anymore because the price outweighs the benefits. It's the same package every year with little to no variation at all. The unreleased demos are cool but frankly I feel like overall the LPU might as well not exist anymore. Live nation pre-sales exist for pretty much every gig nowadays, so having one days advantage over the general public doesn't really matter.

The thing is that the band have previously made great efforts to appease their fans but I feel like they've lost touch big time. Mike said that the lesser-known material will be played at FM shows...but why can't they be played at Linkin fucking Park shows. Why does one member of the band have to do a totally different live project to play High Voltage, Until It Breaks and other Linkin Park songs. I really don't get it.

Conclusion

It's time for the band to get experimenting again. They've created enough pop songs now and it's time to take their careers to the next level. Overall I'd say the only aspect of the band that's improved in recent times is Rob's drumming. That's pretty dire considering the stature of the band. I think this band has created a lot of good material but only two 'great' albums - those being Hybrid Theory and A Thousand Suns. I think the reason those albums are great is because they're the most daring and by far their most innovative. The band needs to sit down and decide what's next for their careers because I honestly see no point of them releasing another album of what is essentially an updated version of something they've already released. There needs to be a more organic and conscientious outlook with how the band creates their sound. No one's saying "go and repeat the experimentation of ATS and HT" because you can use basic techniques to create big and exciting sounds. I feel that the band play it safe too often though.

I also think the band need to start reigning in some control over how their stuff is promoted. Overall the band feels more like a touring corporation than a band these days and I think thats...well...kinda sad. It pisses me off when their lyrics definitely touch upon being opressed as artists but then seem to acquiesce to the label's bullshit way of operating. They might not have control over all the promotional side of things, but as artists its their job to uphold a sense of artistic integrity. The band have surely made enough money now to not have to worry about label executive dickheads. Why can't they take a page out of Radiohead's book and go indie? I feel the band need to do something bold like this in order to prove they're actually artists worth their salt.

I'm not sure what the solution is or where the problem lies exactly. At the moment the band feel a bit lost and their material at times feels a bit rushed. Maybe they need to really take their time with the next album. Maybe they need to take a break away from being Linkin Park and go get inspired then come back with a fresh outlook. I'm definitely not ready to give up on the band. I've invested a lot of my money and time in to supporting this band because I love them. I know they love their fans as I know you can't please everyone, but in 10 years time when the band are pushing 50, are they still going to be living off the success of One Step Closer and Numb? Teenage angst songs. I think the band needs to begin a process of reinventing themselves or else they risk looking like a joke. They've outlived the bands around them when they broke on to the scene because they ditched the Nu-Metal style and reinvented themselves. Now I think it's time to do the same thing again. It's time for them to release something exciting again. It's time for them to really push the boundaries of their creativity. It's time to take risks.

These are just my opinions though.

 

With regards to your first point, I think it just has to be accepted that LP just aren't a great live band. That's ok though! Many bands I love are the same, but I think it's pretty clear that Shinoda and co. excel in the studio, not jamming it out live.

Regarding point 3, I don't think that's a fair criticism. Of all the bands I follow, LP are way up there in terms of understanding their fan base. Sure, they miss the mark sometimes, but it's really hard for them to appease everyone, just look at the example you used about live set lists. In the recent podcast with Mike, he explained why they play so much from HT and Meteora still. Because it's what most fans want. Let's face it, 95% of the fans at an LP concert would take Crawling over A Line In The Sand any day. They can't appease everyone, but I don't think it's fair to say they don't try. There are so many big bands who, after 15 years, just don't give a fuck any more.

Regarding point 2, I sorta agree, but it's completely subjective. For some people, LT and THP are among the band's greatest albums, and even though I personally agree that ATS trumps them, I think you're a bit too harsh on them. For instance, I think that GATS and ALITS sound nothing alike, and they're both phenomenal tracks. Likewise, I think Drawbar is by far the strongest instrumental in the band's catalogue, and the highlight of THP for me. I have similar opinions for some of the tracks on LT. Again, while I do personally think ATS trumps both albums since, I still consider LT and THP good albums, and certainly some people on here would consider one or the other just as strong as ATS.

(Really well written post though, don't mean to be slamming your whole post! I agree with some of your points but not your consensus. )

 

No disrespect, because I've actually read the whole thing and some interesting points are made (HT shitty birthday, damn it!), but... yeah, there is always that thing that, when someone is not pleased with the most recent record(s) of an artist, they'll do those huge post ranting about how the band has "lost" it. I mean, it's all good, but I sometimes wonder why there seem to be that urge people have to link their own personnal disappointment with a record to "fine, I'm not a fan of this, so this mean the band is going shit!".

In the end, that's probably the reason why most of casual LP listeners back then said "LP went lame after Meteora".

But on the opinion game: GATS is a fantastic track, how dare you!

 

GATS got me way too excited for THP haha. Compared to BID, it was a hell of a lead single. Shame that the rest of the album wasn't quite that exciting (IMO).

 

I still feel like 15 years isn't that great of a landmark compared to say...10 or 25...

 

I don't have a such a strong opinion about first and third point, but I totally agree with the second point.

 

I definitely agree with some points here.

At first: I saw the band to this date 3x. It was always a solid performance.

2010: ATS Tour: First concert ever for me, i had a seat ticket so i cant really judge how the crowd was here. I really liked the concert. The Messenger live was beautiful and all the ATS songs IN FULL (WTCFM/WFTE/W&K/Iridescent/The Catalyst/The Messenger + interludes) were just great. I really liked how this show was more mellow because of the more calm songs. Great first concert.

2014: THP tour. Great setlist with 6 songs from THP (as far as i can remember all in full ) the band was in a really good mood in my opinion, but the fans. Oh god this fans destroyed the concert for me. Just singing the fucking hits. No moshpits as far as i can remember and no really good reaction to the new songs (FUCK IT, GATS AS A OPENER IS great opening to a live concert). As a band, i really dont want to make more for this kind of people. They dont deserve more than mediocre of a great band. Sadly for the "true" fans.

2015: This time more powerful than 2014 and with ALITS but the same critizism to the fans. I cant believe that even people from the LPU cry when other people start to mosh while the other bands (it was a festival show) THIS IS SAD. For me, to a concert its a great thing to mosh. But why i tell this. Generation smartphone took oer on concerts. Its destroy the whole concerts for me. Irts fucking sad. Also if i think this one was a better show than 2014, the fans are sad to me. Fucking sad.


15 years Hybrid Theory
I think we dont really need to argue about this one. It was shit, also if some T-Shirts wasnt too bad. But the whole thing was not a birthday worthy in my opinion.

THP
I think its great in his whole. I really like most of the tracks really much (beside UIG and Wasteland, the typical "hits", not too bad though)
But we all have to admit that Brad isnt really a guitarist in the sense of "guitarist". Also if i really like him, i hope he would enjoy it more as his role in the band. But this isnt the case i think.

LT
I disagree with you here. Some songs are really great i think (IMR, COG, UIB) also if it has the worst LP single (BID) on it. Its not the best, but a really goo one, also if it feels the least "album-kind" for me.

I think with the new album LP will show what they can do right now and i am really good thinking that it will be cool al always. We will see

 

I think this drives home what I was saying regarding the band being considerate towards their fan base. As much as we would all love to hear deeper cuts, I can understand why the band feel obliged to play as many HT/Meteora songs as they do. Literally everyone there will know them.

 

1. The live show has deteriorated - big time.

I have never seen LP live, but I do watch the live videos, and Chester's singing on songs like Crawling, What I've Done, Burn It Down, etc. sounds terrible. I thought their 2014 setlists with like 10 shortened songs was really stupid. So I agree with you on this point, and the All For Nothing situation is definitely worth mentioning.

2. Their last two albums have been mediocre

Here I completely disagree with you.

Living Things was amazing, and has a lot of my favourite songs on it. Lost in the Echo and In My Remains are two of the best songs they've ever made, with Castle of Glass and Powerless not far behind. I also prefer Primo to I'll Be Gone, I have no idea why they changed it so much.

The Hunting Party was also really good, and I think GATS and ALITS are amazing, and I hear very few similarities between them. In fact, GATS is one of my favourite songs, and I listen to the radio edit too. I completely agree on the Tom Morello thing, Drawbar feels like a tragic waste of potential.

I'm not sure what's wrong with Final Masquerade being a single, it sounds great and more like a single than Keys to the Kingdom or War, they didn't really have a lot of options. Until It's Gone isn't as great of a single, but it is a good song and feels most like Living Things, so its probably for the fans of their electronic sounding songs.

3. The Hybrid Theory 15th anniversary was shit and proves the band have lost touch with their fans

Who really cares about a 15th anniversary? Are we gonna expect something for the 20th anniversary? This numbers are barely significant, and soon enough every year we'll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of one album or the 15th of another. I couldn't care less to be honest.

 

I agree with all your points. I was thinking about a lot of these things lately, I've been listening to LP non-stop for a week now, all of their discography, all 180 of their album songs, somtimes intertwined, sometimes album after album.

Their live shows have become a """mess""" in a way. Check the setlist for the O2 show. http://lplive.net/shows/db/2014/20141123 What the fuck is this?! Noone wants to listen to half of Runaway, half of Blackout, half of Papercut, half of BID, LITE, New Divide? Either pick the songs and play them in full or don't play them at all.

I've voiced my concerns in the LP7 expectations thread, I want them to REALLY craft an album this time and not just a collection of songs like they did with LT and THP. War was written in 5 fucking minutes according to Chester. Exaggerated? Sure, but you can tell it was done in that approximately amount of time. Does it really add something valuable to their repertoire? Did they REALLY need to get that off their chest? I was looking at the BID "making of" the other day, Mike was literally in rhymezone.com looking for words that rhymed with "faster". Granted, this was 2012, but still, lol. I speak for myself when I say that Skin to Bone, War and Until It's Gone are not album worthy. The melodies are too simple, the lyrics are too watered down. They have no substance, they just are and that's it, they're filling a space in a tracklist.

I truly think that no other band in the WORLD has as much potential as LP, they've attempted EVERYTHING in their careers. Mike is a fucking creative genius. Chester has an unmatched voice, no one can sing in as many styles as he can and sound good. They have been able to write superb lyrics and raps in certain songs. They can literally create any sound, and make it sound cohesive given the right work.
So why box yourselves in? Why say "We need to make a guitar driven record again" or "this is a collection of songs that we think is an album".

I rejoiced immensely when I read that they were shooting for a late 2016 release with a 6 month "hit-or-miss" in the podcast. I hope they come out in 2017 with a classic. Go right back in into the mindframe of MTM and ATS, push yourselves twice, three times as hard to create substantial lyrics and songs again. Experiment with instruments you haven't played before again. Go fucking insane, not just "bonkers", INSANE, when the guys get busy like that they are the absolute best I've heard. They truly have no restrictions. They are a band which can rap, sing, scream, have a turntablist who can play any sample, they cut shit apart and rearrange it so it sounds good, have an arsenal of 10 thousand different equalizers and filters, they can do ANYTHING if their minds are set into it.
I want them to take as much time as they need to let their voices rest and make an incredible album again.
And please have Neal Avron mix it.

Also something I want to add, is that 2 albums later they're still using material from the A Thousand Suns sessions (Primo, Tinfoil, A Line in the Sand). So yeah.

 

Sorry, but so?

I guess, at the very least, writing a song in 5 minutes bring a spontanety to the music you might not find so easily in a overthought, over complex piece of music. Fair enough, I have never been a fan of that purist thing of "yeah, a song has to be over complex and full of layers and intricated chords and blablabla!". I dunno. The hardcore punk movement was explicitely made to counter that elitist mumbo jumbo. Get some bastards who can barely play guitars. Put them together. Let them make some fast, spontaneous, furious music.

Yes, that brings something to music super-creative multilayered stuff will never achieve. And yes, that particular song added something to LP repertoire: a punk song in its true form. A song from a gender who heavily influenced at least 4 guys in this band, like it or not.

 

And that is exactly what I meant. It just is. It's there for the sake of being there. Does it bring something truly new to LP's repertoire? Did it help them push boundaries? Did it help them become better musicians? Or is it just a 2 minute punk song in a hard rock album they felt fitting to include? That's my point when I say they boxed themselves in.

 

I do plan on responding to this conversation more thoroughly when I get the time, but for now, let me just add to the "War" thing.

Yes, it does contribute to the band's discography. What Qwerty said is absolutely right. It's not technical, because punk music shouldn't be. It's not polished, because punk music shouldn't be. It doesn't have an out of this world guitar solo, because punk music isn't for that. You know why? Because punk music is supposed to be raw, fun, agressive, fast. It is one of my personal favorites off the band's last album. What I don't like about the song, is the overly simple lyrics. Punk is rebellious, and "War" checks that box. You take out political commentary from punk - you got some noisy pop music. What LP did with the lyrics there is complitely phoning it in, though. Extremely simple, extremely generic. "War, destroyer" is not a chorus the band should be writing 15 years into their career.

 

But that's what I'm aiming at, the guitar solo is actually good in the song, but other than that the song has zero substance. I've already read the debate around War and what punk music stands for but the point still stands.

 

+1

I personally think that the band missed the mark a bit on several tracks on THP, but War isn't one of them. It's exactly what they promised, and it showed us something that we never knew the band could do, and for that I'm grateful of its existence.

(Although the lyrics could be better )

 

Alright, I have barely read anything said in the original post and what you guys have replied.

But I will comment on LP losing touch with their fan base. And I really think the LPA podcast with Mike really throws your point out the window. Linkin Park is the type of band that will experiment not only with their music, but with how they market and promote different things. Mike has admitted to some of the flaws of past promotion, like with THP (he didn't comment on HT 15 years, I guess cause it's too soon). I think it would be quite unfair to claim that the band "lost touch with their fans" after 1 or 2 mistakes with promotion and marketing. As I said, the new podcast really just disproves this point.

 

"Until It's Gone" was just slapped into The Hunting Party tracklist when Imagine Dragons were chosen for the fourth Transformers and they had that song floating around since they were thinking it'd go in the movie. While I think it was a terrible idea and that if it had to go on the album it should have been lyrically stronger, with all the backlash against literally everything the band has done since Meteora, I can't blame them for trying to get a couple of poppier singles on The Hunting Party to ensure it wouldn't tank.

Is there a single thing Linkin Park has done since Meteora that hasn't had a noticeably negative reaction from at least one fairly large group? Minutes to Midnight got shit for changing from their original style. And then some of those who were fine with that album shat all over A Thousand Suns. Living Things got beaten to death. The Hunting Party got bludgeoned for being an "unsuccessful attempt to return to the Hybrid Theory sound", which wasn't even the goal in the first place mind you. Like Mike said in the interview, a sizeable portion of the fanbase is only there for the old stuff.

I'm not trying to defend the song "Until It's Gone", though I don't have too many problems with it (I have more problems with what seems to be the majority fan favorite "Rebellion" honestly; I think it's not that great of a song). I'm not saying we should blindly accept everything the band does, but for fuck's sake...maybe if we the fanbase as a whole stopped being so overly critical maybe they'd be more comfortable stepping outside of the safety zone.

That's what I think. Shit all over my post, whatever. I'm sticking to it.

 

Interesting, this is the first I've heard of this.

I feel like no matter what they do, they will get a large negative reaction.

If they do something new, people get mad at them for changing. If they do something like HT again, people will say they sold out. And if they made another album like whatever the one was before it, people would call them lazy. There is literally no way for them to please everyone, and I'm sure they know that.

I like to think that the "expected fan reaction" has no effect on what they do.