Altwire Preview of "Meteora 20" Lost Demos - Details Inside

I think the thing that the demos prove the most is that Linkin Park were being serious when they said they could easily have gone back to their HT/MT sound instead of evolving it. Like there was so much that they could have finished up and then called it a day. I'm thankful for Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns for pushing them to challenge themselves.

 

Yeah “Lost” and “Fighting Myself” are the most generic of the 5 major new tracks. “Lost” for me at least has a nice anthemic pop rock chorus but, for me, “Fighting Myself” felt like the gimmicky “Screams! Heavy!” Meteora song. The most interesting part of it was the vocal loop sample imo.

“More the Victim” and “Healing Foot” have the basic Meteora song structure but they are more lyrically interesting and MTV has a softer, more interesting sound thanks to the Cumulus instrumental.

 

The only really difference is that the guitars, especially in the chorus, are more noticable.

 

I'd argue there's a lot of changes in the dynamics of the synths as well but yeah the guitars are definitely the most noticeable change.

 

There's something that I have been wondering since Meteora20 released. Just how much control did LP have in not only the creative process of this album, but also determining the final tracklist? I had read a comment recently suggesting that Warner set a limit on the number of tracks that could be included, but I don't know how true that is. And, there are just so many demos/ideas that were left unfinished, unused - it's sad to see these songs/demos with a lot of potential just abandoned like that.

With the drastic changes that a number of the songs went through, especially lyrically, there is a bit of a disconnect with the demos and final versions. Certain songs, like Faint and Hit The Floor, had very different lyrics originally. When hearing the demos vs the final versions, the theming/vibe is different, too. I can honestly say that I prefer the demo/earlier versions' lyrics over the final versions for some of the songs, because they just had more going on with them, and weren't as simplified IMO.