From what I read in the forums, Brad Delson no enjoys playing the guitar. In fact, it seems that his contribution in THP was a bit forced by Mike, who encouraged him to retake the instrument. It turns out that now he is more interested in playing the role of producer of the band and the guitar pick it up rather little, for a pair of chords like in OML and that's it. If it's true, we augur a very little future rocker for the band or with this instrument... In fact, since MTM the evolution of the group is increasingly electronic and more poper. THP was a strange event that breaks with the route that has taken the group all these years. What do you think? Brad won't play the guitar for next albums? PD: I'm learning english yet, so sorry for the possible mistakes
I don'the think that is true. Like Brad sad there is really a bunch of guitar on the new album. It's just different than power chords all the time . I love the guitar work on one more light e.g. Sorry for Now 1:02. I actually think there is more guitar than on living things. I hated the guitar work on Lt
I'm pretty sure he needs his guitar because it's his penis. That's why he plays with it so well. Kidding aside (or is it), I'm pretty sure Brad loves playing it. He's just not...a very good guitarist, if not certainly not with the stamina of other guitarists.
Yep, there are tons of audible guitar parts on most (if not all) OML songs. I am saying "audible", because I'm sure we'll find out there are even more guitars once Astat dissects the tracks. And, to be fair, every record Linkin Park has released so far features a substantial amount of guitar playing. I wouldn't worry about the band abandoning it on future albums, but I could see them using it the way they did on OML again. Depending on the type of music they decide to do next, of course.
Regarding his increasing role of producer, that's been in the making since the band's onset. It's almost always been him and Mike at the helm, with Mike obviously having the primary role in the studio for all of their albums. But through interviews, videos, etc, we've been consistently seeing him have more interest and influence in the programming, engineering, and production side of the band. I feel like that is significantly more important and interesting than him just playing guitar anyway. He's got a lot more influence to the overall sound design to a track than your average guitarist in any band does.
This was a valid argument to make during the A Thousand Suns/Living Things era, as Mike really did take over as the band's primary studio guitarist during that period (particularly on Living Things - Brad literally only played on 3 or 4 songs on that record). However, while his increased involvement with guitar parts on The Hunting Party was a very Mike-driven thing (and even that largely consisted of lead guitar work - Mike still played a LOT of rhythm stuff on THP), he clearly got back into it as a result. All ten songs on One More Light DO feature guitar (substantial guitar, in fact), and a large number of the parts are immediately identifiable as being Brad if you know what to look for in terms of differences between traits of his guitar playing vs. Mike's (there's a fair bit of fingerpicked stuff and weird stetch-y intervals, things Mike just doesn't play). He also seems to be enjoying himself a lot more on stage lately, even though his mobility is still limited with that leg injury. His "there is a ton of guitar on this album" comment was absolutely true, and all evidence points to him playing most of it. Doing heavy stuff on The Hunting Party may have been forced on him, but he's playing more guitar on this record than he has in the last decade.
If I remember correctly, there were threads like this when ATS came out as well. Heck, this new album has more guitars than half of LT and entire ATS.
Thread's over folks. The leading expert in everything LP guitar has blessed us with his presence and confirmation that there's a lot of guitar on the record. That wasn't sarcasm by the way, thread really is over, folks.
I think if you understand the role guitars play in their songs it's more clear. Through HT-LT guitar is pretty much doing nothing but powerchords and octaves, with relatively few exceptions in the form of simple solos, intro riffs, etc. By the time you get to Living Things, Brad's probably just not interested in hearing the same wall-of-guitars thing in their tracks anymore, the same way lots of us kind of hate the way they turned primo into a generic wall-of-guitars track since we've heard that sound a million times. I don't think it's really fair to say Brad's not a good guitar though, it's just that the songs they have chosen to put out have consistently called for pretty simple, repetitive guitar parts. I mean look at Three Band Terror, that's pretty nice acoustic playing, but it never saw the light of day. Who knows how much of that stuff he plays around with that just doesn't belong on an LP album.
Word, I totally agree with this post in its entirety! Or look at She Couldn't, the unreleased pre-HT demo, where he's doing some really awesome and nice fingerpicking. A "good" guitar player doesn't have to shred or play crazy lead parts.
I think THP and OML are where you hear more of Brad's identity as a guitar player and musician. The albums before were more written by Mike and Brad would sometimes come in and either play what Mike wrote or add on to it. The title track on OML is where Brad's touch as a guitarist immediately stands out. I don't hear people use that tone and style of picking much in contemporary rock bands. I don't know if he'll do anything more like that, he seems to be a lot more interested in producing and writing songs than being a guitar enthusiast.