I entered! If I am chosen to attend I'd be more then happy to describe and review the tracks for you guys if the powers that be allow me to.
If by Powers you mean LPA staff, then I think you should be able to post your review. I don't see why you wouldn't
Shadow's rant is a huge eye opener for me and I just feel smarter after reading it. Linkin Park's fan base is slowly becoming a wrestling fan base. There are the smarks who root for the underdog that puts out more quality work, and there are the marks who root for the classic fan favorites (like CM Punk to John Cena). People got comfy with Linkin Park's formula for the first three years but the smarks treated it like John Cena (always does the same moves/always sounds the same) and Linkin Park just wanted to evolve to give their fans a chance to hear something new, while giving themselves a challenge and trying to complete it. It's like a wrestler adding new grapples or high flying techniques to his pallet. Mike being a painter, I know he wouldn't want to draw the same art all of the time because it would just get old and way too easy to do. Us as the fans have the freedom to comment on what we believe the band should do, or praise them for any move that we feel was worth going for. I feel more of us negatively comment on their moves though, and it is a shame. This album cycle has been no different. I feel like with each album cycle we're just given more older material to compare or criticize their newer music with and it's going to be a never ending cycle. It's like Chaos from Sonic Adventure (waddup again Shadow haha). Keep feeding him emeralds and he gets bigger. We keep getting material and we just use it against the band. I love this fan base but myself included are harsher critics than these so called music snobs who only like underground rap or left field indie music that you'd stumble upon online.
Mike said in his instagram that he was rehearsing a few of new songs for the upcoming tours. Does that mean that we are getting new song(s) before that?
2 weeks is a bit too soon. Try 3 weeks. Maybe, maybe 2 and a half weeks. But definitely not 1 or 2 weeks. 2 weeks would be the 1st. Album comes out the 13th. It's not leaking 13 days before its release. New Music is news technically!
It'll most likely leak between June 6th and June 10th. I remember MTM was leaked 11 days prior to release, ATS was 7 days, and LT was 11 days (Thanks to iTunes fucking up).
I'm not claiming to have the strength to avoid the leak, but I've thought about waiting to listen to the album in full, until my CD arrives. Have my first listen of it be in the highest quality possible.