Compactin Park

MTM:
Cuts:
Wake - No room for an intro as glorious as it is.
Hands Held High - Mid song, honestly. NMS fills it's vibe as the political attack song of the album.
In Between - A little too low energy for the vibe the album winds up with.
Leave Out All The Rest - Controversial pick, but hear me out: LPU exists for a reason. As much as I love this song, this cut requires sacrifices, and in this timeline, LOATR is a beloved LPU b-side.

Final tracklist:
1. No More Sorrow (3:42) - In lieu of a proper intro for the album, the ponderous ebow and thunderous guitars ring us in with the requisite anticipation.
2. Valentine's Day (3:17) [6:59] After NMS, we need a ballad-- and in this world, this song is the single that replaces "LOATR".
3. Given Up (3:09) [10:08] After VD we need a return to heavy chungus, and I'd imagine this split would be an opportunity for some interesting transiton work.
4. In Pieces (3:38) [13:46] We need a fakeout calm down after Given Up. The first half lulls you into a false sense of security before the ramp up towards the end.
5. Shadow of the Day (4:50) [18:36] This is the real respite after the twofer of GU and IP.
6. Bleed it Out (2:44) [21:20] After the emotional oomph of the last few songs we need a party anthem to end all party anthems. This also signals that the record is soon coming to a close.
7. What I've Done (3:25) [24:45] It's placement here turns it into sort of the emotional throughline of the record in this playlist order. I think it serves as a full epic outro, building on what came before, before we get to the real meat and climax in...
8. The Little Things Give You Away (6:24) [31:09] Best track of the record, no cuts here. I don't even really need to explain this one.

Hardest one done.

 

Ooh, that's a brutal concept I think the last 3 records are by far the worst offenders in term of fillers, I wouldn't touch the first 4. Even tracks like Nobody's Listening or Hit The Floor bring variety to Meteora and do their jobs.

I'll start with the unfamous black sheep of the family.

THP Cuts

• Summoning - Yeah, that one is the definition of "Filler"
• Until It's Gone - A "Transformers" aimed track should never have been on a raw punk-inspired record
• Drawbar - Too long for a "visceral record", doesn't add much, breaks momentum
• A Line In The Sand - Getting controversial here. I know many have issues with ALITS. I still think It is an okay track, but the start and stop feels a bit too clumsy for inclusion on the record

As such, you end up with only two mid-tempo moments (MTG and FM). By putting them as intro and outro, you keep the rest of the record blasting for the entire (short) run time. One could say : visceral.

Final tracklist (Reordered for smoother transitions)

1. MTG - It was considered a potential opener, and the long intro (+ eerie verses) hits so much more as such
2. KTTK - MTG ends with screaming, and that sets perfectly the tone for the storm to come
3. GATS - Keep it #Visceral
4. War - KEEP THE CHAOS GOING MORE
5. Wastelands - I was considering a cut for this one, but the transition from War to the intro riff is a keeper
6. AFN - Introducing Page later in the tracklist feels smoother, when we've heard Chester a lot before
7. Rebellion - "Put the heavy shit right here" goes perfectly into this one
8. Final Masquerade - Ballad closure. The abrupt end of Rebellion transitions nicely into FM drum beat.

Run time : 31:02

 

I put thought in mine, I just didn't show my work. I will now edit my post to spite you.

 

God damn, if there was ever a perfect comment...

 

That's literally my least favorite thing about LP

 

I've actually had a playlist for The Hunting Party EP for close to a decade now. All 5 full tracks are still in my top 10-15 Linkin Park tracks ever. Simply all killer no filler:

1. Mark the Graves
2. Guilty All the Same
3. Rebellion
4. Keys to the Kingdom
5. Drawbar
6. A Line in the Sand

And since nobody's done it yet, here's LIVING THINGS:

1. Castle of Glass
2. Lost in the Echo
3. Tinfoil
4. Powerless
5. Victimized
6. Roads Untraveled
7. Until It Breaks

I don't know how I feel about Powerless in the middle, but I like the idea of ending on Until It Breaks.

 

Minutes To Midnight:

1. QWERTY
2. Given Up
3. Leave Out All The Rest
4. Bleed It Out
5. What I've Done
6. No More Sorrow
7. Valentine's Day
8. In Pieces

 

This thread got me down the rabbit hole of sequencing again

Wasn't totally satisfied with my previous entry for THP :

• As much as I like War, it does feel a bit filler-ish (especially the wtf solo)
• Wastelands is too much of a mid song for inclusion
• Even though it's a divisive track, ALITS remains ambitious and definitely not filler

THP (Final Entry)

1. Mark the Graves
2. Keys to the Kingdoms
3. All For Nothing
4. Guilty All The Same
5. Rebellion
6. Final Masquerade
7. A Line In The Sand

Total Run time : 32:10

• This version has a symmetrical design, with the 3 longest songs opening, closing, and being the mid-section of the record
• Rebellion after GATS works surprisingly well (took the idea from @Atticus). Rebellion heavy intro keeps the momentum of GATS outro, but then the song switches into a more melodic approach, contrasting nicely with GATS
• In this configuration, AFN is barely good enough to make the cut, yet I think its inclusion is essential. It is one of Mike's favorite, was one of the earliest demos for the record, and features one of the main inspiration behind THP musical direction (Page from Helmet)
• .... and you can't have THP without a 5-start general

Okay, I stop with this one ^^

 

Nobody's Listening has such a unique sound compared to the rest of the album that removing it would be a shame imo Songs like that and Breaking the Habit are the direction I wish Meteora leaned more into

 

Onto Living Things. Much easier and lazier.

Living Things Cuts

• Roads Untravelled - I'm going to get hated for this Hear me out on this one. It's a good track. But trying to force a 4 min folk song on a 75% firecracker electro-rock effort doesn't really work. It breaks its identity. Choices have to be made, and there are not enough folk numbers to reverse the tendency and get rid of the electro-rock components instead
• Skin to Bone - Same reason as above, but less heartbreaking

Final Tracklist

1. Lost In The Echo
2. In My Remains
3. Burn It Down
4. Lies Greed Misery
5. I'll Be Gone
6. Castle Of Glass
7. Victimized
8. Until it Breaks
9. Tinfoil
10. Powerless

Total Run time : 30:22

 

I tried to approach this both from the time constraint and thematic angle, balancing the central idea of each album with the "compact fireball" objective. And I did them all at once, teehee.

Hybrid Theory EP (28:18 > 28:18)

Hybrid Theory (37:45 > 32:00)

• Cut By Myself. No regret on that one.
• Cut Cure for the Itch because an instrumental break doesn't fit the theme of a compact fireball, as much as I like it.
• Pretty easy one. Nothing too involved.

Meteora (36:35 > 30:42)

• Cut Somewhere I Belong and Figure.09. I think they are the weakest tracks.
• Keeping LFY plus the remaining four singles are a no-brainers.
• Nobody's Listening, while not my favorite, deserves a place to keep some of the more unique elements of the album alongside Breaking the Habit.
• Also cut Session, inserting Fighting Myself in the place of Figure.09 (the only of these "alternative track" placements I'll do, because keeping Session doesn't fit but I feel it needs another track).

Minutes to Midnight (43:29 > 30:25)

• Cut Shadow of the Day, because it is a longer ballad with instrumental breaks and a keyboard outro. It doesn't quite fit with the theme, as much as I love it. The Little Things Give You Away is non-negotiable, so SOTD goes. Leave Out All the Rest assumes the early ballad role in full.
• Cut Hands Held High, as it's not the strongest and with one big ballad cut, we can aim for more energy.
• Cut In Between. Doesn't fit in here anymore.
• We get less of the back-and-forth the original order gives, having a nice energetic throughline from BIO to WID to NMS before mellowing out. But it doesn't eliminate that element completely.

A Thousand Suns (47:49 > 30:00)

• As being a "compact fireball" record isn't really in the spirit of ATS, most of the transitional/intro tracks must go. Cut The Requiem, The Radiance, Wisdom Justice and Love, and Fallout right off the bat.
• The Messenger has to go for this to work. When you drop the interludes it really sticks out.
• Burning in the Skies is a great song, but stacked against the competition with a time constraint, it loses.
• Robot Boy also gets dropped, even though I love it, because it fits less in this format and will cause things to drag. Sorry king.
• Keep Jornada del Muerto and move it to a lead-in for The Catalyst rather than Fallout. This gives more variety sonically than the Fallout > TC transition, which is important given that we're looking at a very short tracklist. It also ties to TC thematically and keeps a synth solo on the album since we lost Robot Boy. And it...almost works? Gives us a good balancing act between making this compact while trying to keep some of the core ideas of ATS.

Living Things (37:03 > 27:17)

• I would cut all of the first five songs but that's too short, so I will compromise. In My Remains and I'll Be Gone stay as I feel they mesh the best with the back half of the record.
• Cut Lost in the Echo. Doesn't do anything for me that In My Remains wouldn't accomplish.
• Cut Burn It Down. We can make Castle of Glass the lead single or something. It'll be fine.
• Cut Lies Greed Misery. No explanation needed.
• Castle of Glass onward stays as is, including Tinfoil. We lean into the weirder, folkier, or mellower elements of this record.

The Hunting Party (45:16 > 27:43)

• Obvious cuts of the useless The Summoning, as well as Drawbar, which while nice is really such a weird pick for a Morello feature and for this album.
• Cut Until It's Gone. Not an unpopular choice by any stretch of the imagination.
• Cut A Line in the Sand. Mark the Graves does the proggy angle better, so we move that to closer.
• We keep only one song that's kind of thematically distant in this way, with Final Masquerade. I think that's much more acceptable given that unlike Until It's Gone, Rob's drumming is a bit more in line with the album. And it has a guitar solo.

One More Light (35:22 > 28:59)

• Cut Heavy. Nobody Can Save Me should have been the lead single for this album. Now it can be.
• Cut Good Goodbye. Meh song, out of place on the album.
• Leave Battle Symphony only for the purpose of not having back-to-back Mike songs.