Oh, I've tried being tolerant of other people's taste in music. The problem is, I live in the boondocks where it's full of people who only listen to one kind of music, either country or radio metal and they're all too proud to tell me everything I listen to is shit. Usually with a few racial slurs thrown into the mix. Unlike them, I've actually been listening to their preferred music since I was a kid. It's worthless to anyone who wants to listen to anything that isn't the soundtrack to a tailgate party. This is anti-intellectualism at its peak. "Everything is subjective, so every dissenting opinion is invalid." Fuck that shit. There's a reason music theory exists and it helps in pointing out how unoriginal and prevalent, say, the four chords of pop are. Just because you like trashy entertainment doesn't make it not trashy. I could enjoy the Fast and Furious movies more than 12 Years a Slave, but it doesn't erase the fact that one's a schlocky male-empowerment fantasy with cars and the other's a brutal and true account of our country's horrid treatment of African Americans. Oh, I get aggressive music. Pantera are just absolutely garbage at it. It's a shame that garbage tends to be really popular. I didn't outgrow metal. I just outgrew this type of metal. I'll listen to Boris and Sigh all day, every day. Why? Because they throw entirely unexpected curveballs into their sound. They don't regurgitate the same shit as their progenitors.
A bunch of Texans failing at being a hair band and then transitioning to a heavy version of Ted Nugent after Metallica's success isn't that unexpected.
Then you should realize how frustrating it is to have someone relentlessly bashing the music you like, without even making a balancing act and noticing the good sides of it. The kind of metal you hate that much, some love it because of the technical aspect of it. "Solos after solo after solos", some might dig that. And that doesn't make them stupid. Really? If you looked deeper, you'd realize that your so-called intellectualist position is subjective itself. You think metal is monotomous and insipid and boring and whatever? Hasn't it never struck your mind that it could be in part because you have listened to it for years? Personnaly, I spent my childhood and some of my teenage years listening to what was popular on the radio / what my parents listened to. We call it "french variety". Now, I have heard so much of that music in my life that I find it totally bland. On the opposite, I discovered metal later, and it sounded so new to me, so different, and, well, "anti-monotomous". Yep, there's a reason behind musical theory, and it is to decide how elaborated/technical a musical piece is. It has nothing to do with how a genre is rewarding, especially if you're not looking to something that complex. But let's imagine musical theory is the right indicator to judge the "goodness" of a song. Then, you contradicted yourself, because some metal songs are GENIUS in regard to musical theory.
Nope, because I've been listening to hip-hop since 2000 and in the time between then and now, I've seen the scene change from horrorcore-esque acts like Eminem and DMX and glam rappers like Jay-Z and Diddy, to crunk and trap taking over the radio and finally a weird mixture of indie and mainstream with Tech N9ne doing songs with T-Pain, Big Boi rapping on an El-P beat and Macklemore rising to the top of the pop charts as quick as he did. It's been an exciting, if tumultuous, journey this past decade and a half. Contemporary metal hasn't had that trajectory in that time frame. For the most part, it's just been watered down imitations of Messhuggah, Pantera and In Flames, including In Flames themselves.
Do you consider Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns to be a band desperately trying to move away from nu metal after the genre died to keep being relevant in the industry too? You can make that argument for anything if you try hard enough.
I wouldn't have expected a former nu-metal band to draw inspiration from Radiohead and Public Enemy in 2010. There's not really that much of an overlap between angry white guys, quirky alternative kids and militant revolutionaries.
"Oh, look. I can do a string of all the negative adjectives I know." Bleh. Anyway, the reason why so many fans here say GATS is a "breath of fresh air", it's because it's been at least 6 years since we've had raw, more organic music with aggression from Linkin Park, not because it's new territoire or it's trascending the music scene. Since a long time many fans have expressed their desire for LP to use "less computer" and pick up more their instruments, and that's exactly what they're doing right now. Despite the fact we got a great album with ATS and a not-so-fan-favorite LT, the common theme in them is the "excessive polish" in the tracks and vocals, that to some people it might sound too artificial. That's pretty much it, and even when the song has gotten a really good response in the forums, I don't think anyone is putting LP on a pedestal claiming they're the saviours of rock or something like that. And no, no one gets to decide which genre "deserves" to die or not, if that was the case, Reggaeton would be long gone from this earth by now from my part, and yet it is still breaking every single chart in the goddamm caribbean and even infesting the Latin Grammys with its presence. You either live with it or just worthlessly spend your time doing tantrums like this.
Oh, so a dissenting opinion is a tantrum, now. Yet, I get called ignorant and fucking pretentious and nothing happens.
In the way you worded it, yes, it looks exactly like one. You're not the first nor the last to express dislike to the point of "hate" on Linkin Park music, but many have done better to express it than you.
All we got right now is this website that shows songs performing on the iTunes charts. I don't think the song managed to grab a debut place on Billboard.
Have to say, I reacted like I did because your one-sided disregard of (almost) the whole metal scene really hit me the wrong way, as a fan of that scene. Re-reading my first post, I went too far though, sorry for that. I'm not here to insult people afterall.
GATS has been stuck in my head for days now. That's what I like about it, it's got that aggression/heaviness, but is still catchy, especially the chorus.
With the release date just a few days ago, we won't see a Billboard debut until next Friday. By that time the single would have enough sales for a position, if it reached any.