I've never really connected to Linkin Park's lyrics on an emotional level, so their music was never calming or anything for me. Only rarely have there been Linkin Park songs that I feel strongly resonated with my life and my situations.
Linkin Park completely changed my life. Discovering their music lead to me joining the Linkin Park Message Board in 2001, which is where I met my old friend and original LPA founder Omar, who had created a splash page for LPA on 'Angelfire' with a CJB.net forwarding domain. We became great friends right off the bat, and when he asked me if I'd like to help him with opening his Linkin Park fan site I jumped at the opportunity. We spent three months digging through the internet to find rare, hard to find or exclusive media and finally opened up the website in April of 2002 (although we consider 2001 to be our true founding year). Over the almost 15 years that followed, I've seen me go from a 15 year old with little self esteem to a confident soon to be 29 year old, and I've had a lot of opportunities open for me as a result of what LPA was able to provide to me. Most recently was AltWire, which exists directly in thanks to my knowledge/confidence gained through running the LPA all these years. Running AltWire has given me the chance to interview and see the concerts of some of my all-time favorite bands, and it would've never even occured had I not heard One Step Closer for the first time, and joined the LPMB to meet Omar, thus leading to the creation of LPA and later AltWire. My management skills on LPA helped me land my first 'real job' (as they were impressed by the site), and advancing over the years has lead to me buying my own car and my own house. I had my first true girlfriend through LPA, met some of the best friends I've ever had, seen my website featured on Rollingstone.com and in international magazines, and done more in the last 14-15 years than I would've ever thought possible if the LPA hadn't come along. In short, Linkin Park are the reason for everything in my life up this point. I owe an eternal debt and gratitude to them for existing in the first place, as I can't even begin to imagine where my life would've lead if I never helped open the LPA with Omar all those years ago.
Because of Linkin Park, I listened to an album called Out of Ashes, and I will never forgive them for that.
Fucking this. I HATE IT when people say that I'm going through a phase and that in the next few years I'll hate Linkin Park and be embarrassed that I listened to them. That won't happen, I guarantee.
I get shitted on all the time from friends and coworkers, saying to me "You still listen to that linkin park emo shit"? People can be very ignorant. Idc I blast LP even while im driving, Im a proud LP fan.
Of course people crap on Linkin Park fans for listening to Linkin Park. It's happened since their first album. As much as Linkin Park are a decently talented group of musicians, they regrettably lost their credibility with the 'underground' when In The End rose to the top of the "TRL" charts in the early 2000's and they henceforth became a "TRL band". For those in another country or who just don't know, TRL (or Total Request Live) was a countdown show from like 1999-2008 where people could vote for their favorite videos, and they would be shown in small 45-60 second clips before going to the next song. Because a lot of NSYNC, 98 Degrees, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears videos featured on there the show got a reputation of being catered to 'teenie boppers' so a band like Linkin Park being featured on there (not by their own choice) made them less credible to metal fans, and indie music fans. Add to the fact that their 2nd album basically turned the angst up to 11, and also consider that despite their change in sound/maturation many people still think of them as the 'In The End', 'Crawling' or 'Somewhere I Belong' band and you'll get why they're still not taken seriously by some people. I personally don't care. I don't lose sleep having to justify my music taste to people, and those of you bothered by your co-workers teasing you about it shouldn't either. You're free to listen to whatever you damn well please.
^Amen! There's a reason I don't believe in guilty pleasure music. You shouldn't care if people know what you listen to. I'll admit everything I listen to and don't care what people think.
I'm of two minds about that. On one hand, tastes are tastes and you just like what you like and that's that ... but, then, I have to justify it to myself beyond that because, personally, I do feel uncomfortable with how comfortable I am when it comes the majority of LP's songs. Subjectively, I don't think the songs are good but maybe they have nice melodies, harmonies, progressions, etc. - this happens with vapid earworm-y pop songs that I don't like as well. I've outgrown a lot of music that I liked over the years, tastes I'm now pretty ashamed to have had, and I feel like I was supposed to outgrow LP as well but it just didn't happen. Meanwhile, everything else I liked when I was ten years old is dead and gone to me. Sometimes, it feels like I love LP's music because they're my favourite band, rather than the other way around.
It's true not because they're a boy band but because Linkin Park have always been a pop band with hard rock sensibilities. And that's not an insult. It's a credit to the band as songwriters for being able to continuously craft catchy songs on every single album.
Makes sense but you if think about it in the early 2000's you would never think OST and ITE, were done by the same band.