How much damage (if any) did this album do?

I don't doubt that this has been your personal experience but I don't think it's at all reflective of an overall public opinion. There's just no evidence out there to support that the album has done "damage" to the band. The evidence that does exist says the opposite. My experience has been very dissimilar to yours actually. 1/6th of my friends on Facebook 'Like' the band - more so than any other artist. When I posted their One More Light tribute to Chris Cornell, many of my friends who normally don't follow the band stated how much they enjoyed their performance. One even commented that she never thought Chester would bring her to tears.

For the record, I think it's a brilliant album; one I haven't stopped playing since release.

 

People always say this, but how come Living Things and Hunting Party both sold fairly poorly? Why did it take ATS close to 2 or 3 years before it scratched Platinum?

A quick click to the ol facebook isn't a real testament to popularity, especially since that doesn't really give you notifications to "follow" the band and facebook has let you do that for a decade, who knows how many of them "liked" them in 2007 and just never took the time to uncheck them.How many of them are some of those fans that infamously only enjoy roughly 2 and a half of their albums?

The album's likely not a career killer, no. But anyone who's denying it wasn't at the absolute least a "divisive" one isn't paying enough attention.

 

Beside me and other fans i knew we were very negative at the beginning. But the album is definitely a grower (even if i still skip 3 songs lol)

 

i start to not recognize the annoying elements (for me) in some songs anymore so i start to like them. Atleast its a cool summer vibe record. Uplifting songs are a nice different from the band for sure

 

I think LP fanboys are believing what they want to believe. As I predicted the album did well sales-wise but in the alternative community they've lost tons of respect. They were scheduled to headline Download festival in the UK but after catching wind of the direction of the album they were replaced by Biffy Clyro. They wouldn't have gotten away with playig pop drivel there let me tell you. UK fans are appreciative of a good show but if you turn up and play some shit like Heavy, be prepared to be showered by bottles of piss.

 

Way to go - you ignored everything else I said and chose the one line that was added more as an FYI

Album sales aren't what they used to be. To try and measure a band's success on album sales in 2017 is ignorant.

I would say... who cares? That's one community out of countless others. It's always been the case that they lose some fans but gain others.

 

Right, but bands are still selling, is the thing. You're acting like bands and singers don't go platinum and gold at all anymore, which isn't true. I'm well aware in, say, 2001 a band like Limp Bizkit could be critically reviled and still go triple platnum in a couple of months and I acknowledge that's not the case anymore. The barometers for success have obviously changed, nobody's arguing that. But by any measurable barometer, they're still doing more "solid" than "amazing". Like has been brought up already I think a lot of people just assume that because Linkin Park are still somewhat household names, their "brand" is as strong as it was in like 2008 or 09. I'm completely aware they can still be a powerhouse and not going gold at debut. What I am saying is they're very clearly on the commercial downswing of a very long career. That's not necessarily bad, and that doesn't mean they can't theoretically last another decade. But if you really think the "brand" is as powerful as it was in 2007 (or even 2011), I don't know what to tell you.

It's not a black and white, 'success or failure and nothing in between' binary. They can still be wildly successful without being behemoths. What I'm saying is there is almost every measurable piece of evidence suggesting they most certainly are not behemoths in 2017. Your friends loved the album? Rad. Derek's getting emails about it? Killer! But I still have every reason to believe this new album will have mild success, not kickstart a massive resurgence in popularity. I'd be amazed if it resulted in even a minor boost.

 

It's funny because a lot of people here seem to think that the fanbase is divided from MTM. That's definitely not the case with myself, as I love MTM and hate everything the band has done after it. Also, a lot of people I know that love HT and Meteora say that they liked some of MTM. A lot of the nu-metal fanboys of the first two albums will generally say that MTM wasn't that bad but they hated ATS, etc. MTM still had the early Linkin Park sound with a lot of the songs. I think ATS was REALLY the dividing album for the fanbase, not MTM at all.

 

Well the idea/joke is that every album since MtM divides the fanbase. Some people liked HT but didn't like Meteora and went away, but it wasn't as significant as the it was from Meteora to MtM, which was the first one of their "huge style changes" to result in such a verbal response. From there, ATS did roughly the same thing; a huge chunk of the fanbase, who had liked the album before it, deciding this was the album that turned them off the band. Living Things and Hunting Party had it, to much less extent, but it still happened (Living Thing was seen as a poor attempt at a Meteora style, others thought The Hunting Party was a poorly executed Hail Mary to earn back hard rock fans). One More Light, due to being as dramatic a shift as MtM and ATS were from their predecessors, pretty much restarted the joke.

People say they don't remember the backlash being as bad back then as it was with OML, but it was very much comparable. The way I remember it, it was actually a bit worse back then. Most people might not like a fullblown Linkin Pop album in 2017, but could imagine one happening. Nobody in 2007 really could conceive of some of the places they went on MtM and their reactions to it reflected that.

 

From what I think is that part of the backlash might also from the promo of THP. Sure people might cheange their mind, but at the same time, at least speaking for myself, I think that saying stuff along the lines of "I don't want to be in a band that follows a trend" and then (seemingly) do just that, I think, considering I didn't threaten the band or anything I do think its okay to be upset about it.

Also for some Chesters recent comments might not exactly have helped.

 

Their last pitch was "Hey, we make real ROCK music and not derivative 'Disney commercial music!'" Then they went on to make OML.

That turn from writing a prog-ish Line in the Sand to making a generic pop record was jarring, to say the least.

 

Exactly. My believe is that had it not been announced as an "anti-pop" record (almost like saying "This means war") then I think the reception might have been a bit warmer. Not saying iot would've been suddenly called a masterpiece but I can imagine (at least it was that way for me) that when reading the past comments and with the situation we have now I was...confused, mildly put. I think they bit themsleves in the ass with all the THP hype comments.

 

I don't remember anything more than rumours of LP playing Download UK.

Also your statement of "losing tons of respect" in the 'alternative community'.. I think it's just that they lost your respect to be honest

I remember people saying that LP would get straight up booed out of every show if they played Heavy, but every concert performance I've seen, everybody has been singing along

 

What "damage" the album may or may not have caused is irrelevant because the position they're in makes it so that it doesn't truly matter.

 

Yeah I never heard anything concrete about LP playing Download either, and tbh amongst a lot of the metal heads that go there the band has always been sneered at anyway. Some of those douches are amongst the biggest music snobs I've met, a number of Metallica fans being a good example of that. If I were the band I wouldn't even want to play there, it's not really their scene anymore. Glastonbury would be a better choice, could definitely see them headline the other stage at the very least.

Everything I've seen of Heavy live has shown A LOT of fans singing along, including in France where apparently they were being loudly booed (not audible in any recording I've seen).

 

This has been an interesting thread. Perception is key to interpreting how "successful" a band may be with new material, and this is especially the case with OML. There seems to be a fine split between those who believe OML caused a surge in popularity for the band by bringing in new (pop) fans, and there are those who believe OML did more harm than good to LP's fairly controversial reputation by being too safe/not experimenting enough/not having the signature LP rock sound..

However, it is clear to me that the band has obtained some degree of "commercial" success, if OML's sales and streaming are anything to go by. LP can dismiss claims of making an album for "commercial" gain all they want, but it very much appears that OML more or less caters to the mainstream pop/current radio hits audience more than any other album they've released in years IMO. From the ever-present universal structures, the high-pitched vocal effects, and very repetitive lyrics/lines in the choruses, to the largely electronic sounds replacing more organic instrumentation, OML fits in quite neatly with contemporary pop music, music that is likely to be tailored for, yes, commercial success and mass airplay on various stations.

Since I was (and still am) so turned off by the sound and creative direction of this album, I probably won't be very active on here for quite some time. Who knows what LP will bring to the table next. When that time does come, I certainly won't be getting my hopes up, or holding my breath for false expectations. OML taught me not to do that for any music artist, not just LP.

 

Take an actual look.

Oh and they had stuff thrown at them and were booed during Heavy at Hellfest.

 

I'm not sure why Linkin Park would ever play a show like Download after the Minutes To Midnight cycle ended anyways. It's very confusing to me as to why they continue to play these huge metal and hard rock festivals. They belong somewhere like Coachella more than they do at any metal or hard rock festival.