I don't think it was ever established that it would be at all. Whoever told you that was merely assuming.
this is good news... I prefer their old stuff. seems like most fans of the band want to them to return to a heavier sound anyway. plus, as alot of ppl have said, theres so many signs that have been pointing to a nu-metal comeback. Limp Bizkit is coming out with a new album this year and are playing with SOAD and Slipknot; POD and Mudvayne(lead singer grey sees a nu metal comeback too) are supposedly planning new albums. Staind and Limp Bizkit realeased nu metal albums a few months ago, and they did pretty well. nu metal songs are still recieving fm airplay (down with the sickness, break stuff, one step closer, etc are still played alot on the radio) if its even a semi-nu metal album it wouldnt be the worst thing since that genre is starting to be not that dead anymore
Welcome to LPA. While I appreciate your post, and respect your views I think you need to understand that Mike's comments are not insinuating the band is going to a heavier sound or bringing nu-metal back into their sound. In fact, all comments the band has made over the last two years (including this interview) suggest that if anything...the band is never planning to go completely back to their old sound. Chester responded "I hope so", when asked if nu-metal was dead a few months ago, and Phoenix said as recently as a few weeks ago in the LPU chat that he doesn't believe the album will be "aggressive" in the sense of having heavy guitars as the album is not going in that direction currently. So I think a complete 'return to their old sound' is out of the question, as "accepting their roots" or not...the band has been pretty vocal over their wishes to evolve in interviews over the last few months. As for Limpbizkit's new album doing well, I'm not sure where you got this information, but the album didn't even sell 70,000 copies in the US, and only peaked at #16 on the albums chart. Staind's new album is doing ok (sold over 100,000) but compared to ATS selling almost 800,000 in the USA to date (with album sales down, and with no metal on the album at all), I'd consider LP's current choice of genre to be far more beneficial for them. Again, I respect your views...but I don't think Nu-Metal will be a commercial success again anytime soon.
I almost felt like I was gonna throw up in my mouth when I read "nu-metal comeback". I'm laughing because I'm not lying.
Yeah. I knew LB had sold 63,000 in the US. I guess I just said that before b/c I kept seeing it high up on the itunes charts last yr. anyway this is a little off topic but if lp made a nu metal album (not saying thats gonna happen bc its not) there def would be a slight outside chance for a nu metal comeback, the band is so well known and it seems like the majority of their fanbase liked their old material more than their new.
I would like to add to say that if it's not conceptual in the ATS way I'd be pleased. ATS was great for a one-time experience, but I kinda miss to have single songs to listen over and over, without having to think them being part of a greater context. Honestly, having to listen each time the speech in the start of the song for 15 seconds can get pretty annoying, and I'm lazy to cut it out
There's no reason why you can't listen to the songs individually. I don't remember the last time I listened to ATS front to back but I constantly find myself listening to WFTE, Blackout, The Catalyst (this one the most. It's definitely become my fave all-time LP song), etc. from time to time. The album flows cohesively but the songs are still great on their own.
I didn't even know Limp and Staind even came out with new albums. Talk about under the radar. I was a big fan of Limp when I was in 8th/9th grade but it's time for bands like them and Disturbed to start doing things that are more exciting. I heard a new Disturbed song about a year or two ago and I was in shock in how little they've changed. That song could have easily fit onto "Believe" (which I loved when I got it). You don't have to move from your hard rock sound but show some versatility!
I have recently thawed out after a successful cryonics test for the US Government (explaining my absence), and you can imagine that my heart skipped several beats when I saw Mike Shinoda's tantalizing comments regarding their fifth album proper - although the heart irregularities may also have come from the not-technically-legal medication they gave me for the de-freezing. Suffice to say, these medications could put down a narwhal in heat. So here are my thoughts on this curious development and the response it's engendered amongst those most dedicated fans who deem it necessary to yearn for either one or the other. A Thousand Suns was noteworthy as a departure mostly for the structure of the songs and the style of the instrumentation, but most of the "classic" ideology of Linkin Park was intact. Namely, the fusing of disparate styles into a unified whole. Only, instead of fusing together into the compact, digestible, generally vanilla chunks that made up the tracklists of apparently-untouchable Hybrid Theory and endlessly-molestable Meteora, they dedicated an entire album to the push and pull of those influences, so that "When They Come For Me" might be predominantly rap- and ethnic-based chant rock, whereas subsequent synth-pop "Robot Boy" felt wholly different. However, while this paid off aesthetically for the band and some of its more mature fans (the ones who can now chuckle when listening to the faux-profundity of crumpled paper flying through an alleyway without denying the underlying hooky-pop appeal), it diminished Linkin Park's fanbase as a whole. Telling that of the three major domestic singles released, "Waiting for the End" was the most successful. Why? Perhaps because, underneath its bizarre mix of reggae and new wave, the song is pop simplicity at its finest. Classic Linkin Park structure, classic chord progression, classic build and fall (ending on Chester's voice was a masterstroke). And for better or (and) worse, that ability to craft an easy single has always been one of LP's chief talents. Obviously there's not much to glean from this interview, as it traffics in the hallmarks of press-release vagaries and platitudes, but it does inspire an intriguing discussion, to which many of the users on this board have handled with class and intelligence. If you want my opinion, and given that you've read this far, you're surely intrigued by my post-cryogenic lucidity, I think that the band should continue the adventurous quality of A Thousand Suns, but try to repackage that in the tighter album structure typical of your Hybrid Theories and Meteorites. The conceptual flourishes of A Thousand Suns were laudable, but they sometimes felt like filler designed to offer the illusion of meaning. Different enough to swivel the head, but not intelligent or bold enough to engage the mind or heart. Certainly tracks like "Fallout" and "Empty Spaces" exist chiefly to bolster the claim of making a concept album. Hey, it's the lyrics from the beginning! It's circular! And war. Think about it, my bro. War. Now, if you don't mind, someone's knocking at my door. It looks like a government representative, but that makes no sense. I made sure to properly fill out all my paperwork, and surely there's no harm in posting about top-secret CIA projects on a public forum...
Great write-up that I almost entirely agree with. I wouldn't want them to totally abandon the interesting/unorthodox song structures though. My two favorite songs on the album are Blackout and The Catalyst that had unpredictable structures they had were largely the reasons for that. I can't say that I've ever heard a song like either and still sounded like Linkin Park.
Definitely agree - I think the band's messing around with traditional song structures was the best thing about "A Thousand Suns".
I still would get that new album, even if it just them reading a newspaper. I love how LP changes their music style and still try to make their fans happy........as well as themselves! Tell me the truth, how many of you would still be a fan if LP kept the same music style on their albums over and over again? Trust me, I would have been done with them a long time ago.
Maybe they realized that if they kept going softer and softer in every album they would end singing "baby" by justin bieber, so they stoped and came back to the war! I hope the album is hard/heavy/fucker enough to call it "war"
Because of this post, I am starting a petition for Linkin Park to cover "baby" on their next album. Make it so Mike, make it so.
Yeah, I was actually disappointed when ATS turned out not to be a proper concept album. I remember reading up on Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project when all of the teasers started to appear and thinking that that would make an interesting framework for an album. Kind of a missed opportunity for the band, in my mind.
I dont want nu metal back. Like seriously we are in a different era of music and LP are constantly evolving. Hybrid Theory + Meteora plus all the other demos and instrumentals are still there if you want to listen to them, heck I listen to both those albums all the time.
It doesn't tell a story so much as paint an overall picture of a world on the edge, but even then, yes, it is too inconsistent to deliver as a concept album. In a way, A Thousand Suns offers the same overall sensation as Minutes to Midnight, in that the band seems constantly on the verge of doing whatever it is they're trying to do. They're almost there. A Thousand Suns is superior because it's trying for more noble things, and with greater overall confidence, whereas Minutes to Midnight too frequently feels like a child trying to sit at the adults' table on Thanksgiving. Song structures I have no objection to. Let them experiment and go hog-crazy, as it were. The adventurism I was referring to, however, was more in the realm of instrumentation (both diversity and varied density) and lyrics. Songs like "Burning in the Skies" and "The Catalyst" and "Robot Boy" feel like a definite advancement in terms of how the lyrics paint pictures, suggest emotions, and tell stories, particularly stories that are not the usual aggro-angst screeds directed at an unspecified "you."
Is it me but doesn't all the hype like interviews about the new album always hint between the mix of the old sound blended with the new? What makes this particular hype any different?