When I saw the title initially I had to find out what was going on, the title was very deceiving. All I hafta say is I love seeing this little nuggets on thems touring, Mike's take on FB pictures like a sandwich that really kind of screw up the message of the LITE vid was hilarious. It was a fun video to watch.
In my opinion, Brad is INCREDIBLY creative on the guitar. He's stated before that he isn't worried about playing big solos and what-not BUT he does have the ability to literally be THE MOST important part of a Linkin Park song. Example riffs, One Step Closer, Valentines Day, Points of Authority, And One, and Reading My Eyes. All of these songs Have guitar parts (BRADS PARTS!!!!!@@!#$!@$) that completely make the songs what they are. THIS is the only aspect i think the guys in LP have really skipped out on in the last two albums, because most of the guitar parts aren't audible to the normal guy listening to the radio on his way to work.
You must not listen to much music if you find Brad's style creative. xD He's done the same thing for over 10 years. Powerchords. And it does not take big solos or crazy intricacy to take a step beyond the bare minimum of guitar chord structure. *sigh*
While I agree that Brad should step up his guitar game, which was especially weak in LT, I'm not sure powerchords are the only thing to bash about his playing. Lately, he has mostly replaced powerchords by octaves, which wasn't more creative at all. Take New Divide, The Catalyst, or BID, those songs are filled with boring octaves progressions. To me, the riffs in OSC, POA, or APFMH are 100000X more interesting than Brad recent work, because they had that little something that makes you immediately say "oh yeah, it's that song". Those riffs were played in powerchords, but they had a great hook, they were kind of original since you could easily recognize them. I simply think he should try to create original guitar riffs again. Something memorable. Something that is not simply used for background noise, as it was the case with the last 2 records, but something around which the song is build. Then I don't mind if the riffs are heavy, hypnotyzing, funky, or anything else.
I honestly believe that Brad's best work was on MTM. I know a lot of people are going to say that I am only saying that because MTM is my favorite LP album, but I honestly believe he did really well on that album. Yes, the album does have some boring powerchords and what not, but they were really good and catchy, he also did really cool stuff on Bleed It Out, No More Sorrow, Valentine's Day, In Pieces, The Little Things Give You Away and also on Shadow Of The Day. MTM is actually LP's most guitar oriented album of all. Only because it was an organic album, unlike any other LP releases.
Yep, I think MTM was really good guitar-spoken. I also love the guitar parts in the MTM demos/b-sides, like Qwerty, Pretend To be, No Roads Left, or What We Don't Know. Oh well, even Blackbirds had a cool guitar part!