Before I make this post, keep in mind that I am a Linkin Park fan… obviously. However, as a Linkin Park fan, I feel it is my right to give my opinions on their work. Meteora, in my opinion, wasn’t nearly as great as the hype surrounding it. When the band first announced Meteora, there was so much hype around it that it was almost impossible to not like it when it first came out. I’ll admit that I was very much in love with Meteora for the first few months I was listening to it. However, after a while, I began to grow very bored of it. Too many songs are about the same thing lyrically. A lot of the guitars on the album are very boring—the most complex guitar, “From The Inside,” was written by Phoenix. The song structures are the biggest downfall of the album. With almost every song following the same structure (intro > riffs > verse > chorus > verse > chorus > bridge > chorus > outro), the album gets very boring fast in terms of how each song is set up. I suppose I could be like every other “dedicated” or “hardcore” fan and say that Meteora is better than Hybrid Theory (you should see the LPU), but I’m not going to be like them and wear a mask. I’m going to do a little something like what jmoney on the LPU did (he’s also a member here, but doesn’t post much) and detail my opinions on Meteora. Lyrics When I first heard “Don’t Stay,” I thought the lyrics were amazing. After a while, I began to realize that it seems as though the lyrics of this song were written in the span of an hour. It was as if they were actually going for another “One Step Closer” with the lyrics. The chorus is absolutely terrible. Instead of repeating the same thing twice and changing one line, why not go all out and write a full chorus? The choruses on Hybrid Theory were amazing, but there isn’t one amazing chorus on Meteora. The chorus of “Somewhere I Belong” is almost a rip-off of “A Place For My Head,” where Mike splits Chester’s singing apart. I can almost guarantee that the first chorus they wrote for “Somewhere I Belong” was the best chorus, but Don Gilmore said, “No, make it catchier!” When you hear a song like “High Voltage” or “Dedicated,” you’ll expect Mike’s lyrics on “Nobody’s Listening” to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Wrong. The lyrics on that song are terrible. A song like “Figure.09” (which originally had singing verses) has amazing lyrics. The fact that Mike’s verse is unpredictable is something that hooks the listener. It’s apparent that “Figure.09” would’ve been just like “One Step Closer” had the singing verses been kept. It’s sad, though, that they completely ripped off the bridge of “By Myself’ in “Figure.09.” It’s apparent that Gilmore took control of this record. It’s apparent he just wants money. He forced the band to re-write a LOT of lyrics on this disc, and because of that, they’re very simple and very basic. There are plenty of other lyrical deficiencies on this album, but I think I’ve said enough on that for now. Instruments One of the reasons Linkin Park doesn’t get respect from “metalists” is because their instruments aren’t very complex, either. “Forgotten” is an amazing song by way of guitar, and yet it seems that LP forgot all that on Meteora. A lot of the songs use bar- and power-chords, which gets very boring after a while. There isn’t very much actual “plucking” like on “A Place For My Head” or “Forgotten.” Also, LP needs to completely lose bar- and power-chords. They also need to either lose the rhythm guitar or just get a second guitarist. They also need to turn the damn bass up! You can almost never hear Phoenix on any of the songs. “Easier To Run” is about the only song you can really hear Phoenix’s bass clearly in. (Yes, Derek, I know if “you’re a bassist you can hear the bass,” but for those of us who aren’t bassists, you can’t hear it at all.) Phoenix is a very talented musician (perhaps the second most talented in LP behind Mike) and can obviously write very complex bass tabs and complex guitar (a-la “From The Inside”), but you can never hear the guy. It’s as if he’s just a prop on stage when they play, because you can never hear him. Rob also needs to start playing more complex drum patterns. If you ever actually listen, the drums in the verses are the same pattern over and over again, and the drums in the choruses are the same over and over again. They might as well just lose Rob and play a drum-machine live, because all the drums are is loops! I also think LP needs to add more orchestral and keyboard elements to their songs. “Breaking The Habit” is an amazing song, but the orchestra in the background is turned down! What’s the sense of having the orchestra on the song if you can barely hear it? The casual listener isn’t going to hear those strings because they’re not loud. LP also needs to have more keyboard/piano in their songs, because the songs that DO have them are absolutely fantastic (“In The End,” for example). Song Structure This is the thing that really bugs me. Almost every song is set up the exact same way. You hear the intro samples, which are really cool, then you hear a big, crashing riff that gets the song going. Then you get a verse sometimes followed by a pre-chorus. Then you get your chorus and you’re back to the verse again. Once the chorus goes off for the second time, you’re immediately at the bridge (which comes in too early on a lot of songs on Meteora), and you’re right back in the chorus again. Then you get the outro, which is basically just the chorus twisted up a bit. If LP can get away from the formula a little bit, while still keeping the same rap-rock hybrid, it would be insanely amazing. Songs like “Forgotten,” “A Place For My Head,” “Easier To Run,” “Crawling” and “And One” display that LP can be amazing without following the same song structure every single time they play a song. If they just splice it up a bit, it would be great. They could also start mixing the verses up: They could have a song where the first verse is rapping, the second is singing, and even throw in a third verse that is rapping and singing before ever getting to the bridge of the song. If LP could do these different things with the structures, they’d be respected a bit more and the songs would have more life to them. The band obviously put a lot of work and effort into this album, but sometimes I feel that it was rushed in a way. A lot of songs sound as if they were written in a week and just thrown onto the record. I realize that they were a little scared to take too many big risks with the album, but they shouldn’t worry what the critics think. All that matters is what their fans think of them. If they start worrying about the critics, that’ll be their real downfall, and they’ll never be able to recover. They need to add more to their sound. Rap-rock is a dying genre, but LP is the only band still sticking with it because they’re the only band that can make it work. Rage Against The Machine started it (supposedly), limpbizkit made it better, and Linkin Park perfected it. LP can still keep the rap-rock hybrid, but they need to mix things up a bit and make it so their songs aren’t so predictable. Like I said, I loved Meteora when I first heard it, but in the past few months, I’ve grown quite bored of it lyrically and structurally (but I still listen to it all the time). The only real reason I still listen to it is because of the energy in some songs (“Don’t Stay,” “Figure.09,” “Faint”). LP perfected the genre of rap-rock, now they just need to take it to the next level and keep it from dying.
great review to which i almost agree. but some things about your guitar facts are bothering me. first of, from the inside doesnt have the most complex guitar work of meteora. please go to detail what you mean, otherwise i cant agree to you in point. next thing, forgotten doesnt have hard guitar work neither has a place for my head. for linkin park standards it might be, but the only thing which is "hard" in forgotten is the verse. a place for my head is nice because of the C2 at the end, it's not the normal C5 (powerchord) and 1. sounds great and 2. is kinda hard to play, well the change from E5 to C2. in my opinion, with you is one of the hardest songs to play. not because of the main riff, but the 4 chords after the main riff are hard to play. why are hybrid theory songs "harder" to play than meteora? well, i can tell you. songs like forgotten and a place for my head are 7+ years old. back then, linkin park weren't influenced by persons who just wanted to rip them off, it was their style, thats it. and the last thing you forgot to mention is the massive use of octaves on meteora. they started it on hybrid theory with crawling and pushing me away (yes, crawling really has 2 different guitar playings). actually octaves give the song a "background feeling", a specific kind of atmosphere. on meteora you find somewhere i belong, easier to run, faint and from the inside. this time the octaves are getting in front of the rhythm guitar and take their place as the lead guitar (always played by brad). these 2 times are somewhere i belong (listen to live in texas and you know what i mean) and faint (obviously). the ballads easier to run and from the inside are following crawling and pushing me away with the octaves in the background. lying from you is a great example of the powerchord-octave combination. it's the first time they've used this. so all in all linkin park's sound has grown, not much but it did. and one last thing, mike isnt a great guitarist!!! (i know, you did not say this, i just wanted to clear that up)
I agree on almost everything. Great review . There's just maybe on these following points I disagree. -Yes you can hear the bass. However, it's very simple... It should be more complex. -Drums are great, even if they kinda loop...
Since it's all a matter of personal taste, i gotta say that, besides the three-string chorus riffs by Brad and Phoenix, everything was amazing. I don't really care about the lyrics, they just have to suit the music. If i did care about lyrics, KoRn wouldn't be in my top-3 bands
I agree with you Will, to an extent anyway. When I first got Meteora I thought it was amazing...a lot of people here did as well. I think the reason for this is that we were all so hungry for new material, even sub-par songs were okay. But I got tired of Meteora pretty quickly...after three or four weeks. I began noticing all the things you mentioned above, the lameish lyrics, repetitive song structure, and the oh-so-simple guitar almost nearly killed me...over the summer I basically hated the album (notice how I disapeared from the forums for awhile?). Don't Stay...I like the verses, but I agree that the chorus is pretty damn awful. Somewhere I Belong...I loved it when it first came out (hungry for new material, like I said before) but the cliche lyrics bother me... But now more recently I've been listening to it again, and you know...it really has it's strong points. There's much to be desired, but...I don't think it's too bad. The vocals on Lying From You are awesome, Hit The Floor is catchy as hell, the drumwork on Easier To Run is good, and it stands out since LP don't have many slower songs...BTH, yeah the mixing wasn't so hot but lyrically the song is amazing...etc etc. So I see where you're coming from, and I agree with you to an extent, but I think despite it's flaws Meteora is still pretty good.
great review dude, but serioulsy i love meteora because of the fact that its so different to hybrid theory, but in the same sence its the same, u hear it and u know its linkin park. i thought the lyrics were great and i still do, lying from you is a great example and so id fugure.09 but its nice to find bad points, cos nothing is perfect
u know it is really hard to see u being a fan because the factors u are complaining about are all part of linkin park's style and is what attracts the fans to them in the first place. eg) the way u critisize the guitar parts and instrumentation is quite stupid-they're not exactly gona do sum pop shite with a fast beat cos thats jus not LP they're obviously gona stick to their unique style and kinda have their trademark that all the fans love which is stuff like the thick textured guitars with not too much chordal variation. see that is just LP they are sticking to their guns and being themselves! unlike many other pop acts who like to feed off other people to create their 'unique' sound haha. the whole thing about linkin park 'fans' is that we actually like the sound that LP produce fair enough u say that u think HT is better than Meteora but some of ur arguments are crap u cud at least stop pretending ur like sum big fan when all ur doing is slating them! ok ok...u have given ur opinion that is good.....but at least develop ur arguments rather than simply just critisizing LP for doing their thing. see...to me a half an hour songs is something like nsync which can all be done on a frickin keyboard........LP have obv taken alot of time contsructing Meteora but they dont need to add loadsa new weird whacky things jus to show that!! they wanna stick to their own sound at least! and i personally think they have done alot of creative things yet still stayed LP style just how i love them! i dont mind u finding the album bad or bein honest but at least think about wat u say and back it up before u say it love! methinks u are going off LP as a group or jealous........
Great review. *thumbs up* Lyrics Hybrid Theory Hybrid Theory has some amazing, amazing lyrics. An example is "A little peice of paper with the picture drawn, floats on down the street til the wind is gone, and the memory now is like the picture was then, when the paper's crumpled up, it can't be perfect again" from Forgotten. Every song on HT had lyrics which ran together well, contained deeper meanings, and had metaphors/imagery behind them to make the song a great thing to listen to and conceptualize. The songs would start off with one subject, branch off into different subjects, then close up with the original topic of the song. Many of the lyrics could apply to many of our daily feelings and emotions, this is what made HT so amazing. Papercut was about paranoia, One Step Closer was about bottling up anger, Crawling is about having a problem with yourself (Chester said this in an interview), Runaway is about getting the truth behind things, By Myself is about isolation and questioning, etc..... Meteora On Meteora, almost every line is about the exact same subject. They need to branch out more with the lyrics. Instead of dwelling on pain constantly in every line, branch out into other subjects! Metaphors make music deeper too, so try that too! It's like every song could be put into one huge track and you wouldn't realize that there was a change lyrically. And the others.... As for Drums, I think Rob improved over the course of Meteora's production. Breaking The Habit, Faint and Easier To Run are all good examples of this. Guitars are just more of the same from HT. Crunching riffs. Numb and In The End have almost the exact same riffs. It's just one held down note for a few seconds followed by another riff the same length, but lower or higher. There's no acoustic guitars either and I think that'd sound cool. I don't know much about octaves or arpeggios or anything like that so I won't try to say I know what I'm talking about. . They need to branch out and experiment more! Solos! More complexed riffs! Anything! I don't really know how you can improve upon DJ'ing and scratching, so Joe did fine on both albums. And bass needs to be turned up more, I agree with Will. I need to change my equalizer settings if I ever want to hear bass on Meteora. Blood on the Dashboard: Don't ever call someone not a fan if they feel like constructively criticising their favorite band because they know they can do better. He's speaking up and saying that LP can be better than this and any "real" fan would notice how their potential isn't being reached. It's an opinion and he's allowed to have one.
i think what is apparent here is that meteora didnt meet peoples expectations. hybrid theory took people by suprise when it first came out, it was a sound that hadnt been heard before. after that we heard about other bands coping their sound and releasing singles and albums that didnt help LP when it came down to being original. and when meteora did come out after all that hype it didnt seem that good at first (a mater of opinion i know) but i stuck with it and now i think its ace! yes i do agree that some of the chours's do kinda not fit with LPs old hybrid theory style, but if they didnt like the lyrics, its simple, they wouldnt of made it onto the album. LP have moved on since hybrid theory and maybe they wanted to change their style of music again. if you look back over the years you can clearly see a change in their styles of music, from xero, hybrid theory, to linkin park their music has changed a lot. still with that LP vibe in the songs though. maybe after a while people we start to copy LPs ideas of this album (meteora) in my opinion the music and sample beats on meteora make it what it is, like what *hit the floor* has just sed, " i like meteora for being different from hybrid theory." if LP just kept on releasing album after album very similar to hybrid theory people would go of them, and say they havent tried different things. i think meteora was an album they could express what they where feeling over the period of time they chose to write over. it took LP over a year and a half to make a cd for us... the fans. and ithink that is special to them and for us. anyways iam starting to waffle so iam goin. so basically if you dont like the new LP (meteora) its simple, dont listen to it and wait till 2005 and hope its what you like) ps i do a gree with the bass issue! turn it up! also rob n mike do a great job keeping it tight!
lol. Sorry, Trumtram. I'm not a guitarist (but I hope to learn next summer!) and "From The Inside" just sounds really complex for some reason. *shrugs* And, to the person who said that they don't see me as a LP fan... Does that meant that, because I don't like Meteora as much as you, that doesn't make me a fan? This was the same problem over on the LPU. People were saying he wasn't a fan because he dissected Meteora and picked out its flaws. To me, the closeminded people who say others should keep their opinions to themselves or say that we're not true fans because we're not afraid to express our opinons are just dumb (not directing that toward you, just everyone who's said that in general).
if everything that Will said is true than why did Chester personally say that he liked Meteora better than Hybrid Theory... but I like Meteora, I dont think its as bad as you make it sound
Because it's Chester's opinion that it's a great album just like it's my opinion that it's not a great album. And, Mark... Rob DEFINITELY improved... But the looping of the drums was pretty annoying. hearing the same drums over and over was like GAHHH..
You're right...although thinking about, there weren't that many new rap metal bands that came out after LP...a lot of nu-metalers, but... Thanks Will for making this thread...so nice to see a discussion that makes you really think...
Oh thank god someone knows exactly how I feel. Lately, I have been doing this about Meteora, especially the power chords. Instruments Brad really can play guitar, and we all know it. (Sweet O` Child Of Mine) But I think he's just being lazy, and doesn't want to take the time out to write something good. I would love to hear a solo, and to tell you the truth I don't mind the power chords, in fact I like them very much. But for he does need to play more than that. For one, like Will said, Brad will get more respect as a guitarist, and two I don't think any of us are gonna mind a change. We also know Pheonix can play bass well, but all he does are the root notes and, to whoever said you can easily hear the bass, your wrong. Can you hear the bass in Hit The Floor or Lying From You?? I'm a bassist...and a pretty damn good one if I may say so, but the guitar and bass are so similiar that the bass is totally unheard behind that guitar. I think that they need to get out of the power chords some, and that way Pheonix can play more than root notes and get into some more exciting playing. I also think, Will, that they should either lose the rhythm guitar or get another, permanent, back up guitarist. That way Brad could play a solo over LPish chords. Lyrics The lyrics on Hybrid Theory were awesome, and no matter who you are you can't say they aren't and truly mean it. Mostly because we can all relate to it, and they actually described ####, especially..pain..ugh every other word is just pain pain pain, jesus! I know Mike and Chaz can write better stuff than that (Crawling, And One, Part Of Me, Breaking The Habit, In The End). And last on the lyrics, I heard Chaz has been writing some really dark lyrics, but they "aren't LP type lyrics". Well they should be! I wanna hear some dark lyrics, god!! Structure Like many others said, the structure is so boring and the songs are so short, I just cant take it!! If they would just experiment more everything would be fine, I mean no matter what, most of us fans are gonna stay with them, so why can't they just take one chance!? I love LP, and they are my favorite band, but I think..no, I know, that they can do better than what they are doing, and they really need to try. To that Dashboard confessional bleeding whatthe####ever: ITS NOT LP'S UNIQUE SOUND IF EVERYONE ELSE SOUNDS THE SAME AS THEM.
Personally, I think Hit The Floor should have been the hip hop track since they wanted one for the album. The powerchords for that song are just terrible. I actually like the picking during the verses but when you play all of the strings together using that rhythm, it just doesn't appeal to me. They tried something different with From The Inside, which is why I liked it. The rest of the album is either barchords or following the same three string pattern. The verses are worse than the chorus to me. Anyways, that song didn't bother me as much because I knew they were mainly trying to make a hard song. That song had so much potential. If only Chester's parts were better... How is it different? Every song had atleast one part that was copied from a Hybrid Theory song. They didn't try anything new except on Breaking The Habit and Lying From You. I was wondering how they would pull off BTH since it's becoming cliche to use an orchestra, but somehow they made it different. For LFY, I thought that it was unique because of the electronica elements and the effects to Mike's voice. Not to mention, Mike and Chester did a great job with the vocals. Them are the only two innovative or creative things I can think of that they did with Meteora. Don't even bring up the Japanese Flute. That's been done several times in hip hop songs through the years.
Yeah...I really like the bridge too, a lot of the time I'll just listen to that then skip to Lying From You... The song really did have a ton of potential...I wish we could see some of the other choruses Mike and Chester wrote 'cause it's hard to believe they wrote 30 and ended with this one...
Okay. My opinion now. Dun dun dun. :chemist: Anyways, the lyrics got repetitive. All the sounds linked somehow on how your becoming someone or trying to not become someone. Something like that. (Maybe I'm wrong, but thats how I took the lyrics) I must say that I am disappointed with Meteora. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big Linkin Park fan. (Been listening to them since before they were signed up. Although I didn't know it was them) Its just that, they could do better. Look at Hybrid Theory. Its been out since.. 2001, right? I'm still sitting here in my room listening to it. While as in Meteora. Well, lets just say my dog has a new toy. Haha, just kidding. Seriously, I just don't listen to Meteora that much. I just don't like the lyrics that much. (Don't get me wrong, I love Meteora. But when compare to Hybrid Theory.. eh... ) So, hopefully Linkin Park will take time with their next album. And do it themselves rather than letting someone else tell them whats good or not. I don't care if it takes them 5 years to take out a good album. I'd rather wait 5 for a great one than 1 year or less for another Meteora.
Damnit ! But hey, thats even longer.. and I still like it. I was close, wasn't I? Say I was. Just say it.