Mike Shinoda Studio Update

It'll have powerchords no matter what Derek, sorry

 

Ahh they were definately there, (Given Up, BIO, Shadow, NMS, Valentine's Day, TLTGYA) but there's nothing wrong with that, provided there's other forms of chords/progressions there, which Minutes did have.

Brads gotta be bored with just powerchords by now anyway.

 

I don't agree that they longer they take, the better. I think the band tend to overt hink stuff and that effects thier music negatively. Not counting the whole "We gotta make these lyrics super vague so as many people can kind of relate as possible" approach to rewriting songs again and again, some of what's considered their best stuff has been admitted to have come from not mulling on something very long. Case in point;

Numb: Just one week before the band entered NRG studios to begin recording, this song was conceived. Built around the intro hook, the song came together quickly and almost effortlessly.- the Meteora booklet.

What I've Done: At the end of over one year in the studio, the band felt the album was finished. After initial listening, however, they were devastated to hear from friends that the album felt like it was missing a piece- one more song. The band was horrified. Many of the songs on the record had taken months to write, so throwing a new one together that could stand up to the rest was unlikely. To complicate matters, any further writing meant they might miss deadlines that had been set up for album release and touring. In spite of risks, the band decided to take this challenge of character. A little over a week later, the record was officially ready for release with the addition of "What I've Done".- Minutes to Midnight booklet

Two of their most successful, most beloved songs were whipped up pretty quickly. In contrast, Chester had such a hard time coming up with what would later end up being "ANYTHING YOU SAY TO ME TAKES ME ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE EDGE!!!" that he wrote another song to describe how much it pissed him off coming up with that.

I know all about Breaking the Habit taking 6 years before they felt it was ready, but hell, it's not like they're about to record 12 Breaking The Habits anytime soon. They over think too much when their most successful stuff is, more or less, pulled out of their ass.

 

uhhh... New Divide is newer then Lockjaw. Lockjaw was out in like december last year if I remember correctly. and New Divide came out this summer..sooo?

 

Derp. Knew it was one or the other.

And because I think Runaway is actually an even lamer song than One Step Closer, that's actually much worse.

I'm not a fan of Numb, but it's still one their best known and most liked songs. Even not loving it, I think it's better put together and a bit more fun to listen to than say Hit The Floor or the aforementioned Runaway.

Linkin Park are now and have always been a mainstream band in every sense of the word. I however am in the small minority that doesn't really consider "mainstream" such a ugly thing. While nobody wants to see LP be a "I'll claim to be whatever is cool at the moment so you'll buy my shit " entity like Good Charlotte, but I really don't think it's in them to produce anything resembling five star classics. It's not a knock against them, I'm still a big fan, I'm just a fan or what they are and not what I hope they someday could be, especially when I've seen nothing to lead me to believe I should have such expectations for them.

Let me put it this way, Reanimation is my favorite Linkin Park record, remix album or not. If we count that albums lifespan to when the songs where originally written in 99-2000, they still didn't take as long on them as the Meteora and Minutes to Midnight cycles. When they don't toil away for years worrying about making classic, genre busting music, we get great Linkin Park. When they do (if you count Minutes to Midnight. Some don't, I do), we get a Linkin Park flavor of something we've heard before elsewhere.

 

COULDNT AGREE MORE!!! If they deliver that feel and it takes till 2011, I'LL WAIT! As much as I dont want to... ill do it.....

Time for LPU9

 

i wish Mike would produce the new album alone as he did on Reanimation which I also believe is their best work up-to-date and not because it has the hits from HT but because its fusion-style sound is unique and hard to find in other records.

 

I'm not necessarily talking about how they were written, in general I think Linkin Park lyrics are pretty bad. The four year old demos and the albums end result weren't as wildly different as the Hybrid Theory songs were to Reanimation. I seriously doubt that while they spent years deciding whether or not to keep Chester screaming "AH HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!" before Crawling that they also kicked around a pretty sweet idea of adding some cellos in there.

Reanimation isn't awesome because they took great and made it slightly more great, it's because they reenvisioned the entire album seriously not caring about fan or label pressure. It was a remix album, a bonus disc, it didn't matter what they did on it because the "real" album was coming soon enough anyway. Reanimation wasn't the end result of rewriting the same thing for years, Reanimation was the end result of a actually band doing what they liked without giving a fuck whether or not it was going to be popular, not dedicating years to polishing and polishing.

And that, not spending years trying to make perfection happen or waiting around for it to show up on it's own, is when they are truly amazing.

 

Except to sell less, I guess. We can just hope that they don't care about the money and focus on musical diversity.

 

this

 

oh lol..well still i wanna hear more new stuff..it does suck that the new album wont have some "New Divide" sound in it..that song is like addicting lol. It came out in what? May or June? and i STILL love it to death. Its catchy, and the new electronic sounds sound amazing with Chesters voice..his voice never gets bad i swear. Hahn totally did his job in that song and i hope to hear more Mr Hahn on the new album.

 

Yup, great post(s) Derek.

MTM was totally a step in the right direction. and what Mike says about the increased song length is terrific.
I've always thought that was one of the weakest aspects of HT & Meteora The tracks where all roughly the same 3 minute length - another reason why Reanimation is so epic.

I don't expect or even want them to do a Metallica and make every song on the album between 7 and 9 minutes long, but it'll be great to see a couple of tracks reaching that length.

 

I'm sorry but I have no idea where did you get the whole late 2010 / early 2011. Care to share a source to that info?

 

Yes he seriously needs to step up his playing on records, he's so much better than what he plays... It almost comes across as lazy.