Mike Shinoda has released a song and video for a brand new track titled About You and features blackbear. The song is the sixth release from his upcoming solo album Post Traumatic that is out June 15th. Check out the new video below. STREAM / DOWNLOAD What do you think of About You? Let us know on the forums!
Well, it's totally different than the other tracks before. I like the more aggressive rap style thing on this! Where are the lyrics?!
Yeah, 'Back in Black' was the comeback album just after their original lead singer Bon Scott died. It came out the same year as he died. So there are some similarities, it's more than just a rhyme.
Maybe that's why I'm digging it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I got into Blackbear a bit after Sorry For Now, so I'm super happy we get another collaboration with him. The chorus on this track isn't my favorite, but the verses make up for it, easily. Very into the instrumental and Mike's rapping here.
I listed to About You 5 times in a row and then listened to all the songs in order of release date. I'm afraid to say I think this album will be good but not great. Most of the songs are good but the issue I'm finding is Mike's flow on a lot of the songs could be way better. I think Over Again is the only song where his flow really stands out. On top of this, a lot of songs don't have much replayability to me. I think the album will be good but I hold Mike to high standards and was expecting something great. We have heard 6 songs from a 16 song album now and I hope this is the last song we hear before the album becomes out so we at least have 10 new songs to hear. Blackbear is definitely the best part of About You, he ethered Mike in my personal opinion. I never liked his UIB flow and the more I listen to this song, the more it reminds me of that flow. I honestly hope Crossing A Line and About You is filler on the album to me because I am very worried about the album if the rest of the unheard songs aren't better than those songs. How I would rank the songs at the moment: 1. Over Again 2. Place to Start 3. Nothing Makes Sense Anymore 4. Watching As I Fall 5. Crossing A Line 6. About You
The instrumental is dope. Anything resembling LPU's "Dark Crystal" style sound cool. Eerie and atmospherical. But the chorus didn't catch me for now.
On the flip side, I'm digging the fuck out of these tracks and feel they're of a better quality than half of LP's discography. I'm usually the first to say Mike's rapping can be subpar but the pure emotion being exuded in his verses makes up for it. It definitely feels like he's going all out on these tracks and I'm eager to hear what the rest sounds like.
It's really interesting to see and understand what Mike said a few weeks ago: by himself he can just write, produce and release a song. Doesn't need bandmembers approval or opinion, no record company burocracy, no marketing planning... that's why a LP album take so long to make, everyone keeps changing everything until it pleases all people involved. And i can totally see this on those songs, they are just music expression put out to the world to hear.
Beautiful. Something about this one hit me really hard. I'm wondering if it might be the first time Mike has explicitly sang directly to Chester in a song (i.e. refers to him directly as 'you') rather than just referring to him in the third person or just referring to the situation. I might be wrong on that one, but that hit me super hard. Totally valid points, Blake, and I hear where you're coming from! But, frankly, I don't think Mike remotely cares right now about 'replayability' or people's reactions to his work, and I think ranking his songs misses the point of why he's doing these (in my opinion, obviously). I really think he's literally just doing whatever he wants, purposefully firing out a large number of songs very fast that may or may not be musically his greatest work but is, more importantly, the stuff he needs to make right at this moment, both musically and lyrically, on his own. I don't think there's a huge regard for where it stacks up against his catalog of work - I don't think that's the purpose. Obviously, there's a limit to that - when you're releasing an album commercially to the world and embarking on a tour in support of it, there has to be at least some need to account for how an audience will react to it, but I think it's a relatively minimal concern of his right now. Just my wild conjecture - I may be way off!