What is the likelihood that the band will release the original versions of Blackbirds, The Last Line, Pretend To Be and Not Alone, the ones from the Midnight To Midnight sessions? They were all re-worked and re-written during the A Thousand Suns sessions so I assume they changed a lot, but I would also like to hear the original versions of these songs, especially Blackbirds, which you can hear on the MTM DVD and it sounds different.
I've honestly never heard about this, but if we were to ever hear them, my guess is that they'd appear on an LPU CD. I doubt they'd see a release in any other way.
I don't really think there's like 2 completed versions of each song in existence. I think they were close to complete/completed for MTM, left off that album as b-sides, and kept for consideration for ATS because they liked them enough. I think the songs we have are the only definitive final versions. Blackbirds just sounds different on the DVD because the strings are super loud I think.
Not Alone is the only one of those four songs that HASN'T had its original version released. Blackbirds was never an ATS demo. They recorded it for MTM and kept it "in the can" for several years before releasing it with 8-Bit Rebellion. What we have is the original version. Pretend to Be was never completed during the MTM sessions, but it wasn't really an ATS demo either. It's most likely a 2006 instrumental with a 2008 vocal track. It's not like there's an alternate completed version that was never released. The Last Line's demo title was Ammosick, and it was in consideration for both MTM and ATS. Both versions are almost identical instrumentally. One version (presumably the later of the two) is on the Mall soundtrack, and the other version with the alternate vocal was leaked on Youtube:
Thanks for clearing it all up. There are a lot of songs that I'm discovering that are on different releases and stuff and sometimes I can't always find out which album sessions they were from. Blackbirds was always confusing to me because it was a bonus track on A Thousand Suns, so I used to think it was a song from A Thousand Suns, but then I found out that you can hear the song on the Minutes To Midnight Special Edition DVD, etc. Pretend To Be is another one that confused me a lot of times because it said 2008 demo, and that was a year in between albums. But that makes sense. I also didn't know about that alternate version of The Last Line, thanks for sharing it, I think I like that version even more than the other, I think the vocals are better. One more question if you don't mind. Do you know where the songs White Noise, It Goes Through and Devil's Drop are from? I know they are on the soundtrack for MALL, but were they made for the movie? The Last Line is also on that soundtrack but I know it was from album sessions. I read somewhere that they were other songs from album sessions but I can't remember where I read that.
Devils Drop: LT era The Last Line: MTM era White Noise: Uncertain, but them working on the song can be seen during the THP sessions.
Wow, that's cool to know. It Goes Through did sound a lot like A Thousand Suns, so I can see that now. The Last Line was also cut from A Thousand Suns last minute, so we have two unreleased A Thousand Suns tracks now, basically. White Noise is one I could see on The Hunting Party, even though it has heavy electronic elements, it fits with it. I could see it fitting on Living Things, too, like Victimized. Maybe it's from then. Devil's Drop from Living Things too is cool. It's interesting to me that the band (or Mr. Hahn) went into the Linkin Park vault and pulled out all these old songs that never made the cut for his movie. I wish he went in depth about it, the origins of these songs, etc.
Devil's Drop was a Living Things demo called Warm Spell. As far as I'm aware, White Noise was specifically recorded for Mall. There are a couple other demos on that soundtrack too, Dancer had "da na na" vocals in the movie credits that were cut out for the soundtrack release, so it's probably a MTM or ATS demo. Mal RX7 was a demo called "Buttermilk" that I believe came from the ATS sessions too (it was included in the first Stagelight sample pack).
Interesting. I googled some of this stuff about MALL (the movie) and I found out that Mr. Hahn actually wanted to make the movie in 2011, and it was gonna be filmed in 2011, but it was postponed and a lot of the original actors that were gonna be in the movie ended up not being in it. So I wonder, maybe did Mr. Hahn put together the music for the movie back in 2011? It would make sense, because a lot of the songs used were done by then. Dancer, the Buttermilk song, It Goes Through and The Last Line were all songs during the A Thousand Suns recording which was 2010. And also, White Noise, I could see that being made just for MALL, so that's a good point. Just because it has a heavy sound with screams, it doesn't mean it has to be from The Hunting Party, because it is also heavy electronically as well. And someone said that the lyric sheet for the song was seen in The Hunting Party studio, but MALL came out in 2014, so maybe it was just there one day that they finalized MALL since they were both in 2014. Anyways, thanks for clearing it all up to me. I couldn't find much information on it so it's good to know from a fan who knows about it. - Cool video from Mr. Hahn talking about the songs in the film. Nothing really note worthy, but he did say there were 3 songs in the movie with vocals, and the rest are instrumental. We got 4 with vocals, maybe one was added last minute, or maybe he just mis-counted. Lol.