I don't know what this really means anymore. Is turntable scratching really that important to people?
I think if Chester rapped it would something like the first couple of verses in Blackout - though maybe he could do it in a more interesting way. Would definitely change up things to have Mike dominate the song in terms of vocal power for once against Chester. Don't know if Mike could scream though, but I do agree he should bring in more Fort Minor influences into LP. I think Until It Breaks shows some of Mike's rapping prowess and would be awesome to hear more of that but with different experimental sounds.
So I looked at several places online that reported the iTunes stream, and went straight to the comments just to hear what people had to say. I am astonished by how well this album seems to be getting received. Like the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, with some people who hate the band even saying it was decent. Yeah there's the typical detractors still there, and the 'never pleased' nu-metal fans...but for the most part? People seem to love it. This is crazy. I can't remember a time when a Linkin Park album was this universally accepted. Am I being crazy here, or is the the band actually getting accepted for once?
You're not being crazy ahah. I went through the most common "LP is fucking garbage" places (Ultimate Guitar, Sputnik Music, and also some french Webzines) and the album is receiving a surprisingly good reception. Hell, it even almost has a 4 user rating right now on Sputnik, and I won't elaborate on how much I dislike that place. Though, there are still some "This is fucking atrocious - worst thing I've ever heard in my life" butthurt type answers, but those are quite rare for once. Now, it's true the album has yet to be officialy released and get more attention, be it from the lovers or haters.
The "problem" is that they have become so popular and there are a ton of people that just act with negativity when things get too huge (hating everything LP does no matter what). I also love comments like "didn´t know they still exist". Don´t know what people try to gain with these statements but I can just laugh about stuff like this (it doesn´t even motivate me to say something because these ppl are lost causes in my book that are not worth a single post). And I guess the band doesn´t care what others care. They matured a lot and I think this is the right way to handle it. There are millions out there that love their music, my impression is that only a fracture of this fan base is posting. Negative people on the other hand (and I am not talking about people that don´t like certain songs or albums, I am talking about the hater fraction) have the urge to post. I have even forgotten the name of the LPU member from South America... that was always hilarious to read I don´t even know what I originally wanted to say, hahaha. I am still waiting for tomorrow to get my copy and hear the album for the first time and hopefully I will love what they have created And of course it is nice to see such a warm reception for THP (my impression too from what I gained via skip and skimming different sites), they more than deserve more positive feedback for what they tried and accomplished over the past years.
That's what happens when you let a hipster review a good Rock record from a mainstream band. And he says on the review that LP is trying to go back to Hybrid Theory's style and failing. This shows that he doesn't know anything about the band's purpose on THP. But I still think the reviews for THP will end put being LP's best score on metacric for example.
Which is part of why I very much dislike that site. That review really represents a minority opinion (easy to see when you look at the rating stats), yet they put it on top because it's coming from a "contributor". What a joke. Not to mention the fact the review doesn't bring anything concrete to the table and that the criticisms are some vague shit like "It just doesn't work", "the execution isn't here" or " That won't succeed". That whole site is pretty much a hipster joke anyway... Still can't help but go look at it after each release though lol
BUT, if you would look at user reviews, and the average rating of the album, you would realize that The Hunting Party is the highest rated Linkin Park album on the website.....
Honestly I have seen very few negative things said about this record. iTunes, YouTube, random forums, random people I have showed have not really said anything negative. As Derek said, you have your few people who just hate to hate, but this is really the best received album since.... ...Meteora. :X
Fun fact: A Thousand Suns has the lowest score on user ratings and the highest of all LP albums on Sputnik's official reviews and Hunting Party has the lowest (!) official review score and one of the highest user rating scores, close to that of Hybrid Theory. Don't know what to make of this, but it's quite interesting considering the "underground" nature of this site, and that most active users there are not what you'd call mainstream followers.
Contributor reviews are not official reviews. People with the tag "Contributor" are no more than users who, well, contribute a lot. The only "official" reviews are from people with the tags emeritus or staff.
Here I am with my one-post-per-album-release just to say I absolutely love ALITS. IMO, one of their best songs ever. It has a little bit of everything in it and when you think it's over, you're completely wrong because it picks right back up again. Really awesome.