It's still your OPINION. I don't get why people keep sprouting it out like some fact. Victimized and ALITS have absolutely nothing in common other than 2 seconds of a riff. The atmosphere in both songs are different, the build up, the rap, vocals, solo and everything else is different. And honestly, Victimized is over-hyped. When I say that, it's my OPINION. IMO, ALITS totally kills almost every song the band has put out since Waiting for The End. People whine about a tiny similarity between ALITS and Victimized when most are okay with Meteora being essentially a collection of songs that had the same pattern from start to finish. Also, how do you know that the band hasn't tried putting a different note there? How do you know they haven't exhausted all those possibilities and chose this because it sounded the best, to them? Edit- I realized I might have sounded all angry as fuck. I'm not. Just debating casually
Listen to the synth loop in STB (plays in the whole song) And then compare it to the quiet sound in the second verse of Wastelands. Same notes but the Wastelands sound plays a little bit slower than STB.
When THP leaked, I sat down with a piece of paper to write down my thoughts during the first listen, because I thought it would be interesting to read one day. The day has come. The notes for ALITS literally read "riff = Victimized + GATS". Literally those words. So I noticed it on first listen and I still feel this way. You say Victimized is over-hyped, yet it rarely gets talked about. I fucking love that song. ALITS, on the other hand, I dread. It's horrible in my opinion. Yes, it's all opinions. If the band has tried writing a different riff and this is what they kept coming back to, then I repeat, it hints at a lack of creativity. It's hard to believe that 4 people in the band play guitar and this is the best they could come up with. At the end of the day, you aren't going to change my opinion, and I'm not going to change yours. Might aswell quit it.
When you think of a song, you hear part of it in your head. When I think of the meteora songs, I hear these things: Don't stay: Chester's "I DON'T NEED YOU, ANYMORE!" and also, Hahn's scratching in the intro. Somewhere I Belong: the cool reversed sample at the beginning LFY: the really unique samples that intro the song, as well as the cool rap/scream combo in the bridge. Hit the Floor: Super heavy scream chorus Faint: Violin sample, the quiet moment followed by "I WON'T BE IGNORED" I could go on, but the point is when I think of the songs, I think of different, unique qualities, because those qualities happen to be the most catchy elements of the song to me, and what makes them stand out among other music I know. In both Victimized and ALITS, the catchiest parts to me are the riffs. Victimized doesn't have much more in it to even be catchy, and the riff is repeated enough times in ALITS that I would say it's a big part of the song. ALITS' chorus isn't a very powerful melody imo, it doesn't get stuck in my head. Neither does Mike's rap, or the breakdown, or Mike's slow singing. They don't feel like the main event of the song. The riff does. The riff (and the breakdown) are the part that will make people jump up and down and be excited at a concert. Namsay? Think of it this way: if you had a keyboard or guitar or something, and someone said "I don't remember how that song goes, could you play it on that?" what part would you play with your limited instrument? The synthy intros/guitar intros, or the backing guitars or whatever else you could argue is repetitive in songs? Or would you say "it's the one that is verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus"? In the case of most LP songs, you would play some stuff that happens before the first verse, like the hook to numb/castle of glass/LFY/etc. In the case of ALITS, I think you would play that riff. Sure you could sing the chorus or whatever, but the point is that the riff is a major element in the songs, and because of that it seems strange that LP would repeat something so similar.
Why don't we just go through Linkin Park's entire discography and try to find every little similarity between the songs and bitch about them?
I probably shouldn't open Pandora's Box, but fuck it this thread is becoming absurd... A Thousand Suns is a prime culprit for reusing samples and vocals, yet those moments are hailed as inspiring and cohesive. A Line In The Sand uses a guitar riff that sounds slightly similar to a distorted-beyond-recognition riff from a previous album, yet is flamed for being uninspiring and boring. This fan base never ceases to amaze me.
One important difference. I love ATS, but hate ALITS even if it had a thousand different riffs there.
The problem with ALITS is not it's call back to GATS. The problem with ALITS is the shoehorned in rap and screaming verse. It's like they felt that they had to include these so they could say "It's an accumulation of all of the bands previous work in one song" but all it does is make a genuinely incredible track into a mediocre one. The screaming is just unnecessary, the rap is BID level bad. I would have loved the song if it was mostly instrumental with Mike just singing the first and second verse and then again on the outro but alas, they felt that that was too sparse or something. Anyway, parts of it are incredible while others make me roll my eyes.
I love Chester screaming in ALITS and the fact it's kind of drowing out in the instrumental. It adds to the apocalyptic feel the song in my opinion.
He actually sounds desperate to me in this song, especially towards the end, which gives it a genuine human quality. I also have absolutely no problems hearing Chester in the choruses. There's just a lot of heavy layers to the song so if anything I find myself distracted (in a good way) by the riffs rather than "oh noes I can't hear Chester"
The catchiest part of Victimized is definitely not the intro riff. If anyone remembers anything from Victimized, it's Chester's screaming, not the damn guitar (which doesn't sound like ALITS remotely unless you purposefully examine the notes).
Mikes first verse. A really great one in my opinion. Like this silennce before the storm thing (same in ALITS)