When reading the concept album news, I suddenly realized that we're getting pretty close to the next album. I mean, not SUPER close, but still, they're getting ready to record, so it could be soon. Anyway, that got me thinking, what do we all want them to do with this record? What would you like to see happen? First off, I would say fire Rick. Sorry, his production is far too clean. I would say go with Flood/Alan Moulder, or Jackknife Lee, preferably Flood/Alan. Also, stick with the concept album idea. Thats what they need to do right now, it would probably win them some respect, which they need. Now, sound wise, I want them to be less pop. The "pop" songs on MTM generally sucked (Shadow of The Day.... ugh.), and the farther they get from generic ballads the better. I want to see some more emotion and experimentation, like In Pieces or Little Things. Or, I want some awesome rock, like Bleed It Out. Oh, and get rid of the angst, theres better emotions that you can write about. Given Up was far too angsty, and just came off as annoying, in my opinion. Also, bring back some electronic influence, Joe needs something to do this time around . Thankfully the band seem to be going in this direction. The concept album thing has been talked about, and heres a blog post from Mike (which somehow didnt make it to the news page): "Of the two songs we worked on, one was a heavier, fast-tempo song with heavy guitars and distorted sampled drums, and the other was a little less aggressive, but still dark and upbeat, and had a really interesting chord progression." Sounds good to me, just get rid of Rick Rubin and you're good. So, what do you want to see from the next album?
For the most part Alan Moulder and Jacknife's production is at least as 'clean' as Rick Rubin's. With Flood it varies slightly more. As far as that's concerned someone like Ross Robinson would be better than all of those. I'd like to see them work with Dan Nakamura. Someone who has a real knowledge of experimenting with different kinds of music, now that they seem to be past the point of just making the same album over and over. He's also worked with Chester and Mike before in Handsome Boy Modeling School, and has experience of working within a concept (HBMS, Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, etc). Doubt it'll happen though.
They wrote about emotions other than angst on the last album; you said the results were "generic ballads" that "sucked".
Not necessarily, it just happened that some of the non-angsty songs were generic ballads. TLTGYA, In Pieces, and Bleed It Out were all fantastic, and did not deal with angsty subject matter. Also, I find that Alan Moulder/Floods production to be far less clean then Rick Rubins. I mean, listen to something like "Sams Town", and then something like "Make Believe". That may be the mixing, though.
No Rick Rubin. PLEASE no Rick Rubin. ANYONE but Rick Rubin. It was HIM that made them change their style. ABSOLUTELY NOT Rick Rubin. If he's coming back, I'll sue. But LP DID say that they didn't want to do a trilogy with the style of HT and Meteora, so hopefully if this one's style is gonna be the same as MTM's, they probably won't continue with it for their fifth album.
No he didn't. It was a decision on the band's part. They were talking about trying different stuff ages before they chose a producer, not to mention that Rick isn't really the kind of producer to do something like that.
Fourth. Rick Rubin wasn't the only producer for Minutes to Midnight. He was a co-producer, next to Mike Shinoda. Rick only told them to not think about anything but just write what they wanted, and that's what they did. Rick Rubin didn't change the band, the band changed the band. I wouldn't mind seeing Rick come back, but honestly I think the band should self-produce their own record. They seem to be trusting Mike more and more with these things lately. Who knows, only time will tell. Anyone but Don Gilmore, though. Christ.
No, I did mean fifth. They said that they didn't want to do a trilogy with the same style so this one will probably continue, and the one after this will be the fifth, and they probably won't continue with the same MTM/this album style.
Anyways, I want their next album to show off the creativity they have for their modified intros to songs played live.
Rubin was the best thing that ever happened to them. All the man changed was the way their songs are actually, well, produced. Less layered vocals, real guitar parts, less looping, songs actually sung the entire way through etc. It was great on his part. Rubin is known for his minimal input into the actual songwriting, he mostly forces a band to push out something raw, something honest. And I like that. Don Gilmore on the other hand, would've made sure HT was rewritten again, then layered the vocals 87 times, looped the vocals, had Chester do all his own harmonies and forbidden the band to write anything longer than 3:30. Rubin FTW
^ I disagree. Don Gilmore was awesome, he should return. I want more songs like Papercut, In The End and Numb. I do NOT, I CERTAINLY do not want any LoATR or SotD type songs, I agree with you there.
Shadow of the Day is a great song. Just so you know, it's almost 2009. It just seems like your still stuck in 2001.
I liked his style of layering the songs; I personally loved the double-voice stuff. So just because I like their classic songs more I'm stuck in the past? Dude, think before you speak. There wasn't any need for you to fire that at me.
Well, yea. You obviously don't like much of what they've done after Meteora. That 'genre' is dead. LP knew they had to make a change and if they would have kept with the same sound then they would have fallen off the map eventually. It's happened to PLENTY of other bands that tried to stick with the same genre/sound. It's fine that you like that style, really. But if you're not willing to accept their new sound then the only CD's you will ever enjoy are Hybrid Theory and Meteora, because it's pretty obvious Linkin Park aren't going back to the 'nu-metal' sound that made them popular. It's played out.
I don't care about the change of sound as long as I like the new sound. And the most of the new sound on MTM just isn't my cup of tea.
Their style wasn't exactly nu-metal; it was actually a completely new and different style of their own. I like their new style, but I like their older one more. Don't jump to conclusions; I don't hate them now. I simply said that I wanted MORE songs like the ones I mentioned, not a completely heavy-metal thrash-metal thing. Like someone told me in another thread, it's called an opinion. Don't jump at others just because they have a different one from you.