After the behemoths in Hybrid Theory and Reanimation, Meteora failed to impress. It was like a popcorn teaser for what could have been. The final result involved an ensemble of creatively-infused tracks deliberately packaged for commercial success; indefinitely both circumstantial and the safest route they could have taken with their sophomore release. Not a hater of the record, it just irks me due to acknowledgement of how much further the band could have pushed with Meteora. The album presented a lot of surprises and continues to harbor a certain weight with the instrumentals in unison with Chester's vocals. The heart was clearly there and it is unfortunate that the potential was never completely met. A far more cohesive record in comparison to Living Things.
I won't ever hate on Meteora, but I can certainly understand it's flaws. At the end of the day, it's much easier for us as LPs fan base to critique the album now as we've seen them diversify their sound and grow so much since Meteora. But you have to understand, at the time Meteora was released, the band could literally do NO wrong. They could have pretty much flown a steaming pile in the air and slapped it across don gilmore's face, and top 40 radio would have eaten that shit up all day. This was the band in their prime - it's just a shame looking back on it from our perspective now, thinking they could have done more with it. LP were like kids in a candy store back then. Did Meteora shape up to be their best work? No. But it's what put them on the map and you really can't hate on them for making the album at the time they made it.
It's a boring, uninspired, repetitive album. The only Meteora song I like is Breaking The Habit because of how unique it sounds and it's lyrics are not completely cringe-worthy like the rest of the album
Hm... "boring" and "uninspired" are pretty much vague criticisms that people can use for whatever type of music they don't like. I see those everywhere on the internet. "Why don't you like XXX? Boring and uninspired" Especially "boring", it's really subjective. I don't think nu-metal fanboys find Meteora "boring".
Something I've started to realize about Linkin Park is that, for a band with a bunch of huge radio singles, that don't actually write great melodies as often as we think. That's one of the things I dislike most about Meteora. It's an album full of pop singles that aren't even catchy. A good way to test this: Play the main vocal melodies of the songs on a piano or some other instrument. Don't play anything else, just the main vocal or instrumental melodies. Don't Stay, Somewhere I Belong, Hit The Floor, Faint, Figure.09, and From The Inside all have such dull, monotonous, repetitive choruses. Numb and Easier To Run aren't much better, but at least the verses are nice. If you're going to make an album based on catchy choruses, it would probably be good to give them better melodies. For comparison, play the Final Masquerade chorus melody on piano. A lot more variation there. Also, Qwerty19, you made the argument that Meteora being a similar sounding album to Hybrid Theory made sense because artists do that all the time to establish themselves. That would make sense, except we know for a fact that Linkin Park specifically did not want to establish themselves in that genre. They've spoken about it time and time again. The band does not like nu-metal. Minutes To Midnight was all about them de-establishing themselves. This is part of what drives me and other fans to dislike Meteora, we know that the band was pushed into it from multiple angles.
I don't know much about whether or not the songs are catchy - I'm far too removed from 2003 to be able to tell you anything there - but I agree with this point about the vocal hooks.
I don't like it because it feels all about style over substance and what substance there is kinda sucks
Gotta disagree with the lack of catchiness. Those melodies are those that made me a music fan to begin with. "Numb" was litteraly the first piece of music I ever enjoyed, and that was mainly due to its hook as I had zero interest in musichianship and technicality and song-writing at the time. And Figure.09 / FTI still have some of my favorite LP choruses. So yea, I just can't agree with that. It's really a matter of tastes. And yep, the guys never were fans of nu-metal (aside from bands like Deftones), but I don't think they considered themselves as nu-metal either. At least when they were making Meteora.
It is a matter of taste, but I would bet so much money that if we made simple piano recordings of the Meteora vocal melodies, and then made piano recordings of the Final Masquerade melody, the Waiting For The End melody, and the In The End melody, and played them for random people who had never heard Linkin Park before, an overwhelming majority would prefer the second group. Because many of the Meteora choruses are objectively monotonous. There is hardly inflection in the melodies. This kind of goes back to what Mike once said about the band's songwriting abilities: they can make something very mediocre sound a lot better with their polish and bells and whistles.
Yep, they are monotomous and repetitive. However, looking back, I think that's why they had this big impact on me. Those hooks were "to-the-point", easy to remember, and easy to sing along / jam to. I don't know. From a musical theory perspective, they're poor chorus, but from a pop listener perspective, I'd say they're golden chorus. The only way I can defend this opinion is...Watch a Numb performance and the public reaction If anything, the catchiness from Meteora came from its repetitiveness, if that makes sense.
How are Faint, SIB, Figure.09, Breaking The Habit, From The Inside, Numb not catchy? I think of them as the definition of catchy. Simple, big, repetitive. Stick to your head immediately. A melody doesnt have to be elaborate to be good or catchy. Sometimes a vocal line of 2-3 notes can hit the mark. It's better to have that than having a complex melody just because it's complex.
It looks like Meteora will never be able to find peace in the fanbase, regardless that this album is from over a decade ago. It's also hard to believe that the songs on Meteora were once widely regarded as "pop" and "mainstream", especially when you compare them to the poppiest radio-friendly songs of today. The music industry really has dramatically changed in terms of sound. Today's pop music sounds nothing like Meteora yet shares its formula and structure, interestingly enough. To be honest, I think Meteora is a fine album with a great atmosphere and powerful vocals. I do not have a problem with the powerchords and guitar riffs, even if they aren't all that intricate. Most of the songs to this day still manage to give me that rush of excitement and energy. Lastly, I do not have a huge problem with the lyrics, either. They may be simple and straight-forward yet they still help the songs convey intense emotions and feelings that greatly impact my listening experiences.
Nah, Meteora is still incredibly "poppy" for a rock album. I think a lot of people on this board hear "pop" and immediately think Katy Perry, One Direction, "Call Me Maybe" type shit. Even in 2003, when the band was at their peak as the biggest rock group in the US/planet, Meteora (and Hybrid Theory before it) were very much considered poppy. Extremely polished with sing-along hooks and all in a compact, easily digestible 3 and a half minute format? That there's some of the elements of pop. Another thing is that "pop" is also often used on this board as a derogatory description, which i really wish people would get out of using. Sometimes pop elements have a place in what are in otherwise rock songs (isn't Green Day still big on this board? Along with LP they're one of the best at adapting pop elements to rock songs). I guess what I'm trying to say is that for as much as the people on this board likes to consider themselves knowledgeable about music and all the its many genres is to stop trying to put things into neat little categories constantly.
What you said makes a lot of sense in terms of the structure of pop music. I will admit that I have never been 100% sure about the details and characteristics of a given genre of music or what would automatically put a song into a specific genre. I find it quite confusing, as music really does tend to blur lines that separate genres. I can live with the fact that Meteora may very well be a "poppy" album at its core, though that is by no means a bad thing I also see where you're coming from when you talk about the derogatory meaning given to anything deemed "pop" or "mainstream". I tend to not like music that's given such a description, as I associate music like this with genres like EDM and maybe Dubstep. I realize now that virtually all genres that have ever existed can be poppy in their common structures that define them. So, it can be concluded that music that isn't necessarily popular today can still be considered poppy if is built/structured around the criteria that you listed.
The Reason it's my least favorite album ('cept MTM) is because, it is the same album as Hybrid Theory only worse. If you take a look at the albums side by side they're almost identically built: Papercut/Don't Stay - Opening song, that opens with almost the same drumbeat, then the guitar joins in, then the rest of the band. One Step Closer/Somewhere I Belong With You/Lying from you Points of Authority/Hit the Floor Crawling/Easier to Run - Ballad to slow things down in the middle of the album, though I've got to give Easier to Run credit for the Verse-Chorus-Verse-Bridge formular Runaway/Faint - and then a fast song to get us hyped again By Myself/Figure.09 - and then the really heavy song In the End/Breaking the Habit - The best song on the entire album A Place for My Head/From the Inside Forgotten/Nobody's Listening - A song largely driven by Mike's rap with a sing-rap-sing-rap chorus Cure for the Itch/Session - The Instrumental Pushing Me Away/Numb - Another "Ballad", both these songs are practically identical (see also What I've Done and New Divide) Minutes to Midnight is also built very similarly though there are bigger differences and more varied songs there.