I know it's a little late, but i want to know why there's so many hate on UIG on LP fansites. There's so many people right now saying UIG is shit, comparing it with the new songs intending to say LP always had bad poppier-cliche-repetitive songs. I know the lyrics are very simple and repetitive, and i know the song is not complex at all. But hey, this is Linkin Park. The sounding of the music is pretty good, guitarzz and synths. Shina
When your album's lead single in 2014 is based around a figure-of-speech cliche that already served as the chorus to a single by Cinderella from the peak of hair metal in 1988, you've cemented yourself firmly in cringe territory. Any other aspect of the song is secondary by default. Truly one of the band's low points, and oddly enough it's on an otherwise-fantastic record. It still pains me to know that this song was basically only put on the album because it was rejected from Transformers 4 and probably bumped a superior track off the album in the process.
I like the song but it gets a lot of criticism for its simplicity and straight forwardness. I think its completely valid if someone dislikes the song - there is not much there I guess. I just like the dynamics and melodic content in it. I don’t think a cinematic, progressive or experimental approach to songwriting automatically makes music good. I’m often put off by those things because they can sometimes be cheap tricks to distract from a lack of songwriting skill. Sometimes you get interesting and moving pieces of work from that, most often not imo. But I am getting off track in a bizarre way. This has nothing to do with UIG huh?
The second verse makes the song imo. For an album that is mostly full of aggressive lyrics, the second verse was simply self-reflective and delivered better than most of their conscious songs at that time. "Cause finding what you got sometimes, means finding it alone. And I can finally see your light when I let go." Something about that verse resonated with me compared to any of the other lyrics on LT and THP.
Because you don't know what you've got, no you don't know what you've got, 'cause you don't know what you've got, yeah you don't know what you've got until it's gone. To be honest I really like the song... The vocals and instrumental are fantastic.
Great track imo, and this track is exactly what the "LP have sucked since Minutes To Midnight" fans wanted. I don't see why it would get hated on?
It's too similar to songs the band had written prior, the "Some What I've Done shit" was kind of a meme for the fanbase following MtM and then comes UIG, and it's almost exactly a less good version of What I've Done. Coupled with the fact that it was clearly written for a Transformers movie and the feeling that it really kills the flow of THP when it starts, and you get an unpopular song. I don't hate it, but if it wasn't on the album and was released as a B side on an LPU disc a year later, I wouldn't have been like "Holy fuck, they cut this?!", I would have understood completely.
The biggest complaint I have with this song is that there's something "off" with the mixing/mastering, like it's too compressed or something. Certainly not their best song but there are plenty worse!
It's mostly the cliche chorus lyrics. Like if the band wrote a song where the chorus went: "because the grass is always greener, oh the grass is always greener, yes the grass is always greener, on the other side" would you not cringe?
Because half of the "true fans" community bathed in toxic water and are now soaked in it and others think they are beasts in analyzing and knowing what music is about. Youre welcome
I now get why so many people don't like a song that has got some fantastic instrumentation. Honestly the song GATS is much worse than UIG and definitely the worst song on the album, even though War is too short and the screams seem a bit overdone or so on KTTK and end up not sounding all that good. THP is probably my least favorite LP album, even behind A Thousand Suns, but there is no bad LP album whatsoever. It was arguably not the best way to approach their heavist record ever. I would have preferred something more in the vain of Within Temptation's Hydra (from the same year that contains And We Run ft Xzibit, a much better reap-metal track than GATS), Bring Me The Horizion's Sempiternal or even Nightwish's Oceanborn or Dark Passion Play (probably they wouldn't manage to explore those topics about fantasy all that well and write a 13-minute song, but regarding instrumentation they'd do quite well) Actually Pink Floyd repeat the grass is greener a lot on their song High Hopes and I think it's my favorite song from them. It depends on the artists, for some repetition is good and a part of what makes certain songs great because it sticks, but in many cases it is boring. On UIG it functions quite well, I think, even though my favorite song is Final Masquerade. The album in general hasn't aged all that well and is a bit overlooked in their discography for some reason. Aging well is another conversattion, because for example Spectrum Pulse said on his new Slipknot album review that Iowa aged well, but it's not one of those albums that people still buy a lot nowadays and appears constantly on Catalog Albums lists. Hybrid Theory and Meteora still enter those lists and are considered to not have aged well. Probably people's opinions count more than sales, I don't know.
Late reply I know but I like UIT. I've always wanted to know why it wasn't the Transformers single. Also FM was way more out of place on The Hunting Party then UIT. Secondly, I remember when Chester posted just the part of him screaming at the end as preview I believe and everyone seemed to like it. New Album excitement maybe?
I definitely didn't like GATS, the rap verse just doesn't do anything for me. No song on A Thousand Suns is as bad as this one (no downright bad songs on ATS, but some samples, war sounds, people screaming in the background feel out of place and Empty Spaces is just pointless, all of this is just distracting and takes the focus away from songs like Blackout, Robot Boy, Burning In the Skies and The Cataylist. It's just a personal opinion, but I see it's quite an unpopular one.
Can’t see your point. I don’t get how the background screams and war sounds can distract people from those songs. These sounds makes the vibe of the album.
I get the overwhelming feeling that those who dislike A Thousand Suns think the interludes are distracting and pointless because they aren't "full tracks". As such, they don't appreciate the themes and overarching narrative of the record that makes it so resonant. I can confidently say that, in my opinion, while the songs of A Thousand Suns are pretty much masterpieces across the board, the album is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. Those who think it's the band's magnum opus don't just think that because of the nine full songs within, but for the entire experience as a whole. Just my two cents.
Sonically I think the song did a great job and it was definitely a nice gasp of air for how heavy the rest of the album is. Lyrically the song is distracting. The verses were well written but hearing the chorus belted out over and over with very little variety is what hurts the song the most. It's like if What I've Done's chorus was "What i've done, what i've done, cross out what I've become, what i've done, i'm forgiving what i've done"