"I'm swimming in the smoke / Of bridges I have burned..."
I was given one CD this Christmas--Linkin Park's newest album, A Thousand Suns--and really like it. But almost as much amusement comes from reading the reviews for it on amazon.com because there are a lot of betrayed nu metalheads whining like babies. I'm picturing guys in their 20s and late teens sobbing over this Awful Betrayal. One guy said that when a band changes its sound it should change its band name so its fans won't be tricked into buying crap music. (It's a conspiracy!)
According to the people who hate the new direction, the album is variously too techno or electronica (Have you guys ever really heard those?), too gospel (One and a half songs with a church-y organ involved, a few God bless/save us-es, and a sampling of a part of Martin Luther King, Jr's "Beyond Vietnam: A Time for Breaking Silence" speech that also mentions that he is giving it at a house of worship = gospel?), too rap (Have you ever heard Linkin Park, especially Reanimation? Or nu metal at all?), too pop (They've always had some pop in the mix.)...
But Linkin Park is still Linkin Park. They may not use the hard rock/heavy metal guitars as obviously in the mix, but it still sounds like LP even with synths, a thundering piano, and a song and a half with a church-y organ. They still have some rap because they have always had rap. Chester still shreds his throat when it calls for it. Their last album, Minutes to Midnight, showed them heading here. Linkin Park has gone less personal angst and more war and social injustice with A Thousand Suns, but that's not so far out of their park. They also suggest that maybe you should get up and do something as opposed to simply wallowing in your angst. Fiery stuff!
They're maturing and evolving. The bastards.
So, for the most part, the amazon.com reviews either Love the album or Hate it. There are people who love the album who say they only wrote a review because they don't want all this ridiculous hate to give newcomers to the page the wrong impression of the album. Sweet, sweet drama. So, seriously, I read three pages of reviews and laughed my ass off. I could have gone on but there were 482 reviews and I felt I'd gotten the gist.
Bonus, reading the reviews has given me the fun effect of seeing some of the lyrics as having another meaning, that of Linkin Park breaking up with fans not willing to move on with them.
Meanwhile, A Thousand Suns makes Linkin Park even more Relevant to My Interests than before. More synths, some industrial sounds, sampling, and variety? Bring it on! Pianos like thunder and voice processing only sometimes and only for a specific effect? Yes please. I was so at home. And I still love the vocals.
There are some debits. I would have appreciated more songs and a bit less filler. Putting a bit of background music and a few voice effects on the Martin Luther King, Jr and the Robert Oppenheimer samples don't really equal a song each. I'd be happier if they'd been more incorporated into actual songs, the way Linkin Park had so effectively done with that sample of Mario Savio's "Operation of the Machine" speech into their song "Wretches and Kings." (If you want to see this album as a bunch of singles you'd think there's more filler than if you acknowledge that A Thousand Suns is a concept album with some smaller musical bits bridging between songs.) I would have liked "The Messenger" better if Chester hadn't spent so much time shredding his vocals in it.
Also, don't read their explanation of their creative process in the booklet because it is so pretentious.
I can't help remembering that their Hybrid Theory came out at a time when boy bands ruled the radio and that part of what drew me to them was how the vocals occasionally suggested that the band had kidnapped and brainwashed a boy band member into being one of their vocalists. In our current radio music moment of cheap-sounding, generic synth/techno backgrounds and overly processed vocals, Linkin Park is putting a more thoughtful, creative spin and judicious usage on that.
According to the people who hate the new direction, the album is variously too techno or electronica (Have you guys ever really heard those?), too gospel (One and a half songs with a church-y organ involved, a few God bless/save us-es, and a sampling of a part of Martin Luther King, Jr's "Beyond Vietnam: A Time for Breaking Silence" speech that also mentions that he is giving it at a house of worship = gospel?), too rap (Have you ever heard Linkin Park, especially Reanimation? Or nu metal at all?), too pop (They've always had some pop in the mix.)...
But Linkin Park is still Linkin Park. They may not use the hard rock/heavy metal guitars as obviously in the mix, but it still sounds like LP even with synths, a thundering piano, and a song and a half with a church-y organ. They still have some rap because they have always had rap. Chester still shreds his throat when it calls for it. Their last album, Minutes to Midnight, showed them heading here. Linkin Park has gone less personal angst and more war and social injustice with A Thousand Suns, but that's not so far out of their park. They also suggest that maybe you should get up and do something as opposed to simply wallowing in your angst. Fiery stuff!
They're maturing and evolving. The bastards.
So, for the most part, the amazon.com reviews either Love the album or Hate it. There are people who love the album who say they only wrote a review because they don't want all this ridiculous hate to give newcomers to the page the wrong impression of the album. Sweet, sweet drama. So, seriously, I read three pages of reviews and laughed my ass off. I could have gone on but there were 482 reviews and I felt I'd gotten the gist.
Bonus, reading the reviews has given me the fun effect of seeing some of the lyrics as having another meaning, that of Linkin Park breaking up with fans not willing to move on with them.
Meanwhile, A Thousand Suns makes Linkin Park even more Relevant to My Interests than before. More synths, some industrial sounds, sampling, and variety? Bring it on! Pianos like thunder and voice processing only sometimes and only for a specific effect? Yes please. I was so at home. And I still love the vocals.
There are some debits. I would have appreciated more songs and a bit less filler. Putting a bit of background music and a few voice effects on the Martin Luther King, Jr and the Robert Oppenheimer samples don't really equal a song each. I'd be happier if they'd been more incorporated into actual songs, the way Linkin Park had so effectively done with that sample of Mario Savio's "Operation of the Machine" speech into their song "Wretches and Kings." (If you want to see this album as a bunch of singles you'd think there's more filler than if you acknowledge that A Thousand Suns is a concept album with some smaller musical bits bridging between songs.) I would have liked "The Messenger" better if Chester hadn't spent so much time shredding his vocals in it.
Also, don't read their explanation of their creative process in the booklet because it is so pretentious.
I can't help remembering that their Hybrid Theory came out at a time when boy bands ruled the radio and that part of what drew me to them was how the vocals occasionally suggested that the band had kidnapped and brainwashed a boy band member into being one of their vocalists. In our current radio music moment of cheap-sounding, generic synth/techno backgrounds and overly processed vocals, Linkin Park is putting a more thoughtful, creative spin and judicious usage on that.