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Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 13, 2010, 3:54 pm
by Siji
*sigh*
Notes about the release from LP:
We were not making an album. For months, we'd been destroying and rebuilding our band. The experiments that resulted filled the studio hard drive with diverse, abstract sounds. Amorphous echoes, cacophonous samples, and handmade staccato merged into wandering, elusive melody. Each track felt like a hallucination. We didn't know if any of those unorthodox ideas could be incorporated into a traditional album, but we knew we didn't want our next album to be predictable. [Note: Why does it always seem when a band is about to put out a shit album they attribute it to 'not wanting to sound predictable' or 'not wanting to do another version of..' whatever made them famous?] Sitting together in the same studio where we made our first album, all six of us voiced a commitment to going out on a limb, to making something truly daring. We asked ourselves: were we all earnestly willing, more than ever before, to abandon the precepts of commercial ambition in pursuit of what we believe to be honest art? [Note: Buy some fucking glitter and crayons to design a craptastic cover to a better CD please!] The inclination to begin writing conventional songs for a conventional album came and went. [Note: In other words, we couldn't come up with a good song to save our lives, so we'll just say we did but threw them out in the name of art!] The temptation to adjust our creative vision to fulfill expectations beyond our studio walls yielded to the audacious ambition of what we hoped to achieve as a band. The two years of making 'A Thousand Suns' marked our exhilarating, surrealistic, and often challenging journey into the creative unknown. On the eve of its completion, this body of work, assembled through unconscious inspiration and unmitigated exertion, has revealed to us notions both stirring and surprising [Note: Surprising at how badly we wasted two years]. The album's personified imagery is neither dogma nor political premeditation. The emergent themes and metaphors illuminate a uniquely human story. 'A Thousand Suns' grapples with the personal cycle of pride, destruction, and regret. In life, like in dreams, this sequence is not always linear. And, sometimes, true remorse penetrates the devastating cycle. The hope, of course, springs from the notion that the possibility of change is born in our most harrowing moments. Enjoy the music.
Seriously I had high hopes and as burned out on LP as I am, I really do enjoy their music when it comes on. I'm quite fine with new music directions if they're good. I wouldn't want Hybrid Theory 2 or Meteora 2. (Didn't we already have those anyway?) But like Marilyn Manson's last CD where he decided to 'experiment' or whatever the fuck he decided to do, this CD is a steaming load of crap. There's nothing on this CD that I listen to and think 'wow they are talented' or 'thats different and cool'. It's not like NIN's Ghosts where although I didn't really like it, I could at least respect what it was and it was good at being what it was. There's maybe 2 or 3 songs that are 'ok' and could be mood music I guess. The rest is just fucking garbage that a band by any other name would have been laughed at for submitting. I'm all for alternative, artistic and different directions, but I'm not afraid to call suckage when it's suckage. This is suckage. I dare say it's barely worth downloading and certainly not worth buying. It's really a waste of 48 minutes of your life. Color me severely disappointed.
1/5
PS: The longest song on the CD is the amazingly repetitive and sucky "The Catalyst".
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 13, 2010, 8:40 pm
by Fairweather Pure
I share your opinion. It's not even "ok". It's just plain bad.
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 13, 2010, 11:00 pm
by Siji
The excuse of 'doing something new' teminds me somewhat of Smashing Pumpkins.. Billy complains that people only seem to want them to recreate Siamese Dream over and over. I beg to differ. People want you to create enjoyable music they can sing along to or get wrapped up in, they don't want to listen to you play for 90 minutes on the same song just making noise in the name of "art". We get it, you're talented and want to express yourself. Why do artists blame the public when we don't like every thing they do, just because we did like one thing they did?
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 13, 2010, 11:06 pm
by Aslanna
On the other hand why does the public seem to think they'll like everything an artist does.
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 13, 2010, 11:10 pm
by Fairweather Pure
Agreed. Artists are free to create and express new material anyway they want. However, they should not be surprised when the public does not like the new directions they take.
Tool is the one band I can think of that has done no wrong. Every album is a different experience, yet they are all enjoyable and bound by a common, underlying signature sound.
One could argue that nearly every musician has a clear break through album. Very few repeat or top these early successes. Actually, this can be said of many actors as well.
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 14, 2010, 10:11 am
by Funkmasterr
Linkin Park had a few good songs on their first cd, maybe 2 on the next one, and the rest of their shit has been... well... shit. No surprise here.
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 14, 2010, 10:40 am
by miir
Heh, I always thought Linkin Park were crap.
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 15, 2010, 10:27 pm
by Soreali
They were better off making Hybrid Theory 2.. Everything since has been utter crap, which is why i stopped listening to them when their second album dropped, and that god awful excuse of a "remix" ended any scrap of respect I had left for them..
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 30, 2010, 12:31 pm
by Canelek
miir wrote:Heh, I always thought Linkin Park were crap.
Agreed!
However, I liked the article. I was quite surprised to hear them talking about being daring or going out on a limb. Sounds like the next wave of PROGROCK, perhaps? Tool is sorta getting there, in their own way. Maybe they saw the Rush documentary!
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: September 30, 2010, 5:31 pm
by miir
Out of curiosity, I listened to this album once through.
Segue tracks (this album has SIX of them) are about as groudbreaking, unconventional and daring as fucking skits on rap albums.
Of the more conventional LP tracks, it's almost sounds like they are just getting old, tired and bored. There is little-to-no energy in any of them. The best they can seem to muster is a brisk shuffle.
Chester doesn't scream anymore (a shame because he had one of the best screams in music) and the rapping chump is still terrible... On one track he attempts a jamaican accent in one of his raps and it's a fucking embarrasment.
What they need to do is get Rick fucking Rubin out of the picture and either produce it themselves or get a young, innovative producer that can coax something more from them. Rick Rubin hasn't been relevant in a decade.
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: October 6, 2010, 12:38 am
by Siji
miir wrote:Chester doesn't scream anymore (a shame because he had one of the best screams in music)
You know it's weird, I was so busy disliking the songs as a whole that I didn't even notice that he hadn't screamed any notes. Shame. It's like a Van Halen CD with no guitar licks or solos..
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: May 3, 2011, 11:07 am
by miir
@Slashleen
Slashleen
Named my vibrator "Linkin Park" because it's big and metal and made for pussies.
Re: Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
Posted: May 5, 2011, 10:26 am
by Dakanaf
Chester still screams live, or at least he did in feb.