Mike's Style Of Rapping

^ I understood that the first time around and I definitely agree.

As I may or may not have said before, I love the rapping Shinoda's done on "Midnight" and "A Thousand Suns" and personally greatly prefer it to what he was doing on "Meteora" at the very least. Hell, "When They Come For Me" is my favourite Linkin Park song, ;P pending the new album

 

Yeah, you're right... those lyrics are totally not hip hop.


I think Mike does a brilliant thing where he writes lyrics that coincide with what's relevent to the song. He doesn't go and try this obscene idea of "I gotta do this to prove I'm the best rapper alive" shit. Linkin Park AS A WHOLE are a BAND, yes, a BAND, that make masterpieces out of simplicity. They don't claim to have the best of any one thing in particular, but the outcome of what they do is something that ends up being spectacular. Mike does a great job at what he does and to tie the music all together the way he does seemlessly is his forte.

As far as all of you lyrical rap hipsters, you're not amusing.

 

Funny story, there is no "Mike's Lyrics/Chester's Lyrics." They both write parts for each other and have a say in what each other does. Who's to say that whatever you write wasn't thought up by Mike, transversely, what if the lyrics that you said weren't hip hop were written by Chester, or influenced by one or another?

 

So here is the deal. The idea of Chester whispering for an entire album is both laughable and absurd. That is something the band would never do. I know you were speaking hypothetically, but, that is something the band won't do simply because it wouldn't sound good. The band makes music that sounds good together. Now onto Meteora. I like Meteora. It's been stated many times on the record that I like EVERYTHING the band has ever done. To sit there and say that there wasn't any talent found on Meteora was probably the most assenine thing I've read all day. Congrats on that medal. Also, that whole bit you had on the content of lyrics was a funny response coming from a teenager. Thus I digress...

 

Alright, you must have missed my "teenager" point. You said, "Damn near every song on there has the same awkward and disaffected delivery and every line is interchangeable twaddle about vague problems teenagers can identify with." That to me was funny concidering you are, in fact, still a teenager. I didn't discredit your entire post because of it.

To sit there and dismiss my word on anything rapping related is unfair concidering you never said that you were only talking about talent only relating to the rapping on Meteora. You said "So why are you trying to defend Meteora? Virtuosity is not a curse. It's not about being the best in the biz, it's simply about having talent. And if you only heard that album, you wouldn't find any." That, to me, says that you were saying there was no talent anywhere on the album. Even though I still like Mike's rapping on the record, you cannot deny that there is talent and creativitiy on the album. I'm not just talking about Mike's rapping, I'm talking everything. That's where I was coming from with my Meteora defense.

To talk about being on the Linkin Park forum, I get that you care about the band. I just see way too many people coming on and talking shit. Before you fly over the handlebars again, I'm not talking about you. I guess we all show our support for the band in different ways. I'm not negative towards the band nor do I think my musical talent and taste is above them. I merely trust them to continue making music that I enjoy.

I think it is safe to say that my "arrogance" of the English language was really ignorance to what you were trying to say. You were right, your point was unclear to me. Much like mine was to you.

 

Ever since Shinoda did his thing with the Fort Minor project, he's improved greatly in his role as a rapper in a band of six people. I expect he'll only continue to improve from hereon in and I fully expect the rhymes on this new album to top everything he's written/performed to date. Shinoda no longer waters down his lyrics to conform to a certain sound or appeal to some lowest common denominator; he just puts his best foot forward and, along with the others in the band, makes a bunch of disparate sounds and styles fit together.

Part of the result, also, is that the hip-hop aspect of Linkin Park's music has become considerably more pronounced, one of several things that show how diverse and unpredictable Linkin Park can be stylistically and how there's so much more to them than what their first couple of albums might have you believe.

 

There's a definite Jay-Z influence in his rapping which is now most evident in the way he carries himself while performing "When They Come For Me" live. ;P