Talking music at my July 4th party yesterday, my friends and I had a drunk discussion about Linkin Park's LIVING THINGS. The consensus was that Linkin Park essentially 'gave in' and made an album targeted towards the Hybrid Theory/ Meteora fans just so they wouldn't lose the die-hard fans disappointed with M2M and ATS. But then, there were arguments about LIVING THINGS being a label-driven album because of all the radio-friendly hits on the album and that maybe Warner Brothers had their hands in Linkin Park's business more than the previous albums. Then there was Jonathan, a bearded hippy who said that Linkin Park genuinely wanted to make fast paced, Meteora-esk songs because they really wanted to. Jonathan argued that Linkin Park got a little tired of their excessive creativity from M2M and ATS and of the negative things being said by consumers. Anways, what do y'all think?
They took the sound and direction of their new stuff and mixed it with the energy and feel of their old stuff.
This because they do what the fuck they want. If Warner dictated the album, Mike, for one, would not be as excited with this album as he is/was.
I think they definitely pandered to the nu-metal lovers on this one, but still had the second half of LT to continue on with what they wanted to do. If all they wanted to do was make an uptempo record, then there's no reason the the first half should sound like simple rehashes.
I don't think they aimed to the nü metal fans since other than LITE there's nothing that sounds even remotely like nü metal, they just tried to make a more song-oriented record, which is fine. There's still a lot of sonic experimentation in the album.
ATS and Minutes were deliberate attempts to prove to people that "See, we can do other stuff too!". They no longer have that massive chip on their shoulder.
Since i could only choose 1, i would say a mix of getting back fans and doing whatever the fuck they want. I agree with Flagrare when he says they made Meteora due to huge pressure. It was easy for them to make and the critics noticed it so they deliberatly made M2M and ATS to prove their diversity of skills.
Face it guys: Warner Bros allowed Linkin Park to release A Thousand Suns. They can do whatever the fuck they want now. All these misinformed "selling out" ideas are ridiculous, and mostly stem from the folks who believe anything that isn't Hybrid Thoery/Meteora sucks, along with the fans who think A Thousand Suns was crafted from god himself. Quite frankly both groups are getting irritating to listen to.
Warner at this point has no say in what the band does. Well except for release dates. I think they just do whatever they want
Anyone who thinks the band have sold out generally has no idea what the hell "selling out" even means.
The first option is literally impossible. The fanbase is already fragmented and it's not like one can just undo time. The listener base is not a monolithic conglomerate of a single opinion. I'm actually going to argue for a forth option: A conscious decision by the band to make a bunch of radio singles to beef up their live performance. They make the album once, but they're gonna be performing songs off of it every night for a loooooooong time. That's daily life for them. They cranked out Living Things in 18 months, and were still working on it in April- during release press and stuff. They were under SOME sort of pressure, even if its not the same kind of pressure. Besides, I really really think that Living Things is Meteora #2 in spirit. Neither album is out there to make something new. Both are out there to make singles based off of toolboxes that they already have. Even if I humor the popular but unconfirmed assumption that Warner was really pushing LP to repeat HT during Meteora, instead of the band having a legit aspiration to prove that they're not a one album wonder and can do it again*, it should be noted that Living Things is following sort of the same pattern. Or at least the two albums have the same goals in mind. *(and thus enable themselves to have a real career, because jumping ship off of the sound on the second album is WAY too early in the career to completely split the fanbase)
Chester recently said in an interview that they hoped to reach out to some of the fans they alienated with this album. So even if it wasn't their big motivation behind Living Things, it seems pretty apparently that it was on their mind.
At the end of ''Meeting of A Thousand Suns'' documentary, they said they want to return to their more familiar sound, because ATS sessions were very stressful.
No. At the end of MOATS, they said they were going to ignore all the outside stressors of deadlines and other label pressure and just focus on the music instead of label politics. I don't know how you interpreted it the way you did, Chester was pretty concise.