It's telling that Living Things is so far the only LP album that I've taken to replacing certain tracks with remixes or demos.
Primo (I'LL BE GONE - LONGFORM 2010 DEMO) Like shining oil this night is dripping down The night is dripping down, glistening And I"m trying not to think what I'm leaving now 'Cause I'm leaving now It's time you let me go, let me go 'Til then carry on, and miss me when I'm gone Oh, don't let anyone give you away Just carry on, and miss me when I'm gone Oh, don't let anyone take my place Take my place This air between us is getting thinner now Getting thinner now, bittersweet 'Cross that horizon this sun is setting now Slowly setting now It's time you let me go, let me go 'Til then carry on, and miss me when I'm gone Oh, don't let anyone give you away Just carry on, and miss me when I'm gone Oh, don't let anyone take my place Take my place Just carry on, and miss me when I'm gone Oh, don't let anyone give you away Just carry on, and miss me when I'm gone Oh, don't let anyone take my place Take my place Tell them I couldn't help myself And tell them I was alone Tell them I was the only one And there's nothing that can stop me from going home Tell them I couldn't help myself And tell them I was alone Oh, tell them I was the only one And there's nothing that can stop me, from going home From going home From going home, going home Oh, tell them I was the only And there's nothing that can stop me, from going home
If Primo had one instance of the final I'll Be Gone chorus, like right at the end or something, it would be perfect. Wow.
Primo is a very good song, but using it to make claims against LT is ridiculous. I truly believe that a few of you don't like LT, but a large handful of you are simply assimilating the norms pertaining to putting down albums like LT or Meteora while in actuality, you are blasting LITE, BID, Numb, or Faint quite often. At the same time, the praise for this song comes simply from excitement for a new song (not that it diminshes how well this song sounds), just as BID's release, or STB's sneak peak when you all claimed it was simply amazing. Of course the response with most common sense as to why this didn't make LT is because it just wasn't energetic enough and as much as some of you claim I'll Be Gone is a terrible song along with "horrible mixing and mastering", the track fulfills what the band intended for the song's role to be in LT. For now, my simple view of the matter (my opinion alone, so whether you choose to do it or not is up to you) is to keep your minds together and wait for LPU 13's release to decide the real value behind this track rather than putting down previous work the band has put out.
You should realize that I listen to Living Things these day a lot still and that Lost In The Echo and I'll Be Gone are my two favorite tracks on the album and I do thoroughly enjoy them. However, I still do have the right to say that I believe the Primo demo is STILL better than the final version.
Why? I like both LT and Meteora but I like ATS better than either. Also, I haven't listened to Meteora in a while. I listened to it a few months ago for its 10th anniversary and realized it has aged like crap. What? No. It's because some of us think ATS is LP's best album and Primo sounds more like what we'd expect on a followup to ATS. I don't think IBG is a bad song per se, but it's definitely a safe, bland track on the band's repertoire. And the whole "energetic" excuse doesn't make sense anymore. Wretches and Kings, Blackout, When They Come For Me are all "energetic" songs, the fact that they couldn't translate that energy to a live performance it's more a band's fault than the songs', since I can play the album and be blown away by its energy. Maybe some of us expected "the album will be more energetic" to mean "the album will be more energetic", not "we're going back to traditional song structure for all but two songs." Also (extreme hyperbolic example incoming), if the band came out and said "the next album is going to be 45 minutes of fart noises", I can't say that they didn't deliver on that when they do just that, but that doesn't mean I need to be okay with the album being 45 minutes of fart noises.
If you mean me: I just compared this song to the others on LT and came to the result, that it's the one that I like the most. In this respect, it is better than anything on LT at least for me. It was no offense against anything. It was just my personal opinion.
This isn't specifically aimed at anyone in particular, its simply a sociological perspective. From a certain point of view, that seems like the approach many in the LPA have taken, but I am not making claims that this applies to everyone. I can easily vouch for myself and admit that for a small point in time, I followed along with what other were saying and called out songs from Meteora and LT, but in actuality, I enjoy all of Linkin Park's albums a lot even the ones considered the worst so whatever personal opinion you all actually hold shouldn't have to be applied to my theory if its against it or actually true.