That sort of thing has to be viewed as relative. If a band member says "this new guitar riff/drum pattern/song is really complex" you should always mentally add "*for Linkin Park" to the end of the sentence. What is complex for one musician is piss easy for another of a higher caliber, and LP's musicians have never shown themselves to be of a very high caliber technically. So if you, the listeners, frame of reference is Opeth, Joe Satriani or Tool, you're expectations for "complex guitar/drum/song structure" is going to be drastically different to someone who's frame of reference is Coldplay, Kanye West or LP.
Really kickass comment, and it makes a lot of sense. I believe that the guys don't to their 100% potential, and they can desenvolve their techniques. But if the TLTGYA turns on the complex level for brad solos, this is really bad.
Of course, but Linkin Park are yet to convince me that they can pull off dubstep, the results have been disastrous since they tried this whole "Hey kids, we're trendy!" thing with Aoki and the Recharged garbage.
Mike said that he views electro music as "innovative" so I think he wanted to try something new and so teamed up with Steve to pull it off. Besides ALTNC is really a combination of of what Steve does and what LP does. Yes it sounds very different from LP's other songs but they still made the song sound like its from their unique genre. I don't think anyone can really predict what this new album will sound like, I mean has anyone ever done that for the past two albums?
I'm just happy that the "wub-wub" sound wasn't crammed in every second of the song like most dubstep songs. I like the more... mellow (I guess) EDM, but when you fill the song with a lot of drops and "wub," then I'm out. But I think it's safe to say that Linkin Park got the EDM out of their system.
Just imagine if LP made a full dubstep/EDM album all the kids and teens would jump on the LP bangwagon the fan base would go through the roof lol.
I have the same taste when it comes to dubstep. I hate it when a good dubstep song is ruined by too many different, random and unstructured "wubs", I don't think LP will sink to that level though. Plus I don't think they will make a song that would very easily fit a certain genre, if they're going to do dubstep they will do it in their own unique way, one that isn't so obnoxious hopefully.
I really could go for "A Thousand Suns 2.0" but every album they do is different and can never be predicted. But I'd love especially another song like When They Come For Me. But I'd also take another great song like Robot Boy. The only thing that is unacceptable IMO is where they are using electronic. But it doesn't look like it "NOW" that they are using electronic because mike said they are mainly off the computer and even recording on tapes. Just guessing I'd predict it might sound like MTM where you have both rock and soft
With Living Things, LP got too obsessed with the idea of having 50% electronics, 50% acoustics.. That whole idea with the 50/50 bullshit was a lame idea, another over-ambitious concept which went down the toilet along with most artists' pursuit of being innovative. It has to be noted that Living Things' mix quality is FAR worse than that of Minutes To Midnight, and that is 90% down to the amount of shit that LP put in the songs, why does everything need 70 layers? When you have 3-5 things going at once for one aspect of the song (drums for instance) it muddies up the entire track and makes less room for other things if you want to keep the songs sounding dynamic, this is basic shit. I want the band to play with minimalism again on this new record, we've had two muddy albums and it's time to strip it back.
Mike and Rob noted this in an interview when they were with a guy from the Infinity stereo company. They said that in studio with almost perfect quality to them, they make these small, tiny tweaks so that the song is at its best. But sadly, most of it gets drowned out with different compression and stuff. Again, I'm not that music smart. The way I explained is not exactly the best way to explain it.
Can't speak for him, but I think he means "muddy" in terms of a mix of everything. While ATS is complex, you could argue that the dozens of tracks going into one song is excessive.
I can see that argument, however I have to disagree. To me, having numerous tracks doesn't necessarily mean that the song is muddy. It just comes down to how the tracks work together in the context of the song. A million complex guitar parts could complement each other well, or they could create a busy mess. In my opinion, the songs on A Thousand Suns fall more in line with the former case, not the latter.
That's fine, I wasn't defending or attacking anyone's argument, just trying to clarify a point I think "PikachuFuck" wanted to make.
Yeah I thought so for most part, Waiting For The End and When They Come For Me were the only songs which I didn't feel suffer from a little mud issues, but this is by no means putting down A Thousand Suns which I feel is possibly the band's magnum opus, there's a lot of ambience going on. I'm talking in terms of the sound of the albums, mud is good sometimes but i'd like LP to make more minimalist compositions again, that goes for the mixes too. I'm not saying the amount of tracks make a song muddy, it just makes post production harder to get right, with LP pushing for a summer release date and still being in the writing process.. I think minimalism would be a good way to go.