Living Things: General Discussion

Discussion in 'Linkin Park Chat' started by Tocaraca, Aug 17, 2014.

  1. #1
    Tocaraca

    Tocaraca A part of me screams away silently

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    Somebody made an ATS General Discussion, so I made this.
    I find the album to be the best of Linkin Park's albums myself. They used lots of Synthesizer, which I liked, except that Lost In The Echo didn't have much bass. It is the only album with a song that means nothing at all, Skin To Bone. Have you ever listened to the lyrics?
    Anyway, I don't think I've ever heard a rap song like Until It Breaks before, I love how the end bit gets softer for Powerless.
    Lost In The Echo is my favourite in the album.
    What do you think?
     
  2. #2
    The Free Element

    The Free Element Well-Known Member

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    It's an OK album but really a let down after ATS. It seems...soulles to me.
     
  3. #3
    minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    I think that that might be just you being unable to find an emotional connection to the lyrics
     
  4. #4
    Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    I've said it a million times. Amazing album. Songs 6-12 are on the ATS level of ridiculously awesome.
     
  5. #5
    minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    I don't think that it's bad album on the whole. It's got a consistent sound and aesthetic and songs that deliver some interesting twists. I like about half the songs; the rest are ones that I'd just say I don't mind.
     
  6. #6
    polleo

    polleo You're gonna carry that weight. LPA Super Member

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    I love everything except Lies, Greed and Misery. Lies, Greed and Misery feels like separate parts stuck together. I like the personal transition in lyrics in Living things from ATS. I And, somehow the electronic music feels very fresh to me. And songs like Castle of glass, Until it breaks, Roads Untraveled are just beautiful. I haven't really listened to Recharged though.
    The problem is people here keep comparing it to ATS when the themes of the albums or vastly different.
     
  7. #7
    minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    To me, there are definitely certain cool songs on "Living Things" that could not have existed on "A Thousand Suns" or anything that came before and show that Linkin Park were, for better or worse, trying new things. "Castle Of Glass", "Roads Untraveled", "Until It Breaks", and a few others
     
  8. #8
    Alexrednex

    Alexrednex Well-Known Member

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    I really liked it the first month or so.
    But now... Meeh.
    I like how different the songs are from each other. The Victimized transition into RU is genius.
    Overall I just think the album is a bit generic. It's not bad but not that great either.
    You could pretty much put all the songs in these different categories:

    Generic Alternative rap rock songs with synths: Lost in the echo, Burn it down, Lies Greed Misery
    Generic Alternative pop rock songs with soft verses and loud chorus: I'll Be Gone, In My Remains, (Burn It Down)
    Ballads with similar parts: Roads Untraveled, Castle Of Glass, Powerless
    Electronic "protool" songs: Skin To Bone, Until it breaks
    Pre-THP: Victimized
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2014
  9. #9
    Michele

    Michele Praise Brad Delson, our Lord and Savior. LPA Addict

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    I think Living Thingfs is an album i could listen to if i am in a good mood. Some songs that make fun listen to (LITE,BID, LGM, V) and some more emotional stuff (COG,RU,P) and some experimental stuff (STB,UIB). IBG is also a good song in my opinion and TInfoil did good for powerless. A good "mainstream" rock album imo.
     
  10. #10
    Blackee Dammet

    Blackee Dammet Feminism Is My God Now

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    Very under rated album. I thought for sure stuff like Lost in the Echo, I'll Be Gone, and In My Remains would be live staples for years. Instead they acted like they didn't want to play the album even from the get-go, and it's really hard to fault anybody for not liking it when even the guys who made it evidently gave no fucks about it either.

    On its surface it should be the perfect album, "mainstream" stuff that they're famous for being masters of and "experimental" shit for the rest, instead it seems to have pleased neither camp. The only real explanation I have is that by 2012 nobody really gave a shit about Linkin Park anymore despite the success of Burn It Down, and even that's debatable since it didn't sound like any LP song before it or anything else on the album. I thought for sure Powerless was going to be a Numb-level pop sensation.
     
  11. #11
    RyRy

    RyRy LPA VIP LPA VIP

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    I agree. I also thought Lost In The Echo would have been a much bigger hit than it was. It was energetic as fuck and the electronics were pretty tasteful, in the sense that it didn't feel like the song was made to fit with today's trends. The few non-fans that I know who have heard the song always praise the hell out of the song.

    Overall, even though I enjoy the album a lot, it feels very rushed. Skin To Bone could have been a pretty badass song, but it feels too "boxed in" and off. I mean, I'll Be Gone explored some really unique things for the band but it became a structured and uninteresting song in context of the album.
     
  12. #12
    minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    I agree; it would've been nice if "Skin To Bone" went somewhere. Dynamically, it's a fairly boring song

    I think that "Living Things" might best be seen as a transitional phase for the band where they were kind of collecting themselves after creating and touring "A Thousand Suns"
     
  13. #13
    Blackee Dammet

    Blackee Dammet Feminism Is My God Now

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    Man even people who say they can't stand Linkin Park love LitE. It's ridiculous.

    Agreed.
     
  14. #14
    Aden

    Aden Well-Known Member

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    I actually listened to the entire thing for the first time yesterday and...I didn't like it. Lost In the Echo is kinda cool, I'll Be Gone is generic but has an awesome chorus, and Tinfoil/Powerless and Roads Untraveled are two of my favorite Linkin Park ballads. But that's where the good stops. Burn It Down just never goes anywhere, and In My Remains sounds like a carbon copy of it. Lies Greed Misery and Skin to Bone are too electronic for my taste, and Victimized is a good idea executed poorly. But that's not even the worst of all this -- no that's Until it Breaks. Most "dud" Linkin Park songs aren't bad, they just are meh. But not Until It Breaks -- that's easily my least favorite Linkin Park song. Nothing about this song works, between the weird rapping from Mike, the trying-to-be angelic bridge, the would-be-good-if-it-wasnt-in-the-context-of-this-song chorus, and the fact that NONE OF THIS FITS TOGETHER AT ALL.

    I give the album a 4/10. Thank god THP happened.
     
  15. #15
    Louis

    Louis Message me if you need to talk. We love you all. LPA Team

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    In truth, LIVING THINGS was kind of a disappointment for me. Granted, I am one of the people on these forums who absolutely adores A Thousand Suns, and so I admittedly had very high expectations for this one. It's not to say that it's a bad album - I do think it has some decent songs, and I think as Tony said it delivered some cool twists. At the same time, however, Linkin Park went back to a place of comfort to make this one - and to me that's not when the band makes their best music. The band has delivered their best material in striving to do what they haven't done.

    It's tough, you know? I just think there isn't a whole lot of value in a lot of the songs. Granted, I think someone pointed out earlier (not directly) that sometimes liking a song means finding an emotional connection with it. In that case, it's weird to say but "LIES GREED MISERY" is actually my favorite song because I can personally relate to it. Everything else doesn't really stick with me.

    It's not that the album does not have moments, because it does. "CASTLE OF GLASS" is a very good song, and I think "UNTIL IT BREAKS" is one of Mike's best performances. It frustrates me actually that he chooses to throw that verse at the beginning of "Waiting for the End" (where it doesn't feel right) instead of just performing the song outright. I enjoy "POWERLESS," even though I can't help but be reminded of that stupid Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer movie.

    I think the problem with the album is that the tempo of most songs aren't fast enough to be high-energy on the stage. Everything is very standard, just below 120 BPM, and sometimes that's hard to rock out too. That's why The Hunting Party will likely have more success as a live album - lots of guitars, drums, and all around sound at a faster tempo tends to be a lot more enjoyable and energetic for a crowd.

    Either way, for LIVING THINGS and for The Hunting Party, nothing has really satisfied me the way A Thousand Suns​ did. I'm interested to see what direction the band takes next, and if they'll continue to produce records so quickly that they can't perfect them.
     
  16. #16
    lovablepanda

    lovablepanda Well-Known Member

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    Living Things I actually might consider to be my favorite album out of all the albums Linkin Park have done. Its strange for me to look at it like that because it has the least amount of songs in my all time best songs created by Linkin Park. Lost in the Echo is definitely the highlight of the album but overall not the perfect song. Its electronic sounding percussion I think hurt it but everything else makes up for it. The rest of the album is really good for me. I don't dislike it but overall I think the album is solid enough that Living Things average is higher than other albums. The reason I think its average is stronger than other albums because Living Things is an album that I can be in any mood for and it'll just fit. Their other albums I have to be looking for something at that moment for me to really get into it. However, I do agree that with the exception of Lost in the Echo, that overall the album's high points fall behind other albums.
    That's curious because I thought putting that verse in front of Waiting for the End was a stroke of genius by the band. With the UIB intro and the Wall of Noise outro, Waiting for the End quickly became my favorite song to see live. I think it has really nice flow to it but I guess to each his own.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2014
  17. #17
    Broman

    Broman Well-Known Member

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    Definitely not the case. Just like many other bands, less and less newer material tends to be played live, other than the singles which is obviously the case for THP.
    The fact that they told the fans that they might play POWERLESS and add I'LL BE GONE to the setlist leads me to believe that there was an attempt to do so, but perhaps didn't flow good or Chester/Mike struggled at some parts vocally, thus tossing the idea out.

    Anyway, like any other release, LIVING THINGS was a great album with solid tracks. It truly was a mashup of all their work, retaining elements from bits of their past as well as the newer touches (COG, STB). The only thing that felt odd about the album was the fact that, despite it having great songs, it was more of a grab bag genre album with not much structure or consistency, but in some ways that wasn't too bad of an idea either. I remember listening to LT for the first time and falling in love with it immediately because of its genre busting feel, surprises at every corner. Since then, it has settled in with its album peers, but still remains a great piece of (EXTREMELY UNDERRATED) work with some of my favorite tracks (LITE, IBG, LGM, COG).

    Similarly with THP, I hope we get to hear newer material in the future.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2014
  18. #18
    The Fortunate One

    The Fortunate One Well-Known Member

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    Still a good album, but not as good as ATS or THP. Still has some of my favourite tracks (Roads Untraveled, Lost in the Echo, Powerless) plus it led to that stellar COG remix by Mike. So hard to fault it too much.
     
  19. #19
    Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    The band promoted it as ''almost like a greatest hits album'', ''mix of everything we've ever done'' and I have to say I agree. That is exactly what it was. And it's hard to not love it for what it is.
     
  20. #20
    Blackee Dammet

    Blackee Dammet Feminism Is My God Now

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    When ATS came out, it resulted in most of the band on stage tapping keyboards. That obviously isn't going to flow but so well during a live show, but they really tried making it work. It looked like they didn't even put half as much effort into trying to get any LT songs on stage, and those were songs designed to "sound like older material".

    Why is everyone writing the LT songs in ALL CAPS. I know they were stylized like that after the release but c'mon.
     

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