"Session" - Song by Song, Let's Talk Linkin Park

Discussion in 'Linkin Park Chat' started by hawk, Jul 2, 2014.

  1. polleo

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

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    In a nut-shell: Mashup between LP and Jay-z that happened in 2004. Haven't you ever heard of numb/encore?
     
  2. Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    ...

    ...

    :rofl:

    -

    Easily my least favorite Linkin Park song. Like, it's hard to imagine how they could even do something this simple and for it to have so much succes. The Meteora booklet says this was the last song made for Meteora, and that it came together effortlessly. Well no shit, there's absolutely nothing special about this. So yeah, if I'm ever at a Linkin Park show this will be the one where I check my WhatsApp messages. Ridiculous.
     
  3. lime treacle

    lime treacle You are not alone Über Member

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    Haters gonna hate, but this song is fantastic.

    :huh:
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2014
  4. The Joesen One

    The Joesen One Fun-employed LPA Super Member

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    [​IMG]
     
  5. Michele

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

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    Numb , hands down , the song who get me into Linkin Park.

    The lyrics are angsty , but i think this isnt a problem . I really love them , also because this song get me through some shit :lol:
    The last few years it was my #1 favorite song , until Breaking The Habit finally reach the #1.

    So after all this years, i love this song again. One of my alltime favorites.

    Ad to the Yesternumncore :lol:

    Jays "Yeahs" destroy the performance a bit for me :lol:
     
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  6. Bawa

    Bawa Could wait to see tomorrow.

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    Numb is one of the least eventful songs they have ever produced. The only thing that stands out is the catchy hook, really. The whole song is very par for the course here, and there is really nothing special about it. Generic simplistic guitar and bass work, relatable but uneventful lyrics, Chester and Mike sound nice but it's nothing special... Numb is just really boring.

    (WARNING! Opinions ahead!)
    I'm going to address Collision Course quickly, then never speak of it again, because I have the same opinion for every one of the tracks.
    I think that Collision Course is one of the most pointless, cash-in, downright stupid things that they have done in their career. Now, I'm not even a fan of Reanimation, a much more creative endeavour, but this just outright garbage. I've never gotten the idea of taking two entirely unrelated songs (Especially when one is by someone as god awful as Jay-Z) and putting them in a blender, there's little to no creativity to it, they just overlay some Jay-Z vocals of the LP track, and vice-versa. It's a snoozefest, and the attitude and flow in Jay-Z's verses and instrumentals to not translate well, at all to being involved in an LP song.
    This is the sort of shit you saw on Youtube in 2006. I don't have any clue why this CD was so popular, besides that people just like gimmicks.
     
  7. Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    We're not on Collision Course yet.
     
  8. Atticus

    Atticus Bullets lance the bravest lungs

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    Numb will always hold a special place in my heart as THE song to get me interested in music in general - largely due to the catchy synths and Chester's raspy voice. Nowadays however, I hold it in regards as an incredibly dull and boring song, but I will never forget the impact this song had on me.
     
  9. Bawa

    Bawa Could wait to see tomorrow.

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    Numb/Encore was mentioned in the post and I saw other people comment on it, so I decided I'd just slam my Collision Course opinions in here now and get it out of the way.
     
  10. lime treacle

    lime treacle You are not alone Über Member

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    So we'll do Collision Course as one track?
     
  11. TheZlajaZlo

    TheZlajaZlo Closing LPA Super Member

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    First of all, I love Numb. It's in my top 5 LP songs.
    It is simple and undeniably catchy. Also, that keyboard intro. Recognizable as f**k! And if you ignore the lyrics, they sound passionate and honest.
    I think that younger fans treat it differently and are more critical with it, than the fans that were around when Meteora came out. I imagine that someone who became LP fan around MTM or ATS, and they listen to the whole discography at once, it's easy to compare Numb to more lyrically and musically mature songs that were made years later. But when you grew up with that song, you cannot judge it like that.
     
  12. minuteforce

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

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    We'll revisit "Collision Course" in more detail afterwards, perhaps, but, for now, I can't just avoid an entire sub-set of official "Numb" remixes.

    The fact that you believe that there was nothing more to it than this is perhaps your main problem. :) Like so many Linkin Park fans, you probably believe that all remixes are nothing more than cash-in efforts
     
  13. Bawa

    Bawa Could wait to see tomorrow.

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    I don't really think that all remixes are cash-in efforts, and I enjoy some of the things they did on Reanimation (Although I could go without the whole thing), especially the new verses and choruses, but something about them just doesn't click with me. And then you get to the point where Collision Course was a Mashup with Jay-Z, who, I personally can not stand, and I feel just entirely uninterested in it. If it was a artist I enjoyed, I might enjoy it a bit more, but remixes and mashups have just never been my thing.
     
  14. minuteforce

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

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    To some extent, you are right. It's obvious in hindsight that Jay-Z chose to work with Linkin Park mainly because they were doing well at the time and he knew that the cross-promotion would be lucrative. You also have to understand that, despite your opinions, Jay-Z is one of the most revered and one of the most successful hip-hop artists of our time. He has been consistently mentioned as one of Shinoda's all-time favourite rappers. This whole thing could have been spectacularly awful if not for the fact that Shinoda had been making mash-ups basically all of this life, giving him a big advantage in making these mash-ups good. So one of the things that makes "Collision Course" special is the fact that Shinoda got to apply his expertise on a more professional level, on a much larger stage, while also getting to work with someone who he respects and admires.

    The idea of two artists coming together to combine their respective songs was something that had never been done before, let alone done well. MTV expected one or two songs for a live show and Shinoda & co. instead delivered six studio tracks which were release-worthy and played all of them live. This is one of many examples of Linkin Park going above and beyond what has been expected of them in terms of effort, another reason why I think that "Collision Course" is important. The tracks were so good that, as far as I can see, the show that it was supposed to launch just didn't happen; somebody realised that no-one would be able to meet that standard and follow it up. Shinoda stated later that this was exactly what he was going for.

    Next, mash-ups take more effort than you think. These ones involved a lot of re-working of the songs beyond "slap vox A over instrumental B", just like any other type of remix should. :sleep: Many things had to be re-recorded and basically everything needed to be updated somehow; this isn't the easiest thing to understand unless you make music in some capacity yourself. Otherwise, the documentary would have just shown Shinoda sitting at a computer for no more than ten minutes and nothing else. The result is that "Collision Course" sounds different from the albums from which the sourced songs came from, and has a kind of unique vibe. This is something which I doubt any other artists would have strived to achieve if they tried their hand at this same type of project.

    Shinoda and Jay-Z are shown joking about this entire idea in the documentary. For all the effort that they put in, a lot of people would just think that they hit "play" on two songs at the same time and recorded the resulting mess.

    Now, in spite of the nature of this particular mash-up project, "Points Of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer" sees two Linkin Park songs and a Jay-Z track gel together on a musical level and a lyrical or conceptual level. So, if nothing else, they at least managed that. :)

    I could not put into words just how much the idea of reinterpreting art for artistic reasons clicks with me personally, whatever the genres involved. :) Whether or not "Collision Course" was art for artistic reasons is, again, debateable to some degree, but, in being as successful as it was, I feel that it was a step forward for remix culture as a whole anyway. I think that mash-ups today owe a fair bit to that EP.

    On remix culture in general: the fact is that, no, reworking existing music doesn't take the same type or the same amount of effort as coming up with something original. But, either way, regardless of effort, not every idea will work, so there are times when simply being original isn't enough to save a song. There have been so many instances for me where I've greatly preferred a remix to its original, and even instances where I disliked a song but found a remixed version to be enjoyable.

    So, in my opinion, there's truly inherent value in both original ideas and reworkings or improvements upon those ideas ... which are ideas in and of themselves because everything is inspired by something else anyway. This is something that I've learned specifically because, in my own work and the work of those around me (shoutout to Decay), I have seen that divide blur.
     
  15. polleo

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

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    ^Agreed with Minuteforce. The fact that they mashed up songs seamlessly must be more effort than it seemed. Honestly, it seems like everything this band does apparently is more effort than it seems. A stupid example: You see the music video for Burn it down, you think it is a still shot of the band but then you watch the making of and see that the band actually stood still for it to work. So, I really don't like the ignorantly bashing their efforts (not talking about you) that critics do. Which is why I try not to read reviews for their albums because they really piss me off. But, that's off-topic.
     
  16. Tyler

    Tyler Well-Known Member

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    Not really anything to say about Numb that hasn't been said on here yet. The song has some good legacy value to it and it will almost certainly never be dropped from a setlist permanently, even if every hardcore fan grows to hate it. It might be the most popular song (or at least one of them) to most casual fans.

    It's mashup isn't my favorite off of Collision Course but the Yesternumbencore was a historic moment for the group.

    And I'll save my comments on CC for when we get to it.

    And are we doing QWERTY before MTM? I know it was released later on an LPU album, but if we go by the original debut of it, then it would be before MTM. Same goes with We Made It between MTM and ATS.
     
  17. minuteforce

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

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    Actually, "QWERTY" was released in 2006 on that year's LPU CD.

    We'll move onto "Collision Course" within the next few hours, I guess
     
  18. minuteforce

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

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    "Dirt Off Your Shoulder/Lying From You"!


    This is the opening track on the "Collision Course" EP and it combines elements from Jay-Z's Timbaland-produced hit "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and Linkin Park's "Meteora" track "Lying From You". Both are songs from 2003 albums which were released as singles in early 2004. The track introduces "Collision Course" pretty well; right off the bat, you can hear snippets of the band joking around in the studio and, in the re-recorded verses, you can hear Shinoda and Chester keeping it casual and enjoying themselves. The documentary that accompanied the EP's release obviously gives us an even clearer picture of the vibe in the studio while the band and Jay-Z were working on the mash-ups.[/CENTER]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 13, 2016
  19. Bawa

    Bawa Could wait to see tomorrow.

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    Well, I admit they mixed the right songs here, they both work decently together, well, I find the rapping over the LFY is pretty excellent, but any parts with Chester and the intro with the honky-tonky annoying DOYS hook are just plain annoying. Jayz's lyrics, as always, are cringe-worthingly terrible, filled with that "Nigga pimp hustle" attitude. But hey, it's one of the more enjoyable pieces off Collision Course.
     
  20. minuteforce

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

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    I personally think that the arrangement is pretty uninteresting in some ways. They do a good job until Shinoda comes back in for the second "Lying From You" verse; from there, it's just "Lying From You" all the way until the close. The drums are a bit fresher-sounding and, if you listen really closely, you can hear Jay ad-libbing during the choruses ... but, other than those minor changes, they just copied-and-pasted a whole half of the song in to fill out the length. This happens on several of the other "Collision Course" tracks as well and I really find it lazy.
     
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