They'll probably go for a more safer sound for sure. I'm hoping however it's as ambitious as HT and ATS because I think it'll keep people on board or they're going to have to pick up younger fans. That or they'll just accept they've had their peak and keep what they've got and do other things with albums come out every so often whilst they do side projects or something
Just crazy to see people questioning Mike and the band's sincerity whenever they speak now. It's uncalled for speculation and assumptions. You don't have to like the music but to call them liars or dishonest is another thing. We aren't in the band and we don't know what goes on whenever they make music and we don't know the people associated with the band. Would be better to just put the suspicion, assumptions and speculation aside. It's just bad character and wrong.
Especially when this album has a song about their friend dying. I mean really. It's one thing to hate the sound, or the decisions the band made but to call them liars or dishonest, when they're singing about their kids and personal tragedy is just in exceedingly poor taste. So they went pop. They always had pop in their sound, it doesn't mean they're dishonest because they decided to embrace it for once
Since I'm lazy right now. Google says: "denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population." That help? Haha
I think that's part of the problem with people. They think the band are something or want them to be something that they've never really been.
But it's not all or nothing. Sure, they might not be one of the most experimental bands of all time, but for a major rock band selling tens of millions of records, they are still pretty experimental a lot of the time (most of ATS, second half of LT, Mark the Graves, ALITS). I'm not saying they should abandon the pop elements of their music entirely, but this record is very underwhelming after all the exciting stuff we've got over the years.
I agree. I still enjoy One More Light. It's the middle of the road in their discography for me. But I was talking about it seems some people can't come to grips that this band is mainstream and that they've always been. It's like they want them to themselves, some sort of secret underground band because that's how they started.
When you have to bring in people to write songs for you especially pop song writers, after writing most of your songs the last past 17 + years than something is wrong. Idk if they are losing creativity or what but its bad. I mean the fact that there isnt 1-3 actual heavy songs on the album is gonna an uproar. I mean look at MTM You had an album of SOTD, LOATR, TLTGYA, IN PIECES but yet you had songs like Given up, what ive done, bleed it out, no more sorrow to compensate the slow soft ballad songs, which was a good idea. I know fans were still disappointed that they changed from HT and Meteora but MTM didnt get the hate that OML is getting because of those heavy songs on MTM. What im trying to say is I think LP should have added 1-3 actual heavy songs along with these generic pop songs especially just coming off THP 3 years ago. If they did this i dont think OML would be getting all the hate its getting. The band is getting so much hate and backlash i actually feel bad. I listen to OML and i turn on the radio and its the same. There is nothing Evolving, creative, Experimental about this record at all. Its just Generic radio pop. I hope they can recover from this. They are my favorite band and i hate to see people bash them.
They're just mixing it up this time, man. They've earned that right. I fell in love with them when I was 16, I am now 29. I respect their desire to create different kinds of music. You should try to too - they do some interesting things on these tracks if you give it some patience!
Look, ban me if you want for responding to this, but don't just say he wasn't constructive. It was. I've admitted in areas where I have did not think of and have been completely civil in this conversation. You can say the narrative that we're nothing more but drama trolls or whatever the fuck you want to call it, but I've been completely fair and willing to listen to the other side. I won't let you be an asshole to me, Louie. Hybridora articulated my side well. I change my opinion, you've been the only mod that's really been intolerant extensively.
He has not been intolerant because you came in originally with a completely bullshit post stating that it was "not my A to give" (seriously, what the fuck is your deal?) as if you have any right to tell me how I should score an album, or what to do on my website. Have you even apologized for that? Because if you have, thank you...but if you haven't, I'm waiting for it. Because you owe me one. You derailed this thread! To borrow a phrase from Louis, you did a 'thesis style' personal attack against me for an opinion, and you may not view it as such but you had a lot of nerve and balls to come say this shit on another website I own. Do I follow your ass around to different places you frequent or own and tell you that you don't have the right to express your own opinions? Seriously. Get out of here. I was patient and let you say your opinions, and the only reason you weren't banned was because you actually tried to be constructive after your incredibly ill-advised lead post in this thread. But the bottom line is this: My site. My opinion. My right to review the album however I wanted. You were in the wrong to say it wasn't my right to give it an A, and you got called out for it extensively in this thread. Deal with it. You were in the wrong, it was still rude as fuck, and I'm done being nice about it. Call me an asshole, or lose respect for me, but I don't give a shit if you approve of what I do on AltWire or LPA. Had you not been a jerk and made the BS statements you did, you wouldn't have had the issues you did in this thread. You brought it on yourself.
I could've done it differently but I do apologize for how it was handled initially. Everything else, however, had merit, and I will defend that. Thank you for acknowledging I was trying to be constructive.
Thank you. And you were trying to at least expand on your opinion and try to discuss it. The other guy? Not really.
In the future I will try not to come across as completely dismissive and do the proper protocol of where to post.
Many of you are claiming this is the point Mike comes out and says they pretty much made a mainstream album solely for the sake of sales... Why the fuck would he/the YouTube team that works for the band post that for everyone to view if the band knows they would get massive backlash for it? I certainly see his statements meaning something else, not "I'm admitting we sold out."
I was a bit worried for the band a few years back in 2015 when they were doing that whole ''Linkin Park as a brand'' thing and wanting to put their name on any product for anything, etc. I thought that they were going to stop focusing on the music first and focus more on the brand name of the band instead. And they continued a lot of that all throughout 2016. After hearing this album, I no longer was worried about that. Most of the songs on this album have a very personal meaning to the band. The band has flat out said the meaning for a few of them. Talking To Myself was about how Talinda felt when Chester was going through everything in 2005/2006, It's from her perspective. That's interesting and personal as hell. Invisible and Sorry For Now both are about different things with Mike's children. That's personal as hell. One More Light is about a close friend of the band dying, that's personal. Halfway Right is most likely about Chester's addiction to drugs, that's pretty personal. Sharp Edges could literally be about Chester making bad decisions in his life and finally realizing his mistakes and learning from them. And not just the meaning of the songs is the only thing, this album feels like something the band wanted to make. They seemed very passionate about it. People are right, the band HAS made pop songs in the past. Never an entire album full of them, though, and nothing as pop driven as something like Heavy, so I understand why some fans are upset. But at the same time, it's obvious the band wanted to do this. They wanted to have Heavy as the first thing we heard from the album. They planned it all out. So they wanted to shock fans, critics, etc. This is Linkin Park people. They always have done that, at least since Minutes To Midnight. This album has grown on me a lot. It's actually a good album if you listen to the entire album in full on good speakers and immerse yourself in the album. Having the album art, etc. in front of me also helped.
To be fair it doesn't help that the clip they purposefully chose to edit and put out is so unclear. I've watched the video a few times and I'm still not 100% sure about what Mike's trying to say.