This is definitely one of the stronger songs on the album. I think Mike really sells it here, and the development in his vocal delivery here from MTM with In Between/No Roads Left is astounding. Maybe it's the personal connection, maybe it's practice, maybe it's both. But he sounds great. There's a vulnerability and rawness in his performance here that feels so refined and poignant. I love the lyrical work and the overall theme resonates well, regardless of whether you take it literally as Mike meant it or as a general theme of conflict and tension in a relationship. I think this song is one where the mix and production is pretty well-balanced overall. The synths are prominent but they don't drown out some of the more textural elements, like the guitars and live drums. Rob and Brad's parts contribute while not overpowering. I do wonder though what it could have been like if Mike decided to add more piano than a couple of accents and the little melody at the end. I feel like it would fit. Overall, I just really love that this was a really personal and intentional effort by Mike and that resonates well with me. I've tended to gravitate more toward music that tells more personal stories lately, which is why I've found a recent affinity for folk music. There's something about the personal and grounded songwriting that appeals to me—it avoids grandiosity. That same kind of energy is here, just over a pop production. It's like a stark contrast to the melodrama of Crawling or One Step Closer (which I still like for different reasons!). You can tell this song meant a lot to him to make. I think this is one of the songs that best exemplifies what the album was trying to do and how they were trying to push their boundaries. It isn't necessarily my favorite, and it doesn't leave me really craving it more and more, but I'm always pleasantly satisfied listening to it. Couldn't have said it better myself.
(Responding to an earlier post about "Battle Symphony.") I think there is some benefit to brevity, but I can expand on it if you'd like. The vocal inflections don't jive with me. For example, there are poppy Linkin Park songs like "Shadow of the Day" and "Leave Out All the Rest" (or Dead by Sunrise songs like "Let Down") that use a more straightforward vocal delivery. I can't really explain why, but the way Chester sings here rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's even the melody itself. E.g. I find the melody of "Final Masquerade" similarly intolerable. The words "battle symphony" sound puffed up and corny to me. So does the lyric about fusing armour back together. The sample is creative, I suppose, but I don't actually enjoy hearing it. The rest of the instrumental is unremarkable. The song obviously does work for some people, but I am not one of them.
One of the things I really love about One More Light is that it's an album where it really feels like Mike came into his own as a solo singing voice. Invisible is so good, and one of my favorites from the band if I'm being honest! I hope we get a good Mike track on From Zero Chester's vocal delivery is one of my favorite parts, but it does just come down to a matter of taste. As someone who really doesn't really listen to lyrics all that much, I'm more forgiving of questionable lines.
To be fair The Emptiness Machine already has a lot of Mike's vocals and he sounds pretty good on there. But I agree it would be cool to have a song where it's just Mike (or maybe with Emily just doing a minor part in the bridge or something like Chester on High Voltage)
A few days behind, so apologies for moving back to Battle Symphony briefly! Battle Symphony has a special place in my heart. It just makes me happy. It's one of my Dad's favourite LP songs (or at least, he often references us listening to it together for the first time in 2017), so it's personally important for that reason. It's also one of the only songs where I distinctly remember what I was doing and where I was the day it released, and so the song is weirdly nostalgic for me for that reason. On Invisible - I've always loved Mike's singing, and as others have mentioned, this is a track where he really came into his own in that regard. The TV performance they did for Invisible was the first time I remember thinking that Mike felt like a convincing lead singer. I like the toy piano at the end. The lyrics are wholesome. Really curious about this, what did he say in 2018/19? Was it specifically about Battle Symphony, or about the album in general? Was that not around the time he did Battle Symphony live in London?
He said in 2018 that OML, Battle Symphony, and NCSM were too emotionally heavy for him to perform. He only performed Battle Symphony and OML once solo with Jon Green, and NCSM a handful of times. No idea how he feels now.
I’m gonna be honest,,, I find this song to be boring. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very sweet song and all, but I unfortunately find myself skipping this song a vast majority of the time. The chorus is decent (tho I’m not a fan of the repeated “invisible” line at the end), but I find the verses to realllyyy be a drag. 40/100
Heavy "Heavy" is the sixth track off One More Light, released as the album's lead single on February 16, 2017. "Heavy" was written by Mike, Chester, and Brad, with additional co-writing by Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter. Production was handled by Mike and Brad, with the help of Emily Wright and Andrew Bolooki. The song's release as a lead single marked a distinct departure from Linkin Park's previous efforts in several ways, most notably in featuring pop singer Kiiara—the first time a female vocalist had been featured on a studio album by the band. "Heavy" stands out in the track list of One More Light as being one of two songs on the album that Chester helped write, the other being "Halfway Right." Joe Hahn was the one to pitch the idea of featuring female vocals, suggesting it could bring a new dimension of harmony they hadn't tried previously. Chester initially looked to co-writer Julia Michaels to record for the studio track after hearing her rough vocal takes, but she declined, saying she would rather work on the songwriting. Knowing they wanted to continue the female vocal idea, the band looked to pop singer Kiiara, who had just recently made waves with her breakthrough single "Gold." Linkin Park had previously connected with Kiiara through Zane Lowe after Lowe interviewed her on Beats 1. Kiiara's involvement with the band was hinted at several times before the official release of "Heavy" as a single. Kiiara tweeted in December 2016 about working with the band and a casting call for a Linkin Park music video featuring Kiiara surfaced at the end of January 2017. Shortly after, several teasers for both the song and the album title came out, leading to the official announcement of "Heavy," and the debut of its lyrics three days before the single release. Musically, "Heavy" starts with a minimalist arrangement, featuring soft synth lines and Chester's vocals. The first chorus initially features only one tremolo synthesizer part, alongside Chester's vocals, an approach that draws much attention to the quality of his singing on this song. With the following verse, more light layers are added, and the second chorus introduces additional bright synths and rhythmic elements as Kiiara and Chester sing a duet chorus and bridge. After a brief return to the stripped down approach, with a quiet twinkling synth line accompanying Chester's very raw and emotional vocal performance of the chorus, the song sonically lands on a final chorus of full layering, providing a rhythmic and dynamic resolution. "Heavy" is dominated by samples and synthesizers, but still features some live guitar, drum, and bass work. Most of the guitar parts on this song prior to the final chorus feature clean guitar tones, with plentiful reverb and some finger picking in spots as well. In the final chorus, electric guitars take over, mixed lower than the synth parts as with most One More Light songs, and help to create the dense layered backing for the final chorus. A drum kit and bass also enter the mix in the second chorus to give the song a wider and more expansive sound, dropping out only for the end of the bridge. Vocals on this song feature Chester, Mike, and Kiiara all contributing to the vocal melodies. While Kiiara and Chester trade off verses and provide the bulk of the leading parts, in all the choruses following Kiiara's verse all three harmonize together. This performance creates a dynamic vocal spread not seen in Linkin Park's music before, with Mike's baritone voice, Chester's tenor tone, and Kiiara's lower soprano melodies all contributing to the vocal harmony. Inspiration for "Heavy" came primarily from Chester during the writing sessions for the album. During a writing session with Tranter and Michaels, the band felt inspiration to write a song about dealing with a myriad of problems and the weight of it based on an interaction they had with Chester. Mike explained the full story in a Billboard interview: Chester also recalled the way the song came together in Genius commentary: Lyrically, the song focuses on the egotistical and self-perpetuating nature of stress and self-loathing. In the chorus, Chester and Kiiara sing "I keep dragging around what's bringing me down / If I just let go I'd be set free," highlighting the paradox that while emotional strain is burdensome, it's also hard to let go of. Chester mentioned in an interview with Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM that “Heavy” at its core is actually about enlightenment and hope—realizing that emotional strain is largely self-inflicted. "Heavy" was performed live for the first time during a Facebook live stream in stripped-down format at NRG Studios. This arrangement featured Mike on piano, Brad on electric guitar, and Chester and Kiiara singing. This stripped down version was performed several times during the promotion of One More Light, including the private Warner Bros. showcase and the promotional performances Chester and Mike did leading up to the album release. The first full band performance of "Heavy" was on The Late Late Show with James Corden. This performance also featured "Invisible," but as the album was still months out, only "Heavy" was aired at the time. It was played during the encore sets of every festival and One More Light World Tour date, following the encore opener "Numb." There were several different intros and outros used for the song over the course of the touring cycles, including a finger picked guitar intro by Brad and—at one point—an extended outro featuring the second verse of "When They Come for Me" over guitar. For all festival and tour performances, Chester performed Kiiara's second verse. For the Linkin Park and Friends: Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington tribute show, the band performed the song with co-writer Julia Michaels and Kiiara. Michaels performed Chester's vocal parts on the song. "Heavy" was also performed by Mike during his solo tours. He debuted a shortened piano version of the song early in his tour cycle in 2018 in Köln, Germany. He rotated the song in regularly during his solo tour dates, sometimes set among the piano ballad section of his setlist in the shortened version, and other times playing the entire song. It often rotated with "Iridescent" and "Numb." Kiiara also played "Heavy" during her own solo live performances, playing it near the end of her set. She debuted the cover starting with her show in Taguig, Philippines on March 3, 2017.
Heavy was a song that felt jarring as a lead single when it first dropped, but in retrospect it's a pretty bold choice that I respect. Recently I saw a video of their first meetings for what the record would become, and one of the things they talked about was how they wanted to write songs that would appeal to anyone, and surprise people when they were told they were Linkin Park. You could argue the song is simple and maybe undercooked, but I feel like the song captures the mission statement pretty well. One of the things I always come back to with this song is how it's a great showcase for why Chester was so great; he was so malleable as a vocalist. The band never would have been able to dabble with as many sounds as they did had he not been up to the task. He pulls it off so convincingly here.
I listen to a bit of Kiiara, and I've always liked Julia Michaels as a force in pop songwriting, and I remember being excited that both names were involved in "Heavy". I really like all the lyrics (which is so rare for me when it comes to LP songs) and the structure/arrangement choices - having Kiiara enter in the last line of the first chorus, and having her lead the second chorus too, both genius choices. I think Kiiara was a good choice as a guest, but I also do wish Julia could've done it instead. I hope that, one day, there's a demo version so we get that. I was a little disappointed with the production style when I first heard it because I was really, really hoping for more of this vibe. Eventually, I realised that we wouldn't have gotten Chester nailing that lead vocal that way, especially the frustration he lets out in the bridge. I really liked the live performances of "Heavy", probably more so than any other OML song we got to hear live versions of. I actually think the song is stronger live compared to the studio version, regardless of whether there's another lead vocalist there to do the guest part, because the live band format just gives the song a bit more aggression The video's great but I think that the Mercedes product placement really takes you out of it as a viewer EDIT: Yes - it's amazing that Linkin Park wanted to be so versatile and found the perfect lead vocalist who wasn't just capable of that versatility but also committed to the different directions the band would go in. Chester could do your "Crawling" and "Given Up" but also nail a song like "Heavy", both equally natural to him.
I liked this song when it came out, and it has some sentimental quality to it 7 years later for me. For one, I really love Kiiara’s contribution. Her verse and vocals mixed with Chester’s are quite appealing to me. I like the R&B quality to Chester’s verse with the “And I drive myself crazy” scheme. It’s certainly not a song I have much interest to go back to (like a lot of OML since 2017 is a hard year to be nostalgic for when it comes to LP), but there’s a place in my heart for this song and brings me back to February 2017 and my first album cycle as a member of this forum.
I've been listening to the whole album quite a lot due to this thread, and I gotta say when I made my post about Good Goodbye I did not realize how much I dislike Heavy. I'm actually starting to think Good Goodbye is a solid 7/10, but this song for me is 6/10 and the only song that I frequently skip. I really dislike the way Chester sings this song, it just doesn't suit him at all IMO and all of his vocal lines sound really cringeworthy to me. The lyrics don't help in that regard. "I drive myself crazy thinking everything's about me" is such a vapid and insufferable lyric that is incredibly jarring to hear Chester sing. Funnily enough I actually really like the way Kiiara sounds on this song. I think she fits it a million times better than Chester does, and would probably enjoy the song a whole lot more if she sung the entire thing (although obviously it wouldn't be classed as Linkin Park song then and wouldn't be on the album, which would be fine by me). I recently decided to check out Kiiara's other material since I was impressed by how well she fit this song but I didn't enjoy any of it unfortunately. There are things I like about this song. The guitar riff in the second and third choruses is pretty cool, and when everybody is singing at the same time it has a nice anthem feel, but I can't get past the intro of this song, it turns me off immediately. Good for Chester for expanding his boundaries but on this song it's a total miss IMO. While One More Light doesn't feel particularly Linkin Park in general, this song specifically doesn't even feel like a One More Light song much less a Linkin Park song. I'm happy that the title track overtook this for most popular on the album.
Yeah, unfortunately, this is a style Kiiara never really explores in her own material. It's really more in the writing so I'd recommend Julia Michaels' songs instead
“Heavy” is a track that has grown on me a lot over the years. When it came out, I really wasn’t happy with how far the band went with the pop aesthetics, it just wasn’t my thing. Nowadays, I see it as a solid tune. I think it started to click when I heard the instrumental version, and noticed a lot of subtle elements and beautiful layers I didn’t catch on the first listens. The chorus is super catchy and has become iconic. Chester lyrics and performance are especially vulnerable on this one. The Kiiara featuring fits perfectly with the stylistic approach of the song too.
I just realized that i was maybe a bit too harsh about the whole album the last years (still my least favorite though), because after give it a new shot, it really works. Heavy was definitely one of the better performances of Chester on the album and his voice and Kiiaras are fitting so good together. The Chorus is easily catchy and the verses are also nice.
Chester drives himself crazy thinking everything's about him, but "Heavy" really is. Just another dimension of his versatility. He sounds withered and weary and well, just holding on. To it's detriment, I think a lot of the hatred for One More Light stems from Heavy. I think, as mentioned earlier, if the band had taken the more stripped-down direction seen in the piano teaser, and really channeled that Adele/Rolling in the Deep energy from 2011, we'd have a classic on our hands. I'd say they saved that for the title track, but it really follows a more traditional Linkin Park ballad vocal style.