I agree, it actually ruins the song a bit for me.. I actually feel kind of embarassed for Mike too as he says it with such reservation in my eyes.
The "motherfucker" in WTCFM is so hype. Love it. I feel it's going to become/has already become Linkin Park's equivalent of NIN's "fistfuck" in Wish. A moment of unification between the band and everyone in attendance at a live concert. See: [youtube]sWaXrDxUUa8[/youtube] Make sure to watch it in HD. The fistfuck in question is at 1:06, but I'd watch the whole thing just because NIN's live show man... but notice how the crowd becomes so unified during that one line. Hell, the fact that you can hear them on an HD recording of the song is saying something in and of itself. That's how I see WTCFM in the future.
I love the "motherfucker" too. From what I knew, it was Don Gilmore's advice to not swear. I believe it was for marketing purposes. It makes it kid-friendly. That's why there's swearing in pre-Gilmore material, and swearing in non-Gilmore material.
The cursing has never bothered me, but I feel like it was overkill on Given Up...the first song on the first album WITH cursing, and they kinda threw it in your face.
My opinion is that swearing suggests and emphasises negativity, it worked at times on two albums which dealt with nuclear war, but it will become tiresome if there is too much on the new record, which will hopefully be about something happier lol.
^ Same. If I can go a few sentences with dropping a friendly F-bomb it's almost unnatural. I don't care about profanity in songs. I don't even notice it.
I'm fine with them, as long as we don't end up with something like this: [video=youtube;8ICeSlIcZTk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ICeSlIcZTk[/video]
I would love more Linkin Park if they would do something like this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8STvXRggyaw
I never believed this. Chester yelled fuck 1000 times at every show in the HT/Meteora days. I'm pretty sure Warner just wanted to market the band as a pre-teen safe heavy band to appeal to young kids. The band obviously has no problem swearing, they never have.
Yeah, looking at previous tracks that they did before they were even signed to Warner shows that they never had a problem with swearing in their music.
"The children of the American slaves coined this phrase to describe what they saw day in and day out. When the slave "owner" (or his sons, brothers, or uncles etc.) would approach the slave quarters to rape their mother the children would say some variation of "Oh shit, here comes the motherfucker"
I love it. I felt the profanities on "Midnight" and "A Thousand Suns" were much better-handled than they were on Shinoda's Fort Minor tracks where, to me, all the swearing was really forced. In contrast, partly because there have only been a few rap verses on each Linkin Park album following the Fort Minor album, the swearing on "Midnight" and "A Thousand Suns" doesn't feel so forced to me. Like, yes, the band now swear in their lyrics but, for the most part, they know that there's a time and place for it where it will come across as natural and fitting. That's when it can most benefit the music and the messages they're trying to put across. It's just another item in the toolbox they've become comfortable with using but it's not something they have to rely on strongly at all. I've referred mainly to Shinoda's use of profanities in his rap verses, which represents the vast majority of instances of swearing in lyrics throughout LP's career. Chester throws them down on songs like "Blackout" and "Given Up" and I don't have a problem with that either.
The guys know not the let Chester and Joe go an interview together on live TV in a different country. Unlike here in US, they can curse like sailors on TV there. *snickers*