Disappointed by Living Things?

Discussion in 'Linkin Park Chat' started by Dj-Jay, Aug 27, 2012.

  1. #41
    Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    Agreed. But, I don't find it ''awkward'', the lyrics are awesome, and they fit perfectly with that beat... What do you mean by ''violent lyrics''?
     
  2. #42
    minuteforce

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

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    One of my favourite lines on "A Thousand Suns" is from the song: "... there ain't shit we don't run when the guns unload"
     
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2012
  3. #43
    Melis

    Melis when you're feeling empty, keep me in your memory LPA Super Member

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    I am definetely NOT disappointment of that album. IMO it is a very good album and it is a lot better than Meteora. I still listen to it and I like it. Songs like Lost In The Echo or Victimized are epic.
     
  4. #44
    Manu

    Manu Seeking tenderness with a dagger

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    It definitely feels like a step back from ATS, but I still like it a lot.
     
  5. #45
    mastae

    mastae Some Honky

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    A step back from ATS.

    A step forward commercially.

    Mostly a collection of all around decent songs that are never actualized.

    And then there's In My Remains and I'll Be Gone which is LP at their most bland musically imo.
     
  6. #46
    jare0674

    jare0674 There's a seat here along side me...

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    At first I loved the first half of the album because we finally got some uptempo songs again, but then the second half of the album grew on me and the first half got boring, now I appreciate the first half of the album again and I still think that the second half is great. I think it's a step ahead of the HT/M but a step behind ATS and pretty much tied with MTM.
     
  7. #47
    Qwerty19

    Qwerty19 Well-Known Member

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    On a side note, I'm not a fan of this way of expressing things, you know, "step back". I just find the term pretentious. But maybe, that's just me.
     
  8. #48
    Arjun

    Arjun Comin' at you from every side!!!!

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    this^^
     
  9. #49
    Rohit LP

    Rohit LP The Silent Red

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    well ..there is a lack in depth of emotions for most songs..and i honestly wanted a couple songs to be over 5mins...other than that..yeah..its a great album to listen to
     
  10. #50
    The Joesen One

    The Joesen One Fun-employed LPA Super Member

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    When I first heard it, I was like HELL YEAH DIS IS BEST ALBUM EVAAAARR.

    And then I listened to it a lot of times.

    Living Things is inferior to A Thousand Suns, although it's still a good album. There's just a lot of flaws.

    1. Some songs are quite awkward
    The previews of "Skin to Bone" were appealing to me. The electro beats pounding at our ears was cool. It was even the most awaited song for me from the album. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said with the lyrics when it came out. I dig the folk inspirations, but the verses are weird. ("Right to left, left to right" You don't say?) Previews of "Victimized" were exciting to hear, especially with its claimed aggression...but it wasn't very aggressive for me. The chorus was weird. The guitars didn't give me that one-two punch. "I'll Be Gone" was appealing at first, but then it feels meh. I like Chester's verses and Owen Pallett's strings, but it was less than spectacular.

    2. Broken Promises - an example for reptitive lyrics
    Lost in the Echo - "And these promises broken, deep below"
    In My Remains - "Now in my remains/are promises that never came"
    Powerless - "10,000 promises/10,000 ways to lose"

    Now I know where the Meteora inspiration came from...

    3. It's too safe.
    Living Things returned the band to its rap rock roots. But there are more of that than experimentation. "Lost in the Echo", despite being an awesome song, was too close to the old times - nu metal guitars, Chester screams, and Mike raps. The album was also littered with radio songs with a certain formula - "In My Remains", "Burn It Down", "I'll Be Gone", "Powerless" as examples, even though they are pretty good songs - and lacked the experimental and out-of-this-world vibe. When the band said that they would incorporate elements from all albums, I thought they would twist it up - but instead some songs ended up with a certain formula. It's songs like "Lies Greed Misery", "Until It Breaks", "Castle of Glass" and "Roads Untraveled" that keep the album from being an average one. I still love the album, but it's inferior to A Thousand Suns.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2012
  11. #51
    snailharvest

    snailharvest nice

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    Read my mind, it's a great album, but some of it does get awfully boring, and it's nowhere near as good as ATS. But I think it was meant to be like this, to bring in a new crowd. Its the album LP deserves, but doesn't necessarily need.

    Okay that was stupid. It IS the album LP needed, but not the one we wanted. And I dunno about any deserving... (I'm actually being serious now..)
     
  12. #52
    shwcobb

    shwcobb 持ち上げて 解き放して

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    ^ Very well said, especially about STB having disappointing lyrics. There are great songs on this album, but as a whole, it doesn't work [for me]. That said, it's still the best album all-around since ATS, but they can do better.
     
  13. #53
    mastae

    mastae Some Honky

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    But "step forward" would be quite alright with you, I'm sure.

    It's just a way of expressing an opinion. Saying "step back" is no different than saying "I think this album is worse than their previous one"
     
  14. #54
    steve12

    steve12 Well-Known Member

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    Agree generally with the views on this thread. At first I absolutely loved it, couldn't stop listening to it. Then a few weeks down the line I only listened to Castle Of Glass and Roads Untravelled, which I only generally listen too now. It got boring fast, ATS had a lasting appeal, simple as that really.
     
  15. #55
    Qwerty19

    Qwerty19 Well-Known Member

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    Well, no.

    I just don't like when people talk like they were deciding where the band should be going. Step back, step forward, it's just the same thing, it's like saying "Yeah, they're moving in the right/not right direction". To me, there aren't such things as right directions. There are different directions an artist can take when making a music record, but I don't see any of those directions superior to others.

    So yeah, if LP happened to make a record I wouldn't like, I would say it. But instead of using that "step back" formula, I would simply say that I don't like the record. Saying the record is a step back implies the people who like it are "wrong". It's not exactly in my personnality to think that way.
     
  16. #56
    Gman2887

    Gman2887 Well-Known Member

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    "Disappointed" is the word I'm going to have to settle on at this point. While I don't think its a bad album, I think its one of their weaker efforts.

    Splitting the album in half says a lot. It's as if the first half was devoted to commercialism to appease Warner, and the second half, which I find much more interesting, was really what they wanted to make. The album doesn't start to appeal to me until Castle of Glass; but even that song plays it safe. It's one of my more favorite pieces on the album, but its nothing to write home about.

    I often get I'll Be Gone and In My Remains confused. They're bland baby siblings of What I've Done which was far more iconic. Literally those two songs feel interchangeable. Meanwhile, I sometimes forget Burn It Down is even on the album since I've skipped it so much. And I wonder if I would've looked at Lies Greed Misery more fondly had I not heard it before the album was released.

    Moving on though, even the more interesting songs tend to miss their mark. Victimized, while I love the structure, is a song I skip even more often than Burn It Down. 90 seconds and I still don't think it's worth sitting through. Skin to Bone is one of the best things on the album, but it doesn't give itself enough time to breath. There was more there, but the band just didn't want to drag anything out here.

    I remember one of the early complaints with ATS is that it had to many interludes and too much sound that spread the songs apart. Meanwhile LT has the exact opposite problem. Most of these songs don't have any breathing room and as a result are cut short from being truly great. I don't think popping out another album so quickly was wise on their part. I actually hope we have a long wait for the next album, because that's yielded better results. Until then, I'll continue enjoying A Thousand Suns. I still haven't grown tired of that.
     
  17. #57
    DaMU

    DaMU Well-Known Member

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    The weirder it is, the better it is, and it ain't weird enough. Especially after A Thousand Suns was so doggedly unusual.
     
  18. #58
    minuteforce

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

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    I don't think it's necessarily the presence or absence of interlude tracks; the songs themselves, perhaps, could have been better if the band gave themselves more time to refine them. For instance, I agree with you that "Skin To Bone" could have used a quieter section in the middle so it ebbed and flowed a little more

    While I really love Linkin Park's most recent works, I'd say our definition of "weird" here is a little skewed - it doesn't always mean "good", it doesn't always mean "interesting".
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2012
  19. #59
    Gman2887

    Gman2887 Well-Known Member

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    I probably should have articulated that better. I don't think interludes were necessary for this particular album, what I mean is many of the songs feel squashed or like they were building to something that never happened. Burn It Down, for example, is one of the album's longest songs and yet it feels like it was a little too tight. That drum piece after Mike's bridge for example felt like it was going to/should have gone on a little longer to allow for a better build up to the final chorus. I was caught off guard when the chorus came in sooner than expected. It felt unnatural upon first listen.

    It sounds like a nitpick, but that's just one example I can think of at the moment.
     
  20. #60
    DaMU

    DaMU Well-Known Member

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    Oh, sure. I could've spent a lot more words on how Living Things tries too hard in songs like "Burn It Down" and "I'll Be Gone" to recapture the propulsive energies of previous albums without grasping how they inadvertently carry over those earlier albums' morass of lyrical nothingness - that, in trying to be more accessible, they dilute the promise shown on A Thousand Suns, which wasn't just weird for its own sake, but weird in an admirable way, as they chased after the artful and political ambitions of albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet while retaining their distinctive interest in blurring genre lines.

    But I'm super-busy right now.
     

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