What do you guys think of the lyrics, and subject matter on this album? Does anyone else feel underwhelmed? There's always a song or two on each LP album that moves me. Hybrid Theory -In the End -Pushing Me Away. My teenage self related with those songs. Meteora -Breaking The Habit Minutes to Midnight -Shadow of the Day -The Little Things Give You Away A Thousand Suns -Robot Boy -Iridescent. -Burning In the Skies God I love this record.. Living Things -I'll Be Gone -Castle of Glass The Hunting Party -? I'm drawing a blank with this album. I feel uninspired by this album, which is ironic because the album was suppose to be going after "it" the way Mike hyped it up along with the album title name but this album ultimately falls flat for me. Mark the Graves is probably my favorite track. Otherwise. It's been a week and i'm not listening to it anymore
The Hunting Party - Rebellion (feat. Daron Malakian) - Guilty All the Same (feat. Rakim) Those two songs actually what represent the album as a whole, IMHO.
I think there is a better way to reword this thread idea in the main threads. I've been wanting to compile a list with the other users of themes and connections through the albums e.g. lyrical connections. See what you can do or i'll make one later.
Of course, if you only want lyrics talking about being a mature grown-up man able to let frustration go and stuff, you're not going to dig this record lyrics. THP lyrics are about anger. Seeing the songs you quoted, you're probably not inspired by angry lyrics, that is all.
I was thinking this today, the album has no soul. Rebellion is the only truly relatable track. "You were steady as a sniper, you were waiting on a wire", dude wtf!!!! lol. Hell, lyrically ALITS is a disgrace, I like it as a song instrumentally even if the mix is shit but there's something missing, can you really feel as if they wanted to write "War" as it is? Do you really think they wanted to say what it says on the lyrics? This record is totally lacking a purpose other than being "LP rocking it with 16-year old inspired Brad", some songs are really cool and I like listening to it as a whole but there's something missing and it's the soul.
"Record has no soul" / "Record is forced". Honestly, I think both of those are the most useless arguments ever. How can one judge the "soul" an artist put into his/her music is beyond me. At the very least, if you work on something with passion, there is "soul" behind it, that is all. And the band certainly is passionate about THP. They went this direction, because, I quote, "It was much more interesting and exciting to us (than the indie thing)" (Mike). Same for the "forced" thing. I saw it somewhere in another thread. How can one say an album is forced when it was made due to the sole fact it was exciting and interesting to the band? How can a band force themselve to do something they are excited about? Isn't that a non-sense? And at the very least, if one LP album is forced, it's obviously ATS. With that one, the band forced themselves to be as un-Linkin Park as possible. They actually said it multiple times. So yeah...
I'm not saying that Just that those arguments are silly. And that, yes, you can use them for every record ever if you want to, especially the "no soul" thing. It screams " I wanna bash this record, but I don't have actual arguments. Fuck it, let's just say it has no soul. And is forced. Because, fuck it, that's the way it is".
You're missing the point completely. Mike initially felt compelled to write indie demos because that's what he liked, but when he read a miserable article about Japanese men being "hervibores" he thought "Oh shit, all this stuff I've been writing is too similar to what's on the radio, I somehow feel the NEED to show the world how to fucking rock!! Yeah!!!" and Chester brings in War which as said by Mike, was written in 5 fucking minutes. Do you see the soul in that? Do you see a burning drive like the one they had in ATS where they wanted to push as many boundaries as possible and took almost 2 years and a half to write it? ATS speaks for itself. This album is Mike telling Brad "Shit man I don't want to contribute to this pussy modern rock era, go write riffs as if you were 16 again" Don't you see how fucking forced that sounds? It's putting themselves in a BOX for the sake of not doing what they actually wanted to do in the first place. Because "fuck, top 40 radio is geared for pussies, that's not the way it should be man let's write rockers c'mon!!"
1) Have you ever seen Mike's disgust face/ tone when he speaks about those indie demos? I can take screenshots mate 2) Believe it or not, Mike has said multiple times he realized he didn't liked the direction his stuff had been taking. He didn't liked it. Is that hard to comprehend or what? Sure he might have enjoyed it at first, but as soon as he was not into it anymore, still going on that road would have been fucking forced as hell 3 ) What's the point of forcing yourself to make a anti-radio friendly record when you could sell twice as much with a indie-pop record? The only way to explain this is because you don't force yourself in the first place. 4) The band love punk music. The band love rock music. The band love heavy music. Why is making something they love forced? It's not like they made heavy music for the sake of it. It's not like Mike decided to rock out for the sake of it. He decided to do it, well they made it because they love that stuff, and are disappointed it isn't as prevalent as before. And to conclude, Chester said "We didn't know we wanted to rock on until Mike brougth GATS riffs. As soon as I heard it, I wanted the entire record be like this. I wanted to do this all day every day". And also, "After years of craving out in our electronic side, we realized we weren't interested in it right now" So yeah... Believe it or not, your whole point is invalid. And I'm out, because I won't waste more time trying to explain this. Oh, and btw, if you wanna play that game... "ATS is a pretentious forced wannabe-Radiohead record, that had no soul and no passion and was just guided by the desire to sound different instead of sounding good. "
Why do these threads always have to evolve into a discussion about the vision of the album... If you don't like the record - FINE - move on please. LET IT GO. I am sick and tired of hearing conspiracies on this site on rather or not Linkin Park is doing something for themselves, the radio, the fans or WBS. Seriously grow up. Rant over BACK ON TOPIC: I feel like this album has some of the most not Linkin Park-ish lyrics we have ever gotten(On level with ATS at least). Many of the songs seem to be written from other people's perspective instead of just Mike and Chester. Sure FM and UIG are kind of the standard ballads but the rest of the album seems to touch on many different subjects. Many of the songs seem to be about the band making this record and staying away from Radio standards but they really can have multiple meanings: An example is Keys To The Kingdom. It can obviously be interpreted as the band going nuts on this record, staying away from the radio standards: "No control / no surprise" "I give you what you came for / this is not the same though Got a different method but I still can bring the pain so Y’all stuck in that same flow / I got that insane flow High as y’all can get you’re never really in my range though" But on the other side the song can be about a Rebellion: "We start the final war Tell me what’s worth fighting for When we know there’s nothing more We take the hand or fist Just to sell ourselves for this The path we least resist" The Chorus may just be a metaphor for the Anarchy that is starting: "Tossed the keys to the kingdom Down that hole in my eye I’m my own / casualty I fuck up everything I see Fighting in futility" Could be about the revolutions in the eastern Europe and people wanting to "start a new beginning." The album really seems to have multiple songs about: War/Rebellion/Revolution/Anarchy(In the music industry and on an imagery level.), Love/Lost(MTG, UIG, FM) Songs like All For Nothing could with this mindset be about people going against the system - People being tired of the whole "pay taxes, go to work, repeat" or the fact that most people live in debt for most of their lives and all they ever work for is paying back their student/car/house loans. I personally loved a lot of the songs because I thought the lyrics were much more interesting this time around. Maybe not so consistently well written but much more interesting at least.
I found ALITS and Drawbar to be over-whelming. Honestly, it is a matter of opinion. I thought the lyrics of until's it's gone were bland and lazy but Mike talked about how the song is supposed to be about how you do not know what you're child will grow up to be and how they took ideas from the giving tree to write the song. They seem to put a lot of thought and effort into the songs they make. Calm down.
I used to be, but not anymore. Anger is something I don't allow to creep up into my life anymore because it used to consume me. As a 26 year old Linkin Park song's are escapism for me that's why I gravitate to the slower/melodic stuff.
While The Hunting Party is indeed an aggressive fucking album, I feel it's about much more than just anger and violence as some people seem to argue. Personally I interpret it as much more of a rebellion/anarchy album, and rather than basing a lot of their songs on self-loathing and alienation, themes of uprising are far more present.
Fair enough, altough LP is kind of a weird choice of a band if you're only looking for escapism I mean, they've never been Radiohead or Iron and Wine! I also don't think one need to be angry to like agressive lyrics. I'm personnaly not an angry person at all, but I still dig those kinds of stuff, well, as long as I don't listen to it 24h/24... that would be a little too much.
I like the chorus of Keys To The Kingdom. Unlike some, I don't relate it to an actual kingdom or country or anything like that. It's basically saying "I have no self-control, but that's no surprise because I already knew that about myself." If the person in the song ever got the "keys to the kingdom," meaning some great opportunity for success, the first thing they'd do is stick the key in their own eye because they're such a fuck-up and self-destruct everything good that happens to them ("you had one job"). They are their own causality, etc.
I never appreciated "Until It's Gone" completely until I heard it in my dream one night. I had a dream about my younger brother and my mom, at a time when my brother and I were just kids. It was strange, like walking around in an old picture. The song started playing out of nowhere, like it just lived in the air. I think subconsciously I related the song to my situation with my family. We don't talk like a normal family does. Maybe we're dysfunctional. I remember one day, when I was 14, I was blamed as the reason for us not being a family. I'm 25 now and still haven't gotten over that. I always long to fix everything and start over, which is probably why I relate to UIG a lot. The words are simple on the surface but there are lines in there that describe things that people find a hard time putting into words. "Finding what you've got sometimes means finding it alone / And I can finally see your light when I let go" cuts into me every time now. I know that's too personal but see a lot of people trying to defend lyrics for being complex and devaluing others for being simple. A lot of the most simple lyrics are ones that describe emotions or thoughts people try to express but can never put into right words. That's what makes them ever more staggering, because the phrasing is so small and obvious but also revealing and enlightening.
actually, at least to me, "you dont know what you got until its gone" is very good, even more because its simple and true. BUT everyone heard it a thousand times, thats the problem