And i mean in the sequence of release. A great album to a bad one, or vice-versa (the pool answer may work in both directions, you have to specify your opinion on the comments). I want to know the biggest difference.
"Meteora" going into "Midnight" showed the band's biggest leap upward in terms of songwriting, in my opinion, and that's the core thing I tend to look for in LP albums.
I think A Thousand Suns going to Living Things was a huge downfall. I enjoy LT, but ATS raised the bar so high and i thought they would be able to keep that level of epicness. I thought everyone would vote for "HT & MT", since there's so much hate on MT here and HT is claimed to be "the one".
THP and OML. Honestly. I said it before. OML is not bad because its pop but because its low quality pop.
Even though I thoroughly enjoy One More Light, the difference in ambition and quality compared to The Hunting Party is mind-blowing.
The last three albums have been roughly similar in quality for me, and while Meteora to MTM is definitely a contender, I actually think Meteora's actually pretty damn fun every once in a while. Honestly, I'll have to go with ATS to LT. LT isn't bad by any means, but it's a huge step down IMO from what they achieved 2 years prior.
ATS to LT for the biggest decline in quality. THP to OML for biggest contrast in sound. M to MTM for the most ambitious/brave transition.
Meteora to MtM. Love all LP albums, but Meteora is probably their weakest work to date. Minutes was a massive risk moving well away from what they knew, and really showing their true selves as a group for the first time. Songs like shadow of the day, In Pieces and TLTGYA can't be matched by any on Meteora.
Definitely A Thousand Suns going into Living Things. I didn't mind LT but if it were not for the second half of that album, I don't think there would be much redeeming qualities in it (especially what was reasonably expected after A Thousand Suns).
A Thousand Suns is one of my top five favorite albums of all time. When they followed that up with the mediocre Living Things it was definitely the biggest quality drop in my opinion.
Minutes to Midnight is BY FAR my favorite Linkin Park album. I wasn't a fan of A Thousand Suns at all, and haven't liked anything since then, either. So I'd say Minutes to Midnight to A Thousand Suns, since A Thousand Suns is what made me stop being a fan of the band, essentially.
I was gonna say ATS to LT because, it's their biggest fall in my eyes. The ambition and creativity of ATS was completely absent on LT but I ultimately chose M to MTM. LT at least had some great lyrics and better rapping than ATS. But the quality of Meteora to MTM, especially lyrically, is quite astounding. Chester had more melodic prominence instead of being the guy who shouts on the choruses and Mike improved so much as an emcee that it's hard for me to believe that the same guy who wrote Hands Held High wrote Somewhere I Belong. Wasn't perfect but goddamn, did the band show way more potential between these two albums. The sky was the limit after MTM.
The last four albums have been a huge rollercoaster in general, but I'd say the biggest change in quality was ATS to Living Things. It's like they tried to marry more conventional songwriting with a half-baked version of the ATS sound, and coupled with the mixing on that album being a huge downgrade, it just came up waaaaaay short of what could have been.
I think I can mostly agree with this. I'm tempted to say Meteora -> MTM, just because I find MTM to be the weakest album so far. But ATS is just so great it has to go to ATS -> LT. THP and OML are so different it feels pretty difficult to compare them imo.