Wow this song is just absolutely awful... I understand they wanted to change their sound and all but wow. If the entire album sounds like that, I will have to stop calling my self a LP fan and just go to saying I like old LP...
I refuse to listen to this song in headphones, unless the following arguments have been met: 1) FLAC version of the song 2) CD version of the song. Until then, I agree with you in terms that I understand you are accustomed to the old and not some damn techno based sound rock band, because of that I have other bands. The repetitive factor reminds me of "NIN - The Perfect Drug"; sadly that song sticks to my ear! "The Catalyst" does not.
Except you're choosing to ignore a key factor that pokes a big hole in your point. LP came out in 2000 before album sales dropped drastically. Hell, if we use the album that you're pointing to as what LP should still sound like (Meteora) as an example that pokes another large whole in your argument because the album that has the "looks and power" of their most succesful album sold nearly 3 times less units. So either you're saying that people are tired of LP in general or ALBUMS DON'T SELL HOW THEY USED TO.
Hybrid Theory had some fantastic lyrics, but Meteora was so incredibly cheesy across the board (aside from BTH and ETR). Just count how many times the band uses the word "pain" alone in the album's lyrics! I hear those lyrics now at the age of 22 and it actually embarrasses me when I hear songs like "Don't Stay" or "Faint". It's like an album of temper tantrums. You shouldn't do this, even though you acknowledge it. You can only give a fair assessment of this new sound after hearing the entire album. Otherwise it's just baseless conjecture. Please, no raping on the album. I can't imagine that sounding good. For the second time in this thread I'll post this quote from Chester last week: "The music we make now is the result of trying to put pressure on ourselves to do something unique. I hope [we don't sound like] the same band as we were (when we started) because that is specifically what we did not want to happen throughout our career." It's a fruitless exercise to wish and hope the band are going to stick to some sort of "proven" formula. Anyone who's being stubborn about getting used to this new sound is just setting themselves up for a disappointment by not being open-minded and accepting of this eventuality. They make music because they want to push their creative boundaries. They're artists. They don't make music to appease the fans. They hope the fans like it, but at the end of the day they're the people who are playing these songs hundreds of times over the next few years. If anyone knows what sounds stale: they do. It's been said time and time again that album sales do not reflect quality of musicianship. Also, your last line doesn't make much sense, seeing as how record sales have declined steadily over the last decade. Just because the band have "grown up with the internet" doesn't mean they can alter consumer behaviour patterns and maintain levels seen in 2000 and 2003.
Hey, do any of you guys hear something other than 'burn' in the 1:44 verse? I think I'm hearing this- "God save us, everyone Will we learn inside the fires of a thousand suns" I don't they're saying 'burn' in this verse. Will someone else listen to this with headphones/earbuds and tell me if I'm hearing stuff or if it really sounds like that? I'm using Klipsch S4 earbuds.
If there is you better hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide you're husband, cuz they rapin errbody out der
I want you to do yourself a favor. Go look at the best selling albums, ever, in history and tell me which of those has come from anything approaching the digital era. I'll give you a hint: The only big seller like that since '95 was the backstreet boys, Celine Dion got in in '96. The old metrics are broken, and they mean nothing. Just because LP knows this doesn't mean they can magically circumvent the new reality.
First: Napster was an online music file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning while he was attending Northeastern University in Boston. The service operated between June 1999 and July 2001. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster Second: I placed the unit number equivalent title of each album (minus Reanimation as that does not count as an album). I did not point LP to sound like Meteora or Hybrid Theory. All I am stating, is that the raw "power" in those 2 (not looks) has been lacking ever since. And finally: The main audience, the "old fan", yes is tired of LP in general. "Albums don't sell how they used to" that is the case, but not the point I was trying to get at. My point is that if LP wanted to harness their "power" that they had in those albums, sales would be better than MTM, and the division amongs fans would be non existent. If I wanted to compare this to the Gears Of Wars[videogame] franchise: The original Gears Of Wars did the following: - Revamped the in-your-face factor of First Person Shooters(an old stale genre) with third person shooter with cover - Allowed a gore factor of that of Mortal Kombat - Allowed you to freely killed your opponent in any manner. CONS: - shotgun was over powered - sniper was over powered When the sequel dropped: Which reduced the power of the shotgun (the main weapon to use as all combat was close quarter combat) and why was it changed? The creator (Cliffy B) if comparison to Mike Shinoda, felt "shotguns" were "cheese dicks". He went out to the extent to give a 2 second delay timer out of each animation, gave the shotgun a weird spread that made it difficult to use in close quarter combat, and made it the most useless weapon in the game but the most REQUIRED weapon in the game as all game types required "execution" rules to finish your opponent. What does execution mean? It means you needed to A)blow their heads off B)gib em close range C)do a finisher All these required you to be close range. With a game hectic of 5 vs 5 plus lag, it was a disaster. But of course "Fans" wanted to respect the change of the game. Even though it was still broken, some defended this was the right thing to do. After months and 5 title updates, the team decided to hear to the outcries of the "old fans" and finally the game has been fixed, that both the old fan is happy, and the new fan has enjoyed. **I am leaving some details out of the story, but understand the gist of it**. Time went on and while we did have this new revamp awesome game in our hands, the fact user base was dropping, and sales did not go on par to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Halo 3. Ushered the creator to listen to his fans, the shotgun went back to it's root, and removed things (fix things) that made the series awesome in the first place, after 6 (yes 6) Title Updates to listen to its fan base. It's the fan base happy now? Hell yes! I do not want another Hybrid Theory, I do no want another Meteora, and I do not want another Reanimation. But I as hell do not want a "Minutes to Midnight". I want them to progress their sound, not CHANGE IT. This is irrelevant to this argument. Period. Those guy sare in another year compare to LP. And LP survived the internet era (they are still around aren't they?)
It's not an irrelevant argument. The possibility of having an album sell that well is rapidly dropping. It's statistically unlikely, and it's being made more and more unlikely as services like last.fm and pandora teach people about niche music and those same people are no longer looking at Billboard's top whatever to decide what they should listen to. Digital album sales, no matter how you look at it, are not making up for lost sales of the physical disk. Record labels are bleeding money in what used to be an industry where you could just print it. Linkin Park's sales started going down about the same time bandwidth started going up. The better question is that for each year that those albums existed how well did they do competitively? IIRC every one of them has done quite well. Has concert attendance for Linkin Park shows (the venue from which the band makes money) dropped? I certainly can't say that there's been any kind of a drop like that, seems like they damn near sell out when they go on tour. So if you're going to make an argument based on album sales you should not compare against standards which are irrelevant. I think Linkin Park has evolved to this reality, their pre-order contains lots of value-added goodies that let them ride the long tail to success.
Looked up "new linkin park song" on Twitter Trends and this is what It came up with: Wow, the new Linkin Park song is fucking horrible 2 minutes ago via MySpace Linkin Park's new song: kind of a let down 9 minutes ago via txt The new Linkin Park song, The Catalyst is TERRIBLE! What the hell is happening to this awesome band? Go in the direction of "Meteora" please 22 minutes ago via web JMNelis This new Linkin Park song is terrible. Worst thing to happen in a long time. The new Linkin Park song has a severe identity crises. So awful. about 2 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone The. new. Linkin. Park. song is HOORRENDOUS. Absolutely HORRENDOUS. Fucking terrible. about 2 hours ago via web The new Linkin Park song = Pathetic about 2 hours ago via web Not digging the new Linkin Park song, womp womp. so the new Linkin Park song is like the same lines repeated for almost 3 minutes. about 3 hours ago via web from Pineville, WV I love Linkin Park, and I love 'The Catalyst', but how many times are they going to rehash 'What I've Done' and label it as a new song? about 3 hours ago via web
I'm not sure if this has been posted yet, but you guys can buy "The Catalyst" on iTunes at this link. It's already at #54 in the iTunes top 100! http://tiny.cc/e7nve
I can't stop listening! It's so addictive! Just what I needed in my life right now. I just made it my ringtone and it's so fucking cool! I'm definitely tapping my foot along to the intro and then I feel like stomping the shit out of the floor when it kicks in