Hi there, I wonder if I'm about to be expelled from the forums. I dare not mention the T-word though which I tried to use as an illustration to make it easier to understand my opinion but never mind what it was about, it obviously didnt work out. So this time I will stick to the core. I want a fair discussion and I'm honestly interested in your opinion. What do I mean by commercializing independence? In the music industry many things have been commercialized. Often signs like ragged clothes, coloured hair or a certain kind of music which were common among rebellious artists against the social intolerance decades ago were used more recently as a feature of pop-musicians to make them seem more excentric than they really were to serve a drive of the individual to be individual but at the same time reach many people by keeping the music mainstream. I guess most will agree this approach usualy compromises both style and music for neither is kept authentic by which I mean beeing the chosen preference of the artist. Also there is a distinction between independent artists and the rest. The former are characterized as far as I know having a label that doesn't try to manipulate the artists. After listening to ATS for several months I can't get off the impression LP got more independant but not as much as they claim. I don't know where to find it anymore but someone here pointed out the end of some documentation about ATS to understand what LP was trying to to with ATS. I had watched it and also read other interviews with LP and they are basically saying they wanted to make ATS how they felt, to try new things and stop doing what WB made them to do for so many years. I don't say they were lieing but I think they exaggerate their independance a lot. And if this is true, than we have a case of commmercialized independance. Maybe I'm totally wrong, maybe ATS is the pure LP, honest without any watering down by WB. I can't prove anything, I can only judge by the experience of about ten years of intense listening to many different artists and a lot LP the first couple of years. My intuition tells me songs like Burning in the Skies and Iridescent are actually watered down by WB. These two are just my strongest examples. I agree on a post I read that it isn't easy after ten years of pleasing WB to do something completely on their own. For example in my opinion The Messenger is a song beeing an experiment of LP to do something different but failing to get it quite right. Also there are other examples in ATS where they blundered. To me the most convincing theory is WB finally agreed to let LP do what they liked to do but still having the right to alter the album to their wishes before selling it, maybe to different degrees on different songs. This would have allowed LP to explore new grounds and WB to take care it wouldn't drift too far off the mainstream, nevermind the direction though. To me many songs on ATS sound not less mainstream than HT, Meteora or MTM and I don't mean Rock-mainstream but general music mainstream. If LP really wants to do whatever they like why don't they just leave WB and enjoy the freedom they get at some independent label? I'm not an expert on US legal questions but whatever obligations they signed I can't believe there is no way out, if they really wanted to. Not beeing allowed to produce the music you like for ten years? They can make an album and post it on their homepage for download, they are free people. If its all about the music I dont understand why they didn't quit WB a long time ago. I remember them having trouble with WB before the MTM release or was it around Meteora? I don't know but the subject of beeing tied to a label has appeared in their music even before HT, i.e. High Voltage. So what do think? Am I alone with this opinion or does somebody here feel a similar way?
The problem is that Linkin Park has a contract that they have to obey. You'll have to ask someone else the details/when it ends because I can never remember . I actually agree that BITS and Iridescent are songs that stand out as LP not necessarily being that different. Although, I'm not sure Warner has anything to do with it. In fact, I don't think they do. I also don't think the band necessarily made those songs just so they could hold on to their past. In the context of the album, those songs fit quite well to be honest. And, in addition, they're both awesome songs (in my opinion).
5th option. They are now and have always been mainstream, and even though WB may (or may not) give them a ton of shit I doubt very much it has anything to do with the bands creative output.
Just because the band puts soft/slow/mellow songs on an album, doesn't mean that it's because the label "made them do it" or because it's "radio friendly". Maybe the band actually wanted those songs to be on the record exactly the way they appeared, just like the rest of ATS. How is it different? I guess a stripped down acoustic ballad is kinda different to end an LP record, but it's hardly anything ground breaking in the grand scheme of things. They never claimed this record would be "different" in terms of all music, just "different to what they had done previously. As for The Messenger it fits perfectly at the end of the record IMO and it works well in context. Can you elaborate on why it isn't quite right? What is "right"? Again, elaborate. I'm not sure what you're referring to.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's still at least some wrangling from Warner, and there probably always will be until they leave. It's hard to see how much it manifests itself in the music without guessing, though. I don't think they're more mainstream now but they always have been to some degree. Even when they weren't signed their music had crossover appeal, then once they could get it to a wider audience they blew up... there's nothing to compare it to, really, because the only time they were releasing music without Warner that was early days for them and the music they made then wasn't a lot different to Hybrid Theory and Meteora anyway. The best way of telling would be if they left Warner right now and got to work making a new album without them, and seeing how that stacks up to ATS.
I feel M2M was the most commercial thing they could ever and hopefully ever will put out. Bullshit album. As for the topic, ATS is as far from mainstream as LP could have made in 2010 and still be called "Linkin Park"
I don't understand why it is a big deal. In my opinion, they are still making good music. Anyways, listen to Fort Minor's "Get me gone." This is taken from the beginning part of the song when Mike's just talking: "The dude, he said that, like, when we were making the first Linkin Park record He was like, "Yeah you know, I don't know about the rapping like, I don't know... maybe you should just be a rock band." You know what I mean, like, trying to change us like they signed us as an act like what we sound like and then he's like "Oh I don't know maybe you should just play keyboard"" That being said, no matter what label Linkin Park is on, there is always going to be people telling them what they should do. So far as I'm concerned, They've stayed true to themselves as a band and stayed true to their music, even though every album isn't a carbon copy of Hybrid Theory. I've noticed that Linkin Park are very artistic with what they put out. I think that they, just like famous painters, go through 'periods.' Look at Picasso, for example. He went through what was called the Blue Period. After that, he went through a Rose Period. All in all, Picasso was still Picasso. Linkin Park, I feel are doing the same thing, only Auraly. I think that even though they change whatever "genre" you want to classify their music, they are still making what sounds good to them, just like Picasso painted what felt right to him. On to Warner... I think that if Warner Bros was that controlling about what music Linkin Park put out, MTM wouldn't have been released and neither would ATS. Obviously, from the quote above, The label was trying to change the band from the time they signed their contract. No matter what record company the band would sign with, they would always be offered direction. I, for one, do not think that Linkin Park allowed the label to interfere with their music making. For example, from the get go of MTM, Mike declared that they were making music that felt right, not having their hand forced to make something a certain way. Yes, "What I've Done" was made last on the record and consequently it was the first single. I think that when Linkin Park was confronted about their first single off of the record, "What I've Done" seemed like the perfect song to fit the bill. It was a summary of the album and it declared that a change was made. For ATS, I think "The Catalyst" promotes that same feeling. It does so by the one song being very intertwined with the theme of the album and the literal definition of what a "catalyst" truely is. That being said, I think that they should stick with Warner, but if a change happened, then so be it. I'm not part of the band, so that decision shouldn't be on me to make. Anywhere they would go, the other party is going to try to flex their muscles. That's the nature of buisness in general. I'm not sure if it would be the smartest thing for them to pull out of their record contract to go independently. Again, buisness is buisness and everyone needs to make money somehow... I think that the band has way too much wrapped up in Warner (MachineShop)to just straight up quit on them.
I wish wish this whole "Let's see who's the first to start posting memes/image macros/derp shit on LPA discussions" fad would go away. Shit's horrible.
If someone is an "LPA VIP" can they still get banned for derpin' or have they earned certain privileges?