Speaking of The Killers. I still can't figure out what they meant when they sing "Are we human, or are we dancer?".
All of these nu-metal fans are in some tragic realm of denial. If you were to remove In the End's heavy power chords, the track would universally be classified as pop. Therefore, the song is still pop. And to emphasize everyone else's point of pop contextualization, FAINT was pop in 2003. Remove the screaming vocals and the heavy instruments and it would fit right into today's top 40. (Pssst which means it's still pop).
100% agree. it makes me laugh hard when people say" Heavy sucks because it's radio pop". and at the same time they mentioned that Numb, In the End or What I've Done are their favorite songs. Linkin Park fans logic: Powerchords = Rock Electronic beats/synths = Pop Yeah! we got it
WFTE is arguably their worst video ever made in my opinion. Don't know what the band was thinking on that one "Human means we can do what we want when we want. Dancer is refering to a puppet dancing on string. Having someone move you were they want you to go, thinking for you, and living our life like a routine that is all planned out. If you listen to the other lyrics you can see that dancer is actually refering to a puppet." There you go
You don't even have to remove the guitars, the song is pop. It was in the top 5 on Total Request Live with Carson Daly for god's sake . For those who arent in the States, here's a bit of a rundown on TRL: Apart from Eminem, and KoRn what do all the artists listed above have in common? They were bubblegum pop acts. It got so bad with TRL, that LPA actually had to add a 'no Teenie Bopper' rule because that video, and it's exposure on TRL led to tons of people joining the website to talk about how hot the band members were. They were fawned over like a boy band, and it boggles my mind that some people have forgotten this. That Heavy is such a shock when the band was on TRL Linkin Park have always been somewhat pop, and they were at their poppiest during the In The End era.
Oh I understand that completely. But these diehards seem to think the addition of a heavy instrument or aggressive vocals makes pop not-pop. I'm tempted to write a list of Linkin Park's undeniably core pop songs, songs that are clearly influenced by pop, and songs that aren't pop. I'm willing to bet the latter list would be incredibly short.
Wow, that was actually better than I expected! "Numb"'s instrumentation works surprisingly well with "Heavy"'s dynamic vocals. Then again, I've always liked Numb's sound, regardless of the lyrics. A great example of a "medium intensity" LP song, which is one of my favorite types of LP songs.
The funniest thing is when "old LP" fans complain about the new song being too poppy and then goes on to suggest that the band should go back to songs like 'In The End' and 'Numb'.
I agree with so much you wrote. Particularly about trying to classify everything under a genre. "Everybody's always trying to put labels on it. There ain't no label for this shit. They always gotta try to put a label on it. Try to create something so they can water it down. You could put a label on a lifestyle." Genre is dead, according to Mike. Clearly he's felt this way even when he wrote High Voltage. I honestly feel the same way. I also think Linkin Park has never made a bad song, Dead By Sunrise and Fort Minor included
A local band I know from my city (Chania-Greece) made a cover of heavy check it out what do you think about it?
Never knew that's what TRL stood for Got a problem? It's boring and the visuals aren't even fun to look at
I mean there were two forms of pop in the late 90's/early 2000's. The bubblegum pop like Backstreet Boys and the "edgy/rebellious" artists like Limp Bizkit, Korn, Eminem, etc. They were all marketed towards the teenage demographic for the most part and Linkin Park was no exception. Though LP occupied their own lane, for better or for worse. They didn't rely on over-macho aggressive/shock value but also didn't exactly make music that was "N'Syncish" either. They took the best of what genres they all liked and infused them with a large amount of crossover appeal which was what the band has been about since its inception.