LP will continue in the future and I hope they will continue this pop-route and incorporate more experimentation to the process. OML could be their initial step in exploring this new territory and expand this idea through LP8 and so on.. Though, Heavy is more risky than the previous singles but it gave them the opportunity to explore new ground for the band (e.g. new vocal approach by Chaz, a featured female artist on a lead single). I hope LP will ditch the screaming and just focus on melodic singing, harmonising and vocal interplay with Mike.
I'd argue it's their best music video, visually. If Joe deserves any award for any LP video, it should be this.
I like "Waiting For The End" a lot, both song and video, but, if I disregard how much I like or dislike the songs, I can say that, in my opinion, most of their earlier videos are excellent for their time. "Pts.Of.Athrty", "From The Inside" and "Breaking The Habit" are really special to me as a fan
Why are people who don't like Heavy constantly named "old LP fans"? I don't fell in love with this song but I was perfectly fine with THP Even if we agreed (for the sake of this discussion) that ITE is a pop song there's still some pretty difference between ITE and Heavy. I could perfectly undersand (but not agree with) someone who would like them to return to the old style even if it still was pop - the diferences are clearly noticeable. Not my war though, I want LP to create whatever they want - Worst case scenario: I will slowly get hyped for another 3 years.
After May 19 there gonna be 'first seven' speaking of 'ye olde LP' Frankly ... as long as Papercut, In the End, Faint, Numb and One Step Closer (or With You and Somewhere I Belong from time to time) are presented in the setlists there are NO 'old and new' Linkin Park.
If you were to remove In the End's heavy power chords... Remove the screaming vocals and heavy instruments from Faint... Like, sure, I get what you mean and why you still call the songs pop... but... you know what they say about ifs and buts? In the End has the heavy power chords, and Faint has the screaming vocals and heavy instruments. It's not a lot different than if I were to take like an Avenged Sevenfold song and talk about if that didn't have the style of vocals it had, or the instrumental work it had, then it would be X...generally saying I'm not sure there's a lot of point to talking about what if a song did/didn't have, as that's a world of hypotheticals and maybes. Not all that dissimilar to in sports, a team has a bad season, and people talk about well if so and so was having his usual type of production, if so and so didn't get injured... but at the end of the day, all that gets remembered is the poor, losing record at the end of the year, and not the variables that could've made it different. Maybe it doesn't take the songs out of pop genre completely, but it still varies on it by having those things. You could say then those songs rock elements and pop elements, so to kind of play devil's advocate here, why do the pop elements "win out" here and it becomes a pop song instead of a rock song? I take it you're not a fan of calling a song two things (ex: Pop/Rock) as maybe it feels indecisive, on-the-fence type of categorization, which is fair and I understand if that's the case. To me this is kind of the beauty of Linkin Park; they make no secret they want to blend/bleed genres together, not be stuck to one label, and I think they do a great job of it, especially when you consider the types of conversations, like these ones, that it brings about. I hesitate to just immediately suggest a song must be pop because it found its way onto TRL, though I admit I'm going off your description of the show, as I'm personally unfamiliar with it. I don't mean to oversimplify what you said, but that's kind of how it's sounding. I'm not saying it's super common, but I have seen shows (MMM, MuchMusic in Canada, radio stations) grab onto exposure of In the End because of how successful it was, and yes of course, because it was still "friendly" and accessible enough (no super-coarse vocals, no swearing, pop elements) that they could justify it to their audience and say it wasn't unfitting of to be showed by them. The lists it made I don't think were always directly indicative of what type of song it was, genre-wise. I see what you're saying, and I agree to an extent, but there seems to be this feeling going around that just because In the End, Numb and Heavy all have pop elements (Heavy maybe more prevalent than others, but still) that there's no difference or separation in the songs, the styles, etc. I don't think it's crazy whatsoever for somebody to like In the End or Numb but not like Heavy. I like all three. I like Heavy. But I like Numb more. I like In the End more. To speak directly to that mashup video that was posted, which I'm guessing may have had something to do with that person who uploaded it to YouTube wanting to show Heavy haters that Numb had similarities... while they're not incorrect they aren't exactly worlds apart, it doesn't mean there's merit to suggest they're "exactly the same". I like Numb more than Heavy and I wouldn't really call it close. Numb probably makes my top 10 all-time LP songs, and I'm really not sure Heavy makes my top 20. Does this mean I'm some "nu-metal fan" in denial? Does this mean there's something wrong with my ears where I'm not discerning things properly? All it means is it's tastes, opinions and preferences coming into play. Nothing really more than that. I think Numb's instrumental work is better, it conveys more emotion through its sounds and lyrics, and I tend to gravitate more towards Linkin Park's "darker" or sadder (mood, atmosphere wise) sounding songs than I do their less "edgy" or "lighter" stuff. Not a hard rule for me, but probably more than 50% of my LP favourites are that type of vibe.
If you took a cake and removed the frosting and the filling and the decorations and replaced it with ground meat and guacamole and shredded cheese.....you have a pretty shitty cake? I don't get this logic. Of course if you remove various elements from something and replace it with other things that are completely opposite end of said spectrum, it's gonna be different. The base may be the same, but the result isn't even recognizable and/or comparable. The instrumentation/vocal delivery is what kept LP from being just straight up pop music. Pop/mainstream-esque, sure, but not straight up pop. Edit: it's the reasons why things like "Pop Goes Punk" exist. I am assuming a majority of the people who listen to those collections do not like pop at all, but when a rock band does the covers and adds distorted guitars, drums, and aggressive vocals it becomes something different and at least moderately enjoyable. Nothing ground breaking obviously but a good amount of the people who like it wouldn't listen to the original versions.
Just curious, is it still a popular belief/view to "label" Linkin Park as "Alternative"? They have changed up their overall sound many times, while still keeping certain core elements from the beginning (rapping, screaming, and raspy vocals), so can LP really be considered anything other than "Alternative"? They aren't strictly a Hip-Hop group, a "Rock" band, a "Pop" band, and so on.
"I find it so cute that some of our fans still haven't figured out what we're about." - Chester I do find it funny cause the "old LP" is now considered less than 1/3 of their albums and about 12 of the 17 years of their musical careers have not been that music.
I agree that saying "X would be Y if you removed/added Z" is a non-argument, but I'd go a step further and say (as a few others have already said) that songs like In The End and Numb are still pop, guitars, vocals and all. Both have a catchy, memorable lead melody, a catchy, sing-along chorus and bridge, no long instrumental sections, a standard 4/4 pop structure, no complicated instrumental parts (which is really important for a song to be accessible), etc. etc. They fit all the bills of being pop. I think you hit the nail on the head here, to use ITE and Numb again, both songs are undeniably rock also. I don't think anyone was trying to imply that the pop elements win out over the rock elements though, it's more that whether these songs are rock or not was never called into question in the first place. I'd absolutely call both songs pop rock, and I'd even be inclined to agree that they're more rock than pop (even if I'd argue the pop elements are very pervasive). I do agree, I can see why people can like two and not the third (hell even if two songs are literally carbon copies of each other, you'll get people who prefer one over the other haha), but I suppose I'd be arguing that the differences are far, far, far smaller than the Youtube comment section under Heavy would have you believe. I don't think it's crazy for people to not like Heavy and like In The End (I much prefer ITE, for instance), but I do think it's a bit crazy that many fans can't see that they're very, very similar in almost every aspect (namely the ones outlined in my first paragraph). There're plenty of reasons why one might like one over the other within the context of pop music, but saying you don't like it because it's pop, while simultaneously loving songs like ITE and Numb doesn't make sense to me. Totally agree (with the overall point; Numb isn't anywhere near my top 10 ), you've pointed out plenty of perfectly valid reasons for preferring one song over the other. But the key thing here is that you're not saying you dislike it because it's poppy. As mentioned, there are tonnes of valid reasons why someone might prefer one song over another song, even if both songs are in the exact same genre (hence why there are fan favourites even on a pure metal album, or a pure rap album), but to me, criticising Heavy because it's poppy while simultaneously praising songs like ITE and Numb because they're "not poppy" is just mad, IMO. Basically, I have no problem with people only liking In The End and Numb, more power to them, but both songs fit the textbook definition of a pop song almost perfectly. I'm not saying they're the poppiest songs ever written, but feel it's silly that people say that "pop music sucks" while they have no problem with liking Numb and In The End. I could even see the argument if ITE and Numb had guitar riffs, screaming, or some major musical element that wasn't on Heavy (inb4 someone says "a real intro" ), but it would've taken LP maybe ten minutes to add some repeated power chords to the mix and mute Kiara, and the song would've fit easily on Hybrid Theory (or at least Living Things).
Yeah but nobody is talking about adding anything, just taking off the frosting. In the case of In The End, the frosting is guitars.