Simple question: Do you think, if edited and changed, Powerless would have been able to fit on A Thousand Suns? I could see it fitt in with the Burning in the Skies synth at the beginning, and maybe if the lyrics were changed up to fit the theme of ATS... What do you guys think?
I don't know how many people have noticed, but the high pitch guitar notes that Mike plays during Waiting For The End's chorus are the same that play during Powerless's chorus. I was actually a little disappointed when I found that out. I'm really not fond of that sound.
The funny thing is, I still don't see "The Messenger" as a closer. I see "The Catalyst" as the conclusion for A Thousand Suns and "The Messenger" is that extra song, sometimes "hidden" at the end of an album. The thing that I like about POWERLESS, is that even though it was "leftovers" from ATS, it feels like it was a progressive step away from it. I think the similarities of POWERLESS with "Burning In The Skies" was a big contributing factor for why it wasn't included on ATS. Also, the way "The Catalyst"/"The Messenger" ends the album in the way that I described earlier, It would have not had that "be all/end all" tale with "The Catalyst" in ATS. I'm not sure where TINFOIL/BRUISER/POWERLESS would have fit in on ATS, but it definitely would not have worked as the closer to the album without changing the meaning of "The Catalyst." If that was the case, you might as well have changed the name of "The Catalyst" and rewrote it without the climax break in the bridge, which to me, represents the turning point the entire album was building up to.
Listen to A Thousand Suns, and after The Catalyst, play Tinfoil and Powerless instead of The Messenger. Yeah, it could fit. I agree with Hybrid, though, I must say.
Lyrically, I do not think it would have fit on ATS. I absolutely love the lyrics and the song means a lot to me, so I am happy it came out when it did with those lyrics. But yeah, musically I could have seen TINFOIL/POWERLESS being on ATS, it would just had to have been changed up a little, maybe a different vocal approach, definitely would have had different lyrics, etc.
BRUISER is the unreleased peice that fits inbetween TINFOIL and POWERLESS. POWERLESS originally was supposed to be over 6 minutes long and the song was cut into 3 "Sub-songs." BRUISER was cut, last minute, out of LIVING THINGS. The decision was made to oust it because it made the song drawn out for too long. Evidence of it's existence on the album lies with TINFOIL being listed as track number 11 (11 dots) and POWERLESS being listed as track number 13 (13 dots) on the back. The BRUISER demo was supposed to be released with the Dell/LP laptop featuring Open Labs.
This is not true. Bruiser was not cut at the last minute. It has absolutely nothing to do with Powerless, the fact that there are 13 balls is just a print-out mistake, the tracklist had already been decided by late March and it was officially posted online the day Burn It Down was released. There was plenty of time between that and the release of the album so last second exclusions are out of the picture. All in all, the amount of dots didn't mean that was the track number, it was a mistake. Tinfoil segues perfectly into Powerless. Moreover, here is the description some dude working at OpenLabs gave of the song: You're right that the song was originally spanned over 6 minutes, but that approach was ditched by the band when they found out that in order to get a real balance they had to tackle either the melody or the rhythm and it just didn't sound as good. They still didn't feel right about the song into the final days of recording and on the last one Rob brought a new drum pattern to finally finish it that satisfied Mike. http://www.mtv.tv/shows/mtv-first/e...rless-most-challenging-track-to-write-784872/ This is not the actual video where he says that specifically, he emphasized that in another. I can't find it right now. Also, it's not out there because no-one in their right mind would buy that PC.
Thanks for correcting that Jack_Farrell, I didn't think Bruiser was the gap between Tinfoil and Powerless either. I knew originally that Tinfoil/Powerless was one big song and it was over 6 minutes, and the band kept changing it and it turned into what we have now.