"Session" - Song by Song, Let's Talk Linkin Park

Discussion in 'Linkin Park Chat' started by hawk, Jul 2, 2014.

  1. Paree

    Paree I love my scars!

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    The Live Version is a killer and better than studio version.
     
  2. The Joesen One

    The Joesen One Fun-employed LPA Super Member

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    "Bleed It Out" is a whiplash single that stands as one of their best songs, in my opinion. It's just fun all throughout, with a great guitar riff by Brad. I love how it's simplistic in a way, and Mike's flow being an improvement over his cheesy pre-M2M days. It's fantastic live as well.

    Plus, here's the VMAs performance, with Timbaland looking buffed up than usual. Chester's not great in this performance, though.

    [video=youtube;cvFnaDRAyZg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvFnaDRAyZg[/video]
     
  3. Tyler

    Tyler Well-Known Member

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    So, after waiting forever to get to "Leave Out All The Rest", I ended up missing "Bleed It Out" :crikey:

    LOATR:

    This is an all-around good song, and it's definitely the most different from anything that they had done before MTM. The synth and strings in the beginning are very fresh to hear. Chester's giving one of his best performances here and you can really tell in live shows. The music video to it is really creative too, except Chester doesn't manage to get the emotional level as high here. I still really like the video and the shots with Chester alone.

    "Fear", the demo, is a very good example of how the band was taking a different approach to songwriting on MTM. Mike sings partial lyrics and partial blabber in the verse and gives it more bars of a rap take (almost all ad-libbing). Then the different chorus melody and lyrics are interesting when you consider Chester singing them instead. The different structure to it goes straight to the bridge, but it looks like they kept it with only these three parts for the sake of keeping it short and understood that a final version would have traditional structure.

    Mike's remix? Stellar. The way the electronic chorus enters is really cool and I like it. The only bad thing is that Chester's remixed parts get very repetitive, so I guess repetition is very common for Mike's remixes (*cough*Castle of Glass*cough*)

    In a live setting, it's still really awesome. This has Phoenix playing guitar in the final chorus, with no real bass in the song other than from Mike's keyboard. I don't really see why they can't have Chester playing those eight guitar chords so Phoenix can add another layer to the song. It's good acoustic and in the medley as well.

    Much like how the song segues into Bleed It Out, so does this post :p
    Awesome song, even more awesome every time they do it live. The studio version is solid, and I would really like to hear any of the demo lyrics on the next LPU album. The video is cool, a nice twist to just the normal performance video. NowI that I mention it, I should go rewatch the making-of video with Brad rapping in it.

    Live in concert, there is nothing that they can't do to add to the rock experience. APFMH, RME, BITS, Drum solo, Singalong, Slow-to-Fast, Sabotage, No Roads Left, The Catalyst, Timbaland, Mike Einziger, holy crap. I love it.
     
  4. Atticus

    Atticus Bullets lance the bravest lungs

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    Bleed It Out is one of only a handful of songs I've ever listened to where no matter what the occasion or the current emotion that is running through my head, I know the next 2 and a half minutes are going to be a rip-roaring good time. Chester's barking choruses are incredible, Mike's verses are some of my favourite he's ever written, and the punchy alternative guitar riff engraves itself in your mind.

    Live however, the song becomes a monolithic beast. How the band can take a sub 3-minute song and transform it into a 9-minute epic rock-fest is insane, and the APFMH mashup from the ATS tours is beyond words.

    Bleed It Out is the "shotgun opera" we never knew we wanted, or even knew could possibly exist.
     
  5. TobinKnowsBest

    TobinKnowsBest 20.03.1976 - 20.07.2017 LPA VIP

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    :isee:
     
  6. limonpower

    limonpower Well-Known Member

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    I love Bleed It Out. I find it very impressive that they are able to take a 2 and a half minute song, and make it 7 and a half minutes when they play it live.
     
  7. TheZlajaZlo

    TheZlajaZlo Closing LPA Super Member

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    I think we should move on to With Or Without Y... I mean, Shadow of the Day.
     
  8. Bawa

    Bawa Could wait to see tomorrow.

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    We pulled this thread so far
    We'll make you update this now!
     
  9. minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    I'm working on it - thank-you guys for the encouragement. :p
     
  10. Michele

    Michele Praise Brad Delson, our Lord and Savior. LPA Addict

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    Take the time you need :)
     
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  11. Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    You could exchange a less detailed post in order for an active thread - it'd be prefferable, honestly.
     
  12. minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    You're welcome to use that approach :) but, if I went and did that now, I'd be disappointed in myself.
     
  13. Bawa

    Bawa Could wait to see tomorrow.

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    I'd love to make some basic, scheduled posts, just to get the thread moving xD I love your super-duper-in-depth posts, really interesting stuff, but sadly, it's just taking too long and causing the thread to stagnate D:

    <,< I have nothing to do, if you need someone to run it. Although Filip, you did well that one time! :3
     
  14. minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    Alright! :phone:


    "Shadow Of The Day" is the fifth track on "Minutes To Midnight" and, like the other songs on the album, it is drastically different from the tracks before and/or after it in a variety of ways. The aggressive rock bombast of "Bleed It Out" comes to an abrupt stop and gives way to the soft digital drums and reversed keyboard samples that begin the next song.

    Before the album's release, the band members spoke of the song as being the most difficult one to perfect but also one of the best songs they had ever written. At one stage, the electronic elements in the song were parts played on a variety of other instruments.

    The "Minutes To Midnight" booklet tells us that this ended up not being the case for the final track, and fans of Shinoda's marimba-playing and electric banjo-wizardry were ultimately left disappointed.

    "Shadow Of The Day" begins with a completely electronic beat, steadily evolving throughout its duration until each element is replaced by rock instrumentation and live strings. It is the first song on the album to feature a guitar solo section (or two), as well as the aforementioned live strings which were arranged by David Campbell. The song's lyrics continue to show the album's thematic shifts away from the angsty fare of "Meteora", instead reflecting on change and moving on. While the major key and melodies might shine a positive light on these lyrics, they are really open to interpretation in terms of whether or not their message is actually optimistic. "Shadow Of The Day" is thus another example of possibly-dark lyrics being packaged in a song that doesn't sound immediately dark, much like "Bleed It Out" before it.

    The track ends with a keyboard-driven interlude improvised by Shinoda which is absent from the single/radio edit. Similar improvised keyboard recordings were used as background music on linkinpark.com during the lead-up to "Minutes To Midnight". With the addition of this interlude, "Shadow Of The Day" is the second-longest track on the album, at nearly five minutes in length.

    Many have pointed out the song's resemblance to the well-known U2 song "With Or Without You". Though Linkin Park did cite U2 as a major influence on "Minutes To Midnight", they have, to date, never commented themselves on the similarities in this specific case.

    In late 2007, "Shadow Of The Day" was picked as the third single from "Minutes To Midnight" and a video was written up and directed by band member Joe Hahn. The shoot in Los Angeles (in a 20th Century studio backlot) involved a large set with street art by members of The Seventh Letter. Unlike any other Linkin Park music video before it, the "Shadow Of The Day" video featured no band members other than Chester Bennington, who acts as a protagonist in the video's plot. The decision to do this came from Hahn feeling that the band had done the standard band performance scenes enough times to warrant a break.

    In addition, Hahn minimised the use of the computer-generated visual effects for which Linkin Park's videos had become known, mostly opting to use practical effects instead, including a lot of fire and a good number of explosions. Inspiration for the video's mood and story came from stories of war-torn countries often reported about in the news; Hahn wanted to depict such a "dark environment" in the United States, closer to home. The video has the stylistic touches of a documentary shoot to better immerse viewers in the imagined world, and, at times, the song plays a background role to other sounds reflecting the events being seen on-screen. These choices help the video to feel less clean and sanitised visually, in contrast to Linkin Park's other videos.

    Various region-specific edits of the video exist, some of which drastically change Bennington's character's role from that of a neutral bystander admist the "a modern civil war" happening around him. Some have commented that the riot scenes in the "Shadow Of The Day" video seem to hark back to similar scenes from "From The Inside", another Linkin Park video that depicted violent civil unrest. In 2008, "Shadow Of The Day" won 'Best Rock Video' at the MTV VMAs.

    "Shadow Of The Day" has been played live regularly since its live debut at the beginning of the 2007 Projekt Revolution festival tour. Shinoda plays the string parts on keyboard while Bennington plays rhythm guitar as Delson delivers the lead solos towards the end of the song.


    Beginning in 2012, as Linkin Park began touring to support "Living Things", "Shadow Of The Day" was re-introduced in their live sets as part of a three-song medley alongside "Leave Out All The Rest" and "Iridescent"; it is the only song of the three that has to be transposed (up) in order to work in the arrangement. As the "Shadow Of The Day" portion of the medley begins, Rob Bourdon introduces drum parts from "Iridescent", adding to the sparse instrumentation.

     
  15. BTorio

    BTorio Well-Known Member

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    I thought it was really cool that you mentioned Shadow of the Day has to be transposed up for the medley, I've never thought about that.

    I feel like SOAD is a really good song, when I listen to it I get really into it. Yet, I find myself rarely listening to it at all. It was one of the first tracks that got me into the band though, one of the few in a row I heard and thought "Dang, this sounds nothing like any of the other songs I've heard by them!" So it will always have a special place. I just feel like it could somehow be more interesting, and the electronic drum beat at the beginning always sounds bad on all my speakers for some reason lol.
     
  16. hawk

    hawk because the internet LPA Super VIP

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    i didn't like shadow at first. i don't know why. i think i was in denial that i liked
    softer shit. i really came to appreciate it with the rest of minutes of the midnight
    post a thousand suns.
     
  17. The Joesen One

    The Joesen One Fun-employed LPA Super Member

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    "Shadow of the Day" is a beautiful ballad. It's not my favorite ballad, but it's iconic for being the first genuine soft LP song released as a single. It just sounds a lot like With or Without You.

    Also note: It's one of the band's more successful singles, peaking at #15 at the Billboard Hot 100.
     
  18. Michele

    Michele Praise Brad Delson, our Lord and Savior. LPA Addict

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    Defintly my second favorite LP ballade. Chesters performance is great in it and also Brads "Solo" just fit.

    I am happy , that i could saw the song 2010 in full , just amazing.
     
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  19. polleo

    polleo You're gonna carry that weight. LPA Super Member

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    I never really liked this song much when I first listened to MTM. But the thing is back then, I didn't really pay attention to songs I was listening to much. This went on for a long time and then one day I paid attention to the little details of the song and it blew me away. I think the instrumental in the song is fucking beautiful. One of MTM's high points for me. I agree the intro into the song sounds just like the U2 song but I love it anyways. MTM is such an underrated album. I always get a rush listening to the album. Its such a wholesome experience.
     
  20. Paree

    Paree I love my scars!

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    I thought the first soft LP single was Breaking The Habit.
     

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