For months, we'd been destroying and rebuilding our band. The experiments that resulted filled the studio hard drive with diverse, abstract sounds, amorphous echoes, cacophonous samples, and handmade staccato merged into wandering elusive melody, each track felt like a hallucination.
We didn't know if any of those unorthodox ideas could be incorporated into a traditional album, but we knew we didn't want our next album to be predictable. Sitting together in the same studio where we made our first record, all six of us voiced a commitment to going out on a limb, to making something truly daring. We asked ourselves: were we all earnestly willing, more than ever before, to abandon the precepts of commercial ambition in pursuit of what we believe to be honest art?
The inclination to begin writing conventional songs for a conventional album came and went, the temptation to adjust our creat vision to fulfill expectations beyond our studio walls yielded to the audacious ambition of what we hoped to achieve as a band. The two years of making A Thousand Suns marked our exhilarating, surrealistic, and often challenging journey into the creative unknown.
One the eve of its completion, this body of work, assembled through unconscious inspiration and unmitigated exertion, has revealed to us notions both stirring and surprising. The imagery personified herein is neither dogma nor political premeditation, the emergent themes and metaphors illuminate a uniquely human story.
Oppenheimer's words resonate today not only for their historical significance, but for their emotional gravity. So, too, A Thousand Suns grapples with the personal cycle of pride, destruction, and regret. In life, like in dreams, this sequence is not always linear. And, sometimes, true remorse penetrates the devastating cycle. The hope, of course, springs from the notion that the possibility of change is born in our most harrowing moments."
I want to start with talking about the "sound" of Linkin Park. A lot of fans have expressed their dislike for the "new" Linkin Park music because it is not the same. That old teen angst, Rock + Rap, sound is gone. Replacing it is a lot of socio-political jargon. On Minutes to Midnight there were a few very political songs, some even going just shy of calling President Bush out on a few things. The music from that album still had a Rock feel, but not as intense as previous albums. On this new album there are some songs that feel Pop like, maybe even Pop-Rock. On top of that are some experimental sounds, as they suggest, that come together with weird language.
Here there is something different. There are still a lot of political undertones, but it seems from reading the quote above that the mission was to talk about human things. I want to bring in Foucault who I think it was that talked about power being the master of language (I might be wrong, I can't seem to find my notes from this, but only remember what Monica has repeated a few times). In that case it makes sense that when talking about humanity one finds themselves leaving traces of politics and government, the source of power. Its interesting trying to decipher the lyrics to this new album where there are songs that bleed into each other. Famous quotes from Oppenhiemer, Savio, and King that occupy whole songs or parts of songs. On the LP the text is presented in surrealistic and unclear ways. Layers upon layers on top of each other. Animations going on in the background. Mirrored text on top of regular text. Awkward spacing and repetition. Ink blots and shadowing that interferes with a conventional reading of the lyrics. That is okay because the lyrics are easier to understand from just listening to the music now that Chester's voice has become less scream-o and intense.
I would definitely say that this band has grown in the way they suggest. Exploring new sound and new vocalizations, trying to fully tie together language and music into an art form.
It's also ironic that their "call-to-fame" single for this album is the theme song to Call of Duty: Black Ops. Catalyst (the single) is a song about the mistakes of our past and repeating them. Call of Duty is a first person shooter game about the war in the Middle East, which had the ability to play as a Taliban agent taken out because people didn't like that you could kill "Americans" in the game. It's very interesting the ties that Linkin Park has made: trying to be "struggling" artists against a corporate industry, while their music appears in things like Transformers (1 & 2) and CoD. And that's not even getting into the trippy nature that their music videos have begun to delve into:
"New Divide" - LINKIN PARK from Linkin Park on Vimeo.
On "New Divide" notice the random cut scenes not from Transformers 2?
I am going to briefly comment on your post and attempt not to rant on about Linkin Park and or other artists who are tampering with experimental, less conformed, areas of music. First of I would like to say that this post is great and I agree tenfold that Linkin Park has changed so much and continues to surprise fans with new venues of sound. About a month ago I found myself arguing with a friend of mine about this band and their latest album "A Thousand Suns" and how it strays so far from what Linkin Park had done in "Minutes to Minute" and even further from "Hybrid Theory". The argument was on how bands should stay consistent and not completely alter their sound. At first I was reluctant to agree with the person until I downloaded their new album and listen to it once or twice. So I call the person whom I was discussing this subject with and completely changed my opinion based on what I had learned upon researching the reason(s) why Linkin Park decided to take their band to a new sound. This is where the argument started but I will spare the details and say that it ended with the two of us agreeing that when a band decides to change their sound because they feel like they would like to try something new then they have every right to because it is their band, they started it, and no one including the fans can really have a say in where they choose to go next with their sound. This brings me to an interesting topic of how the music industry is rapidly changing alongside other multimedia & entertainment industries and many long time fans are both scared and angry with the decisions their favorite bands are making.
ReplyDeleteBands like Linkin Park have come a long way and have grown with the world around them, especially when it comes to the world of politics and the governing forces around them. Linkin Park has managed, in the last two albums including the newest, to bring on a political voice in their music that doesn't feel to contrived or like other bands who just hate the government IE: Avenged Sevenfold. Bands like John Butler Trio and Disturbed and Linkin Park have taken up the roles that bands like Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine and SoundGarden once occupied. A time where music had power and a voice in the world and could speak up for those whom were unheard and could "bite back" at the government for a chance of rebellion or change. These bands have all experimented with the idea that music as sound and language as words and voice can be as one and with it be powerful.
Linkin Park is a perfect example of a band that doesn't care that some fans may hate where they have taken the band, and doesn't care that the sound isn't for everyone. They have reformed their style like an artists does as they grow older. Pablo Piccaso didn't start by drawing cubist faces and Von Gogh didn't start his career by drawing surreal landscapes where color's become sounds and explode over a canvas. No. They started with the basics and hone their talent until they found new ways to experiment with their art form and with it gave us masterpieces like Starry Night and Guernica.
Bands, musicians, have so many different instruments and tools at their disposal now. So many new avenues for creating music and experimenting with it. Bands like Linkin Park belong in a category for music that refuses to conform, music that strives to be something more than music, music that defies what the Grammy's expects every year.
Nick