"Burning It Down:" An Alternate Linkin Park TL

OOC: This TL takes place after the release of Meteora.

Minutes to Midnight
Release Date: 4-1-2005
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

While Linkin Park's big hits "Breaking the Habit" and "In the End" still garner radio play on popular rock stations, the band has decided to tread familiar territory and not rock the boat with their fans. Hardcore fans get a good serving of the band's typical pop-metal overlaid with rap offerings--a formula that has remained unchanged since Hybrid Theory. It appears that the Theory has become a Law to the band, as they care as careful as they were in Meteora not stray differ from the formula. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the album's second single "What I've Done." The song has some good pop hooks and ends in a 30 second cursing tirade by Chester Bennington--a surprising break from a band that has avoided a Parental Advisory label. Some critics view "What I've Done," "Bleed It Out" and other songs on the album as proof that the aging Linkin Park's angst sounds a little forced. Well, they are a little late as the band was already struggling with their angsty persona since Meteora. However, they pull it off with this album and will likely get a few more hits stuck on playlist on many popular rock stations for some time.

A Thousand Suns
Release Date 7-19-2008
Rating 1.5 out of 5 stars

When Minutes to Midnight went four times platinum, Linkin Park relearned what their experience with Meteora taught them: keep remaking Hybrid Theory and you will get the same four million fanboys to buy the album and go to the concerts.So, it should not surprise anyone that A Thousand Suns is just like the band's three previous offerings in several ways: No song goes over four minutes, there are 12 tracks on the album, the eleventh track is an instrumental, and all the songs combine whining, rapping, and electric guitars. It is no longer a Hybrid Theory, it's The Hybrid Rulebook. Linkin Park fanboys will eat up many of its offerings. In "Robot Boy" Bennington whines about being misunderstood while Shinoda raps about having the strength to overcome. "When They Come For Me" is simply about a high school age kid, presumably Bennington back in the day, that fears getting picked on. The ballad "Waiting For the End" is yet another song about overcoming the pain of a breakup. Some of the band's more observant fans may notice that the lyrics on other offerings on the album have shown an "evolution" in the band's staple of whining-about-overcoming-some-sort-of-pain lyrics. "Black Out" is about a night where Shinoda drank too much and gets "unlucky" because "luck's run out when you black out." "Empty Spaces" is at best an allegory about a girl that the protagonist "wants to nail" until he finds out that his date's bra is stuffed. "Wretches and Kings" is the most rap-heavy song on the album, a throwback to Meteora, where Shinoda compares his own band favorably in light of the "wretches," or every other rock band he views as substandard. Being that a whole verse of the song is dedicated to bashing Nickleback, it appears Linkin Park is looking to stay relevant by creating some pseudo-controversy. So, perhaps Linkin Park's lyrics did not quite evolve or mature, but rather devolved into immaturity. However, being that their music barely sounds any different than any of their three previous albums and many of their hits are still in regular rotation on rock stations, there is no reason to believe that Linkin Park's fans won't be satisfied even though anyone with half a brain will realize the band has nothing new to offer.
 
Living Things
Release Date 10-02-2010
Rating 2 out of 5 stars

When A Thousand Suns failed to go double platinum, Linkin Park knew it was time to make a big change--so they jumped onto the pop-music bandwagon. Linkin' Park enters the teens with their most star-studded release since 2004's Collision Course. On the most part, the 2000's Nu-Metal juggernaut tries to update their sound with ill-advised trend hopping. Their Pop-Rock release opens with the familiar "Lost in the Echo", a response to their summer 2010 single "Burn It Down" (featuring Skrillex) which represented a huge departure in their sound. Chester Bennington's familiar yells and Mike Shinoda's yell - rapping makes the listener feel like he is embarking on another Hybrid Theory until the track leads to the album's single "Lies Greed Misery" which leaves the angst at the door for needless bragging instead. Both Bennington and Pitbull brag about having "money, houses, cars, and porn stars" leaving long time fans alienated. Many other songs on the album, where they did not feel like paying Pitbull, simply featured Shinoda doing his best Pitbull impression. Hardcore fans will likely accuse the band of being sellouts because of songs like "I'll Be Gone" leaves a liberally pitch-corrected Bennington singing a duet with guest vocalist Alicia Keys about how what sounds like a one-night stand is actually leading to true love. "Tinfoil" is probably the best representation of the album's new sound, with autotuned Bennington singing two verses while Mike Shinoda steps in to rap a line Pitbull-style bashing Nickleback for being posers. Throw-away ballads "Until It Breaks" and "Castle of Glass" lead to angsty dub - step track "Roads Untraveled", which combines the worst of the nu-metal fad with the worst of the bro-step fad. The album closes with the highly derivitive "Powerless", which sounds a lot like "Numb" but without any conviction.

It was fine to go out with the old and in with the new, and not keep re recording Hybrid Theory, but instead of staying fresh in the rock or even pop scene, it sounds like they are hopeless trend hoppers, thus finally showing their age.
 
Last one in the timeline

The Hunting Party
Release Date 5-24-2014
Rating 3.5 out of 5 stars

Linkin Park needed a lot of time to reconsider their direction as a band after Living Things flopped, just barely missing Platinum certification. Bringing in pop-music's big names and changing their sound to suit the taste of the day could not cover up the fact that they have abandoned their roots. They became big for putting into practice the "Hybrid Theory" in a way that other bands, such as Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit, couldn't quite pull off. However, when their teen-like angst wore off, it just wasn't quite the same.

It seems the band's hiatus has done them much good. For one, Bennington's stand in for William Duvall, who left Alice in Chains to be the new frontman for Velvet Revolver, appeared to help him hone his craft with rock-legend Jerry Cantrell. Shinoda and Joe Hahn used their time to make one of this decade's most interesting concept albums, "A Line in the Sand." Including guest vocalist Geoff Tate, it proved to be a highly electronic-alt rock offering about a Korean drafted into Manchuko's military, forced to survive throughout World War II.

The creative juices got flowing again and between 2013-2014 when The Hunting Party took shape. Their solo-experiences obviously shaped the new album. A re-recorded "A Line in the Sand" ends the album, while Jerry Cantrell shares writing credits in "Until it's Gone." The album's singles "Guilty All the Same," "Mark the Graves,' and "Final Masquerade" come across angsty, but genuine in a way that the band's mainstay fans should appreciate.

"Guilty All the Same" vents the band's frustration with the fact that they had the opportunity to lead rock into a new decade, only to watch the genre die and watch the Beatles lead the 2000s in sales and Eminem and rap take over for good. "Mark the Graves" is a cunning satire of several Nickleback songs, obviously criticizing them for their shallow lyrics and lack of imagination. "Final Masquerade" is about a Willy-Loman type whose lie of a life permanently destroys the trust of his son--and it awfully reads a lot like an allegory of how the band let down their fans. Linkin Park has appeared to mature and fully come into their own. Perhaps The Hunting Party has made it to the scene too late and out of season, but there are still fans who will appreciate that Linkin Park has finally got it right.
 
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