A Thousand Suns: One Year Later Options

[Hahninator]

On September 7th, 2010, Linkin Park's first album since "Minutes To Midnight" in 2007 leaked online. The name? "A Thousand Suns". Officially released one year ago, on September 14, in the US, the album was a huge departure from the band's previous works. Evolving with each album, LP chose to make ATS a huge mixture of electronic sounds, rock elements, ballads and much more. With this one-year anniversary, we say - Happy Birthday, "A Thousand Suns"!

Live, this album is on track to have the shortest touring cycle of any of LP's other albums. Kicking off with a few scattered shows in 2010 before embarking on a world tour that started in South America, the touring cycle for "A Thousand Suns" is slated to end on October 16 this year in Pensacola, FL. It's also the only album Linkin Park has made that has toured North America and Asia ONE time each. Finally, "A Thousand Suns" looks to be the only album so far to not have every song played off of it during the (short?) touring cycle.

'The Requiem', 'Empty Spaces', 'When They Come For Me', 'Jornada Del Muerto', 'Waiting For The End', 'Wisdom, Justice, & Love', 'Iridescent', 'Fallout', and 'The Catalyst' have all pretty much been setlist staples since the beginning of the world tour. 'The Radiance' has undergone the most transformation out of any song live, turning into a new outro for 'Numb' and encompassing a keyboard piece with Mike singing vocals from 'The Catalyst' into his vocoder. 'Wretches & Kings' was played at every show for the first few legs of the world tour (South America, Europe, and Australia), was rotated a bit in North America this year and then was dropped; it hasn't been played since February. 'The Messenger' is about the same, having appeared at just one show (and one LPU Summit) since then. 'Burning In The Skies' and 'Blackout' both made their debuts in Australia in December and have remained in the setlists since then, but are still both pretty rare to catch at a show. Finally, 'Robot Boy' has not been touched in any shape or form and with the touring cycle coming to a close with less than ten shows left, many fans are thinking it won't be played. It will be the first song on a major album by them ("Hybrid Theory", "Meteora", "Minutes To Midnight", and "A Thousand Suns") to have not been played live.

Regardless, "A Thousand Suns" has changed both the musical direction of the band as well as their live shows. Brad and Chester now play drums during certain songs, the full band sings on some songs, Mike has his own permanent keyboard in the middle of the stage, and more.

What do you think about "A Thousand Suns" one year later? Does it still have the same effect when you listen to it now versus when you first heard it? What are your top songs from the album? And how does this album compare to the previous albums by Linkin Park for you? And finally, will 'Robot Boy' ever see the light of day on a stage?

Discuss!

[Exzero]

After one year A Thousand Suns take on the second place on my album ranking, it's a solid not more but that impressed with new ideas and different sounds. That thing it make it better as Hybrid Theory and Meteora. For the rock side it insn't very well, that because it take place as the second best Album. The Best Album is Minutes to Midnight, on that album they prove what they can with instruments, that is still my numberone album.