Top 5 Worst Decisions In LP's career

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

5 minutes ago, wslwins said:

I wonder if the needed for sounding different from HT/Meteora caused that, they were like obsessed on trying to 'reinvent' themselves, one of the reasons i found FZ sound choice ironic lol.

 

Not ironic for me it was like a natural move.. FZ atleast for me it sounds like THP on steroids and with a mix of the sounds from every era it doesnt sound like HT or Meteora.

 

Most of the bands always go back to their roots and for LP it was kinda obvious that they were going to try that after a 7 years hiatus.

[LPLStaff]

THP had a massive time off. The 2015 tour was canceled in North America. The band was off the whole first part of the year, had 8 shows then 5 then 10 and a few one-offs. That's an extremely easy year for them. Mike started writing for OML in 2015 but they took all of 2016 off, partially because Chester was in rehab I'm sure which is why they didn't play a single show all year (very abnormal for them).

 

2017 didn't get going for the full band with shows until really May - 2 years since the start of the THP 2015 stuff. That's an incredibly long time off. And we know from LPTVs over time the full band isn't in the studio all the time - members pop in and out over time and it's Mike doing most of the heavy lifting work. OML is such a short piece of work that they spent an insanely long time on with not that much to show for it as the weakest album in the discography.

 

Brad likely was coming off the road one day eventually anyway with his injuries and insistence on playing shorter tours. Rob probably would have stayed in the band, but he was getting injured too. Think it was only a matter of time before Brad dialed it back and went to a studio-only member of the band.

 

You are right that taking 2017 off could have helped Chester but no one, even his family, knew the severity of what he was going through and it's hard to just pull the plug on plans with a major label and tens of millions of dollars invested in stuff globally for an album. They didn't have a deadline on OML with Warner but they still had a record contract with albums due eventually.

[KeysToTheLinkinPark]

I wrote that some days ago in the shoutbox. The time period between like 2012 and 2017 felt off. They kinda lost their rhythm and did some weird stuff here and there. That whole Recharged time was like wtf is going on only to drop an Alt-Metal record in 2014. That setlist was so bad to be honest. I can probably speak for a lot of us when I say that we love good transitions or interludes in live shows but that was a mess. Creating a live set like a DJ Set didn't work. Those transitions they use in those 2024 shows are miles ahead of what they tried back then lol.

Then the treatment THP got for their live shows was awful as well. Especially when you promote it as an "to be played live" Album big lol. We talked a lot how they probably weren't capeable of playing other songs or more songs off of THP. Either Chester couldn't do it (KTTK) or Brad and Rob getting injured due to playing ALITS (190 BPM pain...) and GATS. I mean, ok they play hundreds of shows but it was kinda sad seeing that downfall... 

[bloodbath]

@KeysToTheLinkinPark The DJ set was the lesser evil during that 2013-2017 era. I still like it, although the timing for it was quite bad, it could have worked during a short in-between albums tour, like 2009, since it gets tiresome having basically the same setlist for a whole year, especially after spoiling us with rotating setlist since 2007. And as you have pointed out, it doesn't make sense while promoting a guitar driven record, which each day it passes it gets clearer that Mike was the only who really liked the album. 

 

The weirdest year for me was 2013, they went from their usual busy year to a half assed tour. Even with the THP era and the 2016 hiatus we know more or less what happened behind scenes. True that they had the Raid Soundtrack, but half a year just for that?? And why did you decided this over touring? 

 

And about the OML era, as @LPLStaff mentioned, one year for half hour of their weakest music... Is disappointing. Mike is a very creative person, but TBH, the period from 2015 to 2017 is a writer's block for me. The OML songs would be C or D sides on the M2M era! 

 

As for Brad and Rob, as cruel it might sound, if they were the reason for playing 90 minutes with the same songs because they were tired or whatever, I'm glad they're no longer in the picture (I would love them to contribute in studio, don't get me wrong!!)