The song that really was the game changer

[vinifeijo]

Chronologically speaking, starting on XERO day-one... song by song.

Which one was the song that you feel like REALLY was a game changer? In overall quality, production and writing development over the former ones.

For me, it's the first Crawling Demo on the 9-track. It stands out SO MUCH over everything else they did at that point. I mean, i love many other older LP/HT/XERO songs... but they feel simpler, like something is missing.

Maybe this latest Stick N' Move version with Chester was the one song with the greatest sound changing, but it didn't went far and was cut off.

Which one is THE SONG THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING (sonically speaking)?

[leftshoe18]

In The End

 

It was a perfect blend of everything Linkin Park was at the time and would become over time. It's not my favorite song of theirs but it was definitely the most important song they ever wrote as far as their careers go.

[JZLP-NaughtyNottingham]

After listening to the demos of HT20

 

When they created Esaul I'm pretty sure that they knew that they could be huge. 

 

There's a huge gap from the 4track demo to Esaul w Mark. 

[hahninator]

This is a hell of a question. I really like the question a lot.

 

I listen to the 9 track demo more than any other demo that the band has. Either Untitled or Crawling. The band knew Untitled was next level... Crawling though sounds so different and unique to anything they had ever written at that point. I've posted about this before, but the 12 months after Chester joined the band might have spurned their most impressive music in their career. A Thousand Suns and Minutes to Midnight are both really impressive to me. ATS could be the most creative for sure.

 

But this 9 track demo is really wild. In the span of a year~ (we have them going in with Don in April or May 2000 I guess), they did the HTEP and all of these full band demos, but wrote all of this epic new music. Crawling, Untitled, Papercut, One Step Closer, Points, Super Xero, With You. Game changer songs, I mean just top of the top. Stuff like Rhinestone and Esaul existed since the Xero days, Pushing Me Away came much later when recording HT with Don, etc.

 

What they did at the end of 1999 and start of 2000 is really nuts to me. Some of the biggest songs of the past 20 years in music were written so quickly. Imagine having just the bombshell trio of Untitled, Crawling, and Plaster all written around the same time. So, so good. Crawling might be the most unique thing they wrote in that entire time period, though. To the point where they replicated the intro samples more times in their career (Numb, New Divide, Until It's Gone).

[PictureboardSoldier]

OSC because it was the first single for actual Linkin Park, not Xero or Hybrid Theory which aren’t really ‘’Linkin Park’’ at all. 

[JZLP-NaughtyNottingham]

Question for @hahninator

Why the band never worked w Don again? 

 

Don really helped them to create some of their best songs

 

In Meteora you have Numb and Faint songs that people still love to this day

 

I know that they wanted to walk away from the nu metal sound but Don is a very versatile producer 

 

One last album w Don could have been good. 

[Somebodyangry]

7 minutes ago, JZLP-AmendsUltimateFan said:

Question for @hahninator

Why the band never worked w Don again? 

 

Don really helped them to create some of their best songs

 

In Meteora you have Numb and Faint songs that people still love to this day

 

I know that they wanted to walk away from the nu metal sound but Don is a very versatile producer 

 

One last album w Don could have been good. 

I think they wanted a producer outside the numetal scene, Rubin worked with U2 and many other  different artists (even Slipknot) and they probably thought that another record with Gilmore would have definitely cathegorized them as a numetal band forever like Korn or LB, IMO.