Kilmer

While still not groundbreaking news, I think this is a new step in the journey. All prior interviews were just saying they wanted to keep making music, but in this one he says that "Now the band has started talking about making new music together." The new info sounds more active than the previous ones.

I'm still in vacations and my mind wandered to the concept of different levels of Linkin Park fans, each one with a new layer of knowledge. Of course there are subdivisions for each of these 5 levels and they may often mix, but this was made for fun, with the support of years following the band and observing the fandom, so please don't overthink, just sit back and enjoy. The casual listener: the one who only knows singles. If the song has an official video, it's very likely that he knows how to sing the chorus. Yeah, he's gonna frown in confusion when Mike delivers Wretches & Kings + Skin to Bone + Hands Held High verse 1, but hey, nevermind, now they're playing Numb and he's totally happy. This is the guy shouting "Crawling" through the whole show. The fan: the one who listened to the studio albums. He's very dedicated(pun intended) to his duty and has also watched lots of live performances on Youtube. He wishes they would play Powerless live and open with Don't Stay(Gacela intro) again. He went nuts when they added A Line in the Sand to the setlist. This is the guy shouting "A Place For My Head" through the whole show. The hardcore fan: the one who knows the B-sides. He shed tears with the Not Alone video, failed to rap Reading My Eyes and listened to My December last month. He swears there is someone out there who owns a tape with a live version of Carousel. This is the guy shouting "No Roads Left" through the whole show. The fanatic: the one who knows the LPU tracks. He religiously supports that Primo is better than I'll Be Gone and he would kill to get all those instrumental Meteora demos with finished vocal lines. He also had fun watching each "Making Of" of the albums. This is the guy who's tired of setlists made of singles and wishes they would play Across the Line or Slip. The worshipper: the one who knows the leaked songs and lots of underground information. He was soothed by She Couldn't and bounced his head to Fiends. He unlocked the easter eggs in Frat Party at the Pancake Festival and he knows Unicorns and Lollipops. Every atom of his body screams "Pictureboard" and every night he dreams about its famous forbidden sample. This is the guy who disappears for months because he's been trying to find a recording of the Relative Degree show. Well, I hope you liked it, feel free to comment and expand upon the idea.

I guess it's more of a logic disagreement than a favourite album war, cause I honestly can't choose a favourite one. I just don't think those 3 songs are as heavy as War, Mark the Graves, Rebellion or A Line in the Sand. Maybe No More Sorrow could kinda fit on the same level, but Given Up only gets quite heavy in the bridge and QWERTY is basically a new metal song. Of course it has lots of screaming and it's a classic loved by everyone but to my ears new metal songwriting is not as heavy as more complex drumming and heavy metal-ish guitar solos, no matter how many times you layer the guitars to make it sound fuller. And I actually prefer albums with less songs, ATS is alright only because 6 of the 15 tracks are intros and interludes. Supposing they released THP with the 10 other tracks(no Drawbar and The Summoning) it would still be outmatched in total time only by ATS and MTM, so the amount of tracks is unimportant when you have longer ones. But I agree UIG sounds a lot like Living Things because it has that electronic rock feeling, it's like Living Things with a slightly trickier guitar riff and a little solo.

Well, of course it wasn't as heavy as many other things, they would have to write death or black metal songs to get to that place, but it was the heaviest and rawest ever for Linkin Park as a collection of songs. I believe you're overthinking The Summoning and Drawbar, they probably wouldn't replace them with full songs anyway. The fact is that THP has lots of songs that are longer than the average LP radio hit so it makes up for these short tracks in terms of the album length. Intros and interludes aside, there are more full songs in THP than in ATS. I'd call TTM and NCSM alt/electronic rock, it's nothing they haven't done before except maybe for the clapping sounds. It's the mixing that gives it a pop feeling, turn the guitar volume up and more than half of OML fits into Living Things. Sharp Edges is their folkiest song though, it's very reminiscent of Three Band Terror and Devil's Drop, that folky vibe to where Living Things almost went but they intentionally avoided.

The Hunting Party was the heaviest Linkin Park could have done without entering metal or metalcore territory, it works as a great heavy rock album with some alternative metal songs in it. Now I think it's a total waste of time trying to stick one single genre on an album that has songs like Waiting For The End, The Messenger, Burning In The Skies, When They Come For Me, etc all in one album. There is no genre to ATS, it's purposely done to sound like a genre orgy. And even if some albums are "not rock albums", all of them have rock songs, even OML with Nobody Can Save Me and Talking To Myself.

People tend to have a huge problem with expectations. They make their minds about what they wanna listen to or how the song "should be" by just reading the title, and then when it turns out to be different they say it's bad because they were expecting something else. That's not the artist's fault, it's all yours. We should just take the music as it is and appreciate what was made, instead of projecting our own wacky fantasies and hoping they are right. That's the exact reason why musicians go on with their bands even after a fellow member quits or dies. The band name has a weight of its own, it carries a concept and it's easily recognizable. Also, it's a brand, and if you strengthen that brand enough, like Linkin Park did, you'll get much more radio play and media than one member doing solo.

There's no evidence that Mike's role increased or Chester's decreased from MTM onwards. The actual quote says that Mike already worked like a producer within the band in previous albums, but Rick Rubin was the first one to point it out to him, and thus shared the credits. There are songs from MTM and after that we know to be autobiographical by Chester(Given Up, Valentine's Day, In Pieces, The Messenger, Heavy, Halfway Right); we also know Blackout and Keys To The Kingdom came from him freestyling the vocals, and we saw various LPTV videos where he appears discussing lyrics(The Catalyst, Burn It Down, A Light That Never Comes, just to mention a few). The Hunting Party was the only album where he said he was not that much in the studio, but that was because of STP, and even then he brought KTTK's chorus, War's guitar riffs and probably more.

This guy's always such a whiny brat, even the HT dinosaurs are more rational.

Oh come on, so much whining, he clearly said they changed the song after Linkin Park discarded it. It's safe to assume it would have the same vibe and production the others had if they chose it for the album.

This is great, I guess I prefer the song this way, even the keyboard sound in the last chorus is good. Only the mix is lacking of course. I really don't care about the source, we had an In The End demo online before they put it on the LPU cd, the Crawling one was never officially released and it's out there. There's also She Couldn't, the list goes on.

My biggest love for this album is that every song is so great to sing along to, the work on the melodies was really great. And even if they went for a poppier sound, the lyrics still have substance and meaning, they're not talking about being rich or getting hoes(except for Stormzy )

I actually agree with him, and not only for games but for geek culture in general. Just look at the amount of AMVs on Youtube with Linkin Park as soundtrack, and there was also Transformers to help create that bridge between the band and geeks

Figure.09 would be awesome, it almost had verses sung by Chester, I hope they still have that. How do you know about the alternate ending in Coffee and another chorus in Song Q?

I love to hear demos that didn't make the album cause it gets us deeper into the writing process, always so cool. Unless it's a really rare live song like HTF, ETR, VD, IP, etc., all the other ones are easily found on Youtube in good quality, but a piece of music by them never heard before? That's dope. Hope they take time to heal and release something.

This will be great to listen. Doesn't the Live in Madrid count as a live release?