mattyice318

My quick thoughts The ending to the catalyst is ridinkydonky. No way to back it up at the moment, but this mix feels a little cleaner than the finished version. Overall not much has changed. 7/10 Can't Hurt Me - Sounds like one of the most "live" instrumentals they've done. Usually these instrumentals have the Shinoda touch, the actual live drums and guitar are a nice change. 8/10 Dark Crystal - Instant rap vibe over this track. Sounds like a throwaway for Pusha T, or even somebody with a deep raspy like Trae Tha Truth. I can't find a feel for this, it doesn't sound like it ever had a place with LP or Fort Minor. I feel like Mike would have to produce this for a different artist for it to have been released in any capacity. 5/10 Air Force One - I'm speechless, not in a necessarily good way, but not bad. Very electronic for the first 40 seconds until guitar comes in and it gains an actual LP feel. Short, if you're into this music you'll love it. If not, you'll end up on the other end of the spectrum 5.5/10 Bleed it Out - WOWWWWWWWWW. Better than I thought it would be, and I built it up high in my head. Love the new lyrics, I've always been a fan of a prime Shinoda rap, and his relationship subjects have always been great (cemented behind his urban decay phase) 11/10 Consequence A & B - Best instrumentals besides Can't Hurt Me so far. Feels more like a Living Things seed than an ATS. Heavily electronic, like most so far. 7/10 Lies Greed Misery - written for Donna, that is all. 4/10 Burberry - They've released this before in some capacity. 6/10 still good Symphonies of Light - Acoustic rendition of the Catalyst. Mellow, beautiful, too short. 8/10 At the end of the day, everybody should realize that they don't have to do this. No matter how bad or how great you think the songs are, they don't have to do this for the fans every year. We should always be grateful of what amazing songs/demos/instrumentals they've released in the past, what they've released today, and what they will in the future. Thx LP for another great LPU!

They emailed me my receipt. I clicked the link to my web receipt from the email. There they had everything listed, the digital download was at the bottom. I downloaded it from there, a zip to my computer

Does anybody have an estimated release for LPU? Looking at the past four release dates, they've all been right around this time

Just wanna say that his graduation speech is on youtube, and it's hilarious. I had never heard of it before, and it's a very nice speech from Big Bad Brad. If anybody has about 15 minutes of freedom, you should check it out

I've been trying to think about why they released this song, and I might have a reason. I think lately they've been releasing a lot of old old songs. (GRR, Hurry, Pods). We haven't been used to this stuff because they usually have recent era songs/demos. I think somewhere down the line, in the past couple years, they released a demo and ended up wanting to use it for a seed in a potential song after. It would make sense why we're getting 15 year old demos or close to finished songs with vocals that they know they'll never use. Grudgematch was stagelight with Mike throwaways, Animals and Basil were both throwaway Mike verses as far as I'm concerned, Chance of Rain was basically taken as far as it would ever be, and the rest have been pre 2000 instrumentals. You look back on the previous years and the one thing most of them have that 15 doesn't have is anything in between songs taken as far as they can go and 15+ year old demos. I honestly think they started being more selective on what makes it on the album, and opening up more seeds to possibly being reworked for final songs on future albums. Or it's just a conspiracy theory and they needed a 30 second instrumental to balance out all the vocals this year

I'm not disappointed in the song, I just wish it was fleshed out (which it probably was at some point.) After seeing these throwaway demos, you'd come to the conclusion that they're just running out of content that they want to hold on because they might use it in the future. On the other hand, we've heard so many things like "they had a full album before Meteora that was scrapped" and "100 demos for minutes to midnight" that were whittled down. At the end of the day, I don't know what to believe, but the trend has been a little worse quality in LPU albums from year to year since 2009. I feel like releasing one long demo as 3 tracks, with two sub minute tracks is tough to swallow for those like myself who purchased the CD. I don't mean to complain though, I'm still appreciative that they go out of their way to give us this music every year. The alternative is no music, and they've released more than their share over the years IMO

I wouldn't doubt that, and Elizondo also seems like a functional guy.

That's a cool post, I saw it on hiphopheads when it was posted..but I missed the song Make Sure. Thanks for that! Just in awe that Lupe was not only able to have so much material ready to go at a moments notice, but so much great material. Maybe it's because I heard the retail version first, but I think the tracks he took out were not as strong as the ones he added in. That said, the whole catalog is an instant classic in hop hop. I'm so happy he got back on track with Tetsuo and Youth, and it seems that DROGAS is coming very soon too

This week I just read the instrumental "did you know". I wish I would have looked into this. The Instrumental is a highlight song off of Food & Liquor, which is considered by many to be Lupe Fiasco's best album. Did Mike reuse part of this beat for Carry Me Away by Cypress Hill? Music video was absolutely not worth the wait though

I really do like Aesop Rock, but Lice wasn't a great project. For some reason I like the original track, but the mixing was pretty terrible. This is a better version of the original song and I think I'm the first person to like it.

My take on these songs is that just because it has a specific year next to the demo, it doesn't mean that it can fit or can't fit with the MTM timeline. Chance of Rain could have started in 2006. Maybe they got farther with it into 2007 but added parts to it that they ended up keeping on an actual track to a later album like ATS/LT. I keep forgetting that Pretend to Be isn't considered a song of the 18 total, because it sounds so much like other tracks around that era. Maybe they picked it back up for the new album.

Chance of Rain is the best song from an LPU album since So Far Away on LPU12 Does anybody have an idea why they decided to release songs year round?

I like having the physical copy. It would make more s ense for me to buy the $10 access to meet and greets, then another 10 for the physical CD. It would have been cheaper hypothetically than the $40 bundle

That's lame. You can still buy the standalone CD from the last two LPU albums, I don't see why they'd change it.

Can you buy the physical CD by itself, after buying the $10 Digital Membership?

I think saying that he wanted to leave isn't the right word. I don't think Chester wanted to leave STP. It was a tough decision, and it was his own decision - but I don't believe would ever "want" to choose between any of those three things. It was just too time intensive for him, people have burnt out on a lot less.

It's a shame he couldn't do it all but I can't believe he juggled all of that for as long as he did. 2 bands and a huge family has to be incredibly difficult, even if he loves STP. Good for him to make a decision before it burnt him out. I'm sure it's not the end of Chester and STP though, I can see him playing random shows every once in a while when he has downtime. I just wish I could have seen them live, I seem to regret that more and more.

I think I'm the only one who really enjoys this song. It definitely has an outdated feel, but it's a nice mellow track with a chill vibe. I love anything Mike put out in that 5 year span around 2000. That raw demo voice is one of my favorites, classic Mike cadence.

Oopsies Mike caught himself on that hunger/tension line

I guess so. I just think it has to be somewhat impressive if they played it live

Great post, love learning a few new things about unreleased songs. I never knew Pictureboard almost made the cut from LPU 9. That said, everybody is right in saying it's basically Linkin Parks' Detox by now. The longer it stays unreleased the more it gets hyped. I was going to say how much the last 2 LPU's have lacked in comparison to 9,10,11, etc. But when you think about it, they don't have to release anything for us. How many bands release demos and unreleased songs and instrumentals? And of the ones that do, I'm sure not many do a yearly release in a full CD form.

I wasn't in the pit, but I had full view of it. Papercut started crazy but Chester asked to get a pit going during Rebellion and people for the most part hadn't heard it before. Of course it slowed down because the setlist slowed down, but from a energy perspective given from the crowd it got better as the night went on.

Where's the download for Somerset 2004 btw? Can't seem to find it

Crowd started slow (Chester asked to get the pit going and nobody moved an inch), but then got amped up by the third song. Fort Minor got a lot of love in the crowd. Mike said they'd love to be back soon, that got huge applause too.

So pumped to be at this show! I've always thought the Wisconsin shows have been really random. The Annex is tiny (Actually go there every week for trivia) and Kitt's Korner was on the outskirts of Cross Plains, a town that at the time had a single intersection with a traffic light. (Which is actually about 5-10 minutes away from Mazomaine where Holly Brook is from). I would give anything to see them live back then.