blackout

Never! I don't even smoke cigarettes.

I'm attending! My second Linkin Park show. The previous one was 13 years ago, in Warsaw, 2012. Different Linkin Park but the same excitement as 13 years ago. I can't wait to hear all these beautiful songs live! The only problem is that Linkin Park set starts at midnight. I expected something like 10PM, but of course will wait for them no matter the hour. I'm having my own concert tomorrow - I will come back home around 3AM, I guess... so that's not the best scenario I could imagine, but whatever... what can I do?

Thank you for all these videos @JZLP-Benningstrong! Crazy discoveries. I was sure that "Faint" sample is original - meaning that it was taken from the orchestra studio recording sessions for "Meteora". Very interesting

What a great performance! It was awesome to watch it. Great crossover between my two passions too. I prefer the old line-up of the band but I am really grateful that Linkin Park is back and we can experience moments like this. Such a show was out of a question just a year ago and here we are today!

I am not sure if it's Teddy Swims on the left because at 1:29 we can hear Emily's laugh. So... either both Emily and Teddy were working together in the studio at that time or it's not him.

I've just listened to Let You Fade a few times. What a great track! I don't know, maybe it's just because it's fresh, but it might be one of the best songs from From Zero era. It feels that it has much more soul than some other tracks from the album. The lyrics seem honest and they definitely come from a much more sincere place than some of the lyrics from the album. I don't want to speculate on whether the song is about Chester. I think it might be, at least partially, but perhaps it's more about the transition from the old era of the band to the new one than specifically only about Chester. Musically it's very interesting. It sounds like it could be on a hypotehtical 2023 Mike's solo album that would also include Already Over. Similar vibe! And that's why I probably like Let You Fade so much because I like Already Over very much too. I think it's something new for the band but also very Linkin Parkish at the same time. The guitars sound great. The drums have an intriguing garage/grungy sound, like from a Meteora demo. In general - a very good song!

I've been to Open'er two times and honestly, they've never had many proshots available. I was on Open'er in 2022, when Twenty One Pilots were the headliner, and they didn't even publish a single video from their performance. Sometimes they publish one song from a concert, but that's not always the case. However, this year supposedly they have an official partnership with the Polish national TV so it might be different this time round.

I'm attending Open'er too! I hope they'll play the full set, but wouldn't count on that.

Is it possible that they'll play longer sets on other festivals or it's probably this 90-minute set on every festival? I know that nobody really knows, I'm just wondering. I'm going to the festival in July and LP is the headliner. 90 minutes is fine, of course, but the longer, the better, obviously 😅I hope we'll get some rotation spots in festival setlists too because I'd like some surprises.

It seems that they had a lot of fun creating Casualty. You can sense the party atmosphere when they were making the first demo of the song. So cool to observe!

It seems that Over Each Other was an OML demo and that's why Jon Green is credited for this song. At the beginning of this LPTV video they say "it's still the same" so I guess it was being worked on during OML sessions because they already know the song. It sounds like Dave and Joe certainly heard this song way earlier than December 2022. Same with Brad at the end of the video. This makes me think that maybe even Chester heard Over Each Other in this demo version, interesting... Probably there's no version with Chester vocals - Mike sang on a lot of demos first and then Chester recorded his vocals after picking the right songs. I am wondering why they blurred parts of Joe's notes in the video. There's something about "live setting" there, I suppose? Were they thinking about live shows back in 2022 already? Intriguing. Something doesn't add up here because they said that at first they were just hanging out without thinking about working on a specific serious project. Maybe it was just a thought while working on one of the songs. I'd love to hear Mike's demo versions of songs from FZ. They sound great! Emily's voice is awesome, don't get me wrong, but Mike's demos give more classic LP vibes. I also agree with @demoncarnotaur - the final version seems slightly overproduced - in the demo version we can hear some more raw instruments. Brad joined very late in the process, it seems. Probably only a few months before the release of the album. In this part with Brad talking, Over Each Other sounds almost the same as on the album.

Certainly... I'm so disappointed that we haven't got a song about Chester at all. Honestly, I expected something like Black Gives Way to Blue from Alice In Chains comeback album. But to be fair, we shouldn't expect specific subjects from the band. When you are a songwriter, certain topics just don't come easily to you, and you need some inspiration to write a song about a specific subject.

You've made a few good points, for sure. I especially agree with TEM - I think it's one of the songs from FZ era with the best lyrics and after listening to this song first, I had high hopes for the rest of the album in terms of lyrics. I also agree with the part about Emily singing lyrics personal to Mike or the rest of the band's old line-up. I haven't thought about it, but it's definitely true. However, let's not forget that Mike has a lot of vocal parts on the album too. The argument that the band is now a bunch of new friends is a cheap excuse, in my opinion. They wrote some stuff together later in the process, but the album started with Mike, Joe and Phoenix working on stuff first. They all have known each other for a long time and worked on numerous projects together. Same with Brad, who joined later. I just simply can't believe that intelligent musicians and songwriters like Mike or Brad don't have anything else to say other than what we've got on From Zero, especially after what the band has gone through in the recent years. Maybe it was intentional, as you're saying. The album definitely works as a little "fireball", as Mike described it, so perhaps that was the intention more than putting out a lot of personal stuff, which would definitely make people focus more on the lyrical content than the energy of the music. From Zero is also definitely intended to be a "fresh start" thing, so maybe that's why they didn't want to dwell on the dark past too much. Honestly, stuff like that is also usually just a matter of preference. I have always liked personal lyrics (usually dark and emotional) the most so it's natural for me to look for this type of songwriting, which is mostly not present on From Zero. The album is also the first Linkin Park album released after I graduated from high school. I have a bit different perspective on the world now and even though some lyrics songs from the past albums are vague too, I look at them from a nostalgic point of view. That's why I don't really care that much about them, enjoying songs from previous albums as they are because I have a deeper emotional connection with them - more memories from my teenage years and childhood.

Exactly! What I love the most about LP is the combination of Mike's production and Chester's voice. There's definitely something special in Chester's voice that made me drawn to the band's songs too. Every time we got a new LP album, one of the things I had waited for the most was some new melodies sung by Chester. Awesome, thank you! I think that the lyrics on FZ are really bland and uninspired. The melodies are catchy, don't get me wrong, but the lyrics (with a few exceptions) seem to be stereotypically Linkin-parkish. Mike went from writing songs about his kids on OML or writing some dark stuff on PT to making Emily yell "from now on I don't need ya" or "stop yelling at me! I can't hear myself think". In almost every rap verse (apart from GTG which is probably the best written song on the album), he talks about being betrayed, ignored and lied to, like on Hybrid Theory or Meteora. When TEM was released, I thought that we would get much deeper lyrics on the album, talking about the situation of the band during hiatus, something about Chester, something about the band's career in general - not directly, of course, but alluding to the stuff that they've been going through in the recent years. With the comeback album they had a great opportunity to write more retrospective and introspective lyrcis. But we got almost nothing like that, basically except TEM and GTG. I enjoy the album very much and I think that though quite generic, it was perfect for a comeback album, but after such a long break I expected something more in terms of lyrics - something I can build a connection with, like with songs on OML. Well, some might say that on every album we've got songs about being lied to - I agree. However, in addition to a song about lies, for example, on Minutes to Midnight (NMS), we got a lot of different topics discussed throughout the lyrics on the album - more personal stuff (VD, IP, SOTD), some political-global subjects mixed with personal experiences (TLTGYA, HHH, WID). Most of the lyrics were much more inspired and relatable, not like now with almost 50-year-old Mike rapping about being betrayed and lied to on every song on FZ. And yeah, if I don't focus on the meaning that much, I still sing/rap along with Mike and Emily. I can enjoy music without it being very deep. I just expected more from my favourite band in this aspect, especially that throughout the years they've released numerous songs that are very important to me. I haven't heard Let You Fade yet - it seems like this song is going to be somehow more emotional, like GTG or TEM. Fingers crossed for some more introspective lyrics in this track.

Thank you for saying that! When I got the notification, I thought we would need to argue again, but I'm glad that was not the case 😅 BTW, a few minutes ago I was reading my review of From Zero, and I am surprised that my perception hasn't changed since November, like... I like the album but it's missing something, especially in the lyrics.