Astat

@ lyrics websites. Thank you, knew there was a bunch of shit wrong in there. Sounds right as far as I can tell now.

Not Rob's BEST drumming ever, but one of his top 4 or 5 tracks for sure (Easier to Run, The Little Things Give You Away, The Catalyst...) Brad's best work since In Pieces. Both songs are extremely simple to play outside of the solos. Phoenix sticks to his usual "double the guitars an octave down" stuff on this song, nothing really noteworthy. It's hard to judge Joe's studio output because you never know which electronic elements in various songs are actually done by him and not someone like Mike or Brad. I pointed out earlier that there's some "Joe-ish" stuff in this song if you listen for it, but it's not necessarily Joe doing it. I think this will be one of those songs where Mike switches back and forth between guitar and keys. There are a few spots with multiple guitar parts playing at once.

Yeah, Rob's quick with a single pedal, he does some pretty convincing heel-toe stuff from time to time that sounds like a double pedal, but it's only ever been on quick successions of 2 kicks. That fill in the intro has a really fast triple kick though, and there are VERY few drummers that I've ever heard pull off something like that with a single pedal (Off the top of my head, John Bonham and Josh Eppard are the only ones I can think of). Kind of crazy if Rob's going to a double kick setup now, he's said in the past that he hasn't used a double pedal since he was in like high school, like pre-Xero even.

I'll pop in here with a bit more musical analysis and such, now that I've gotten in a few listens with headphones on: -Surprised nobody noticed this, but Rob is 100% using a double bass pedal on this song. It's not in there a lot, but it shows up in the drum fill under the melodic guitar line during the intro (the guitar that mimics the vocals in the verses), and there are some double bass "gallops" under part of the outro guitar solo as well. -Re: Chester's vocals. The amount of pitch correction used on a song like this is really hard to discern without at least having an acapella. I think a lot of people tend to forget that Auto Tune can be 100% transparent depending on how you use it. LP HAS been endorsing Antares in their album liner notes going all the way back to Hybrid Theory, after all. But the vocal sound is a lot more "dry" than most of the vocals on the last two albums. We've gotten used to hearing Chester's voice drenched in studio reverb, flangers, layered in 3 and 4-part harmonies, backed up by gang vocals, etc...with that said, I still think he sounds strained. This is the first time I've heard a studio cut from LP where Chester's voice sounded like it does during live shows. Kind of worrying to me (is his voice getting shot to the point that they can't even hide it with "studio magic" anymore?), but it ultimately doesn't detract from the song. Also on the subject of vocals, there ARE backup vocals in this song. Each "tell us all again"/"show us all again" is doubled, as are the pre-chorus parts. There's also a harmony part that shows up in both pre-choruses and the second verse, and there are actually some gang vocal shouts on the repeated "GUILTY ALL THE SAME" lines after the second and third choruses. -Electronics: There's plenty of Joe-ish stuff hiding in the background of this song. I definitely hear some MPC-style samples mixed in with the bed of synths that back up Rakim's verse. Not really sure where the Crawling comparison is coming from though, I don't hear it. There's also some pretty subtle scratching during the intro, it sounds almost like really staccato needle drops, creating a "tapping" noise. Also, there's a really distorted low-end synth that doubles the bass throughout most of the song, kind of reminiscent of New Divide.

I think that guitar tone is specifically a result of Ethan Mates being an engineer on 4 consecutive albums, but not working on HT/Meteora. He tends to gravitate towards more vintage-sounding guitars, even for heavier stuff (he was a big part of why they incorporated Strats into their guitar arsenal starting on MTM). As a result, they don't layer the rhythm tracks as much as they used to. I'd say this song has a pretty similar tone to No More Sorrow or Given Up. Those songs were recorded with "heavy" guitars like PRSs and Les Pauls, but they're really light on the layering and a lot more dry-sounding. On Meteora in particular, I've heard stories of their being 8 to 10 guitars all playing the same thing with different EQ and phase settings on tracks like From the Inside and stuff like that. I don't think they go above 3 guitars (basic left/right/center) for rhythm tracks that are playing the same parts anymore. There's also some holdover stuff on there from the last couple albums too. The A7X-like "harmonized" riff people are talking about is actually just one guitar part with the Electro-Harmonix HOG on it. At least it isn't present throughout the whole song like it is on Victimized and Wretches and Kings though, I thought that effect got old pretty fast.

First use of a wah pedal on an LP guitar part since Step Up, no joke (unless I'm totally blanking on something). The lead work in the outro sounds cool, but it's pretty similar to some of the stuff Brad does on the live outro to Faint, just more refined.

I've always been under the impression there's a general "code" amongst emcees that you don't rap someone else's verse. Happens all the time with live performances by mainstream rap artists, and Mike cut Motion Man's verse out of Enth e Nd at Fort Minor concerts.

Most legendary emcee to ever guest on an LP song, including Jay-Z. That said, my first two thoughts: 1. How are they going to play this live? Just completely cut Rakim's part out of the song? I hate this about collaborations with outside vocalists on studio albums, it either means you end up using playback of their vocals for live performances, which comes across as super lame, or you end up cutting big chunks out of songs, which is about equally lame. 2. Great, a guest rapper on a "regular LP album" single. Now people are going to think Mike quit the band again. Song is overall pretty cool, still not a big fan of the intro but once that piano part comes in, the rest all sounds good. I think the song could honestly just start with the piano and leave that first bit out, but that's just me. Production seems extremely raw...I know this is going to be a self-produced album, but this is bordering on "sounds like a rough demo recorded at a home studio" territory. Also, Chester doesn't really sound like...himself. Also, parts of this remind me a LOT of the Beta State song on LPU 13.

I love how some people have this attitude like playing a run of European festivals where a band can literally play for over half a million people in the span of a week somehow doesn't constitute a "proper" tour, particularly when Linkin Park's festival sets typically vary VERY little, if at all, from their headline sets. You're going to hear roughly the same selection of songs at either kind of show. You might get one or two more songs at one show than the other, but the same can be said when comparing two of their headlining shows sometimes as well. And to top it off, you're trying to use Austria as an example, as if there was some sinister "fuck the fans" type of reasoning behind the shortened setlist. Yes, how DARE Linkin Park cut their set short when a storm hit the venue that was severe enough for the promoters to make all of the fans take shelter for nearly an hour. It's totally a much better idea to have the show go on and risk another Sugarland or Radiohead-like stage collapse incident taking place! Nevermind the fact that Europe has gotten a Linkin Park tour of a dozen or more shows EVERY. FUCKING. YEAR. since 2007 with the exception of 2013, while North America has been almost completely ignored in 3 different years during the same period (2009, 2010, 2013).

BMI database goes off of the names of the songwriters in most cases. Some songs are attributed to a specific artist, but most entries for Linkin Park songs on there make no mention of Linkin Park. A. How many times have I stated that I purchased Hybrid Theory in the spring of 2002, when some current members of this website were still in diapers? B. Never said I exclusively like the "soft stuff." I like music that I find interesting. The short clip heard in this preview? Not particularly interesting to me. When I can learn how to play a guitar riff without having to actually pick up a guitar, it's probably a wee bit too easy.

It also sounds like it could've been WRITTEN in about ten seconds too. Drop tune the guitar, dial in an assload of distortion, play some staccato powerchords with one finger, and have the drummer play snare/hi-hat on 1 and 3 and the bass drum on 2 and 4...WE HAVE A SONG GUYS! I'll be sure to forward your opinion to my mom back home though, she's certified in medical coding and works for an audiologist. I bet she could get you some great deals on hearing aids.

Two excellent studio bands that can't pull off their shit live. ...Opening for another excellent studio band that used to be pretty good at pulling off their shit live, but has strained their lead singer's voice to the point that he can't do 2 days of rehearsals without struggling for the next 3 consecutive shows.

They wouldn't be teasing anything that's not on the album at this point. Maybe six months ago, but not now. The single is going to be out in a matter of days.

ALTNC isn't even the worst LP-related song to come out in the year 2013.

Yep. Yay, drop-tuned powerchords over the first "thrash" beat every drummer learns by the time they've been playing for six months! It still baffles me why this is the side of Linkin Park that everyone misses. And this is coming from the "Linkin Park guitar guy." But hey, it's just an intro, there might be cooler stuff elsewhere in the song.

You can click and drag parts of the cloud images around, looks like it's basically a layered series of animated .gif images (each cloud is its own image). Hmm...this might be a puzzle.

Pretty sure that's at Laurel.

I'd imagine they'll play a pretty Hybrid Theory-heavy set throughout the summer, perhaps rotating the lesser-played songs throughout the beginning of the tour so they don't forget anything from rehearsals, but still don't TECHNICALLY play the album in full anywhere but Download. As for the album, I'm pretty confident it'll be done (and possibly out) by the time they go to Europe. I doubt they spend 6 to 7 weeks doing nothing but rehearsing, they usually only rehearse for a day or two when they're not playing new material, and a couple weeks when they are. This will probably be a more lengthy rehearsal like with Minutes to Midnight due to some new gear-related stuff they'll probably need to get acquainted with during rehearsals while simultaneously figuring out new material (this is why MTM rehearsals took so long - the guitar rigs for both Brad and Mike were completely rebuilt, in addition to having a new album's worth of songs to figure out), but I still doubt it'll take almost two full months to get everything down.

This isn't surprising to me.

Burn it Down was released before the rest of the album was done. They shot the music video the same day they mixed the song, and released the song to the public only 2 weeks later. The rest of the album was still being mixed at that point.

I guess you could say he's into...MATH ROCK. *rimshot* Or actually, if it's math rock, it'd be more like some crazy 7/4 Chris Pennie drum fill, THEN a rimshot.

Hmm...

Custom Starr Labs ZTar MIDI controller, used on Blackout for performances starting on 6/18/2011.

Not sure about Mike. Rob's mom did date Joey Kramer at one point, he's mentioned that before. I've never heard anything regarding him teaching Rob to play drums though, which I find pretty doubtful. You'd think Rob would have mentioned it at some point, plus it's not like Joey is his dad or anything. I doubt Rob and Joey saw each other an awful lot. He has cited him as an influence though.

I would imagine Steve will play this song at just about every performance he does for quite a while, it's basically the biggest song of his career.