Have you ever met a friend of a friend that you weren’t quite sure about, but accepted them because surely your bud wouldn’t hang out with a total tool? That has very little to do with this article on Linkin Park, but it sets the stage nicely, don’t you agree?
Linkin Park was the quintessential junior high – early high school band, the king of the rap/rock roost. They were beloved by the hardcore/metal crowd to the emo/rap crowd and everyone in between. This may is exactly why they lost favor with me.
They were too popular. They had good enough pop-sensibility to keep themselves in mainstream radio. Their stuff was too eclectic; busy is how I would describe it. There was lots of sampling and screaming and rock and loud noises; I didn’t know what the hell they were going for. Yet I kept coming back for more. I own two Linkin Park CD’s and I can’t figure out what I heard in them when I made the purchases, they must have had some kind of magnetism about them.
I may have fallen into the trap of buying their first album because it was some of the only rock that was getting any decent playing time on the radio. Looking back on Linkin Park’s first album, Hybrid Theory, I have to wonder if I was really that fucking depressed. The entire album dripped of angst and self-loathing. Teenagers are a moody bunch; I just fit the bill I suppose. The musicianship wasn’t anything special, and Chester’s singing was just as awful then as it is now (his voice is reminiscent of a cat being thrown against a wall ala Monty Python, I still believe they’d be a much better band without him). What made them so tempting?
I was dead set against buying their second CD, Meteora. I declared myself over those “emo bastards” and set about listening to metal for the rest of my life. Then I attended a concert, Summer Sanitarium, with Metallica headlining and Linkin Park as one of the acts. Something about them just clicked, and I fell in love all over again. Some bands are able to play out of their element when their surroundings force them to change their sound; I think this is what happened to Linkin Park that tour. I would have never considered them to be a real hard rock act, but they brought the thunder. They held it down with bands like the Deftones and Mudvayne playing at the same concert, and they seemed to fit right in. Despite Chester’s lame-ass attempt at breaking a guitar (he smashed one on stage no less than three times at the end of the set and only a few strings broke) they still struck me as badass. Next thing I know I buy their second CD and wonder, how the hell did I fall for that again?
That brings us to the present day; they have a new album out, (note to self, look up album title prior to publishing article!). As soon as I heard about this I immediately swore them off again. Not this time, Linkin Park. Then I heard a single, “Bleed it Out,” and the same confusing feelings about them came rushing back in a torrent. They’ve taken a minimalist approach, it doesn’t sound nearly as busy as the rest of their stuff. They’re much more in line with a straight rock/punk band than their previous incarcerations, and I find myself at odds again. It’s like being in a bad relationship that you can’t walk away from, you know it’s no good, you know you’ll only end up disappointed. You can’t walk away; you yearn for the make-up sex so bad that you can’t resist one last ride on the merry-go-round. I may buy the CD, and I’ll probably feel dirty in the morning. They’ll undoubtedly make a shit-ton of money off of this album and make me look ridiculous for writing this article, but it has to be said: resist Linkin Park. They’ve cast their spell over me, like the blood-thirsty succubus that they always were, but this time I’m out. I don’t care if they win 1,000 Grammy’s, cure AIDS and help the Indians win the World Series, I can’t go through this again. There isn’t anything that could possibly convince me to buy this album, and yet, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll be writing a “Seminal Moments in Musical History” on this some day. Damn you, Linkin Park, damn you.
Fight the good fight, Ian. Don’t buy it. As the not-so proud owner of FOUR Limp Bizkit cds that almost turned into FIVE….don’t do it. Let my terrible life example be the lesson. Just for the record though, I have thrown two of them away.
does the cd purchase count if you repent and rid yourself of it? i can think of at least 3 cd’s that i’ve given away over time, and a few more that have been destroyed in various creative send-offs. i would consider you the owner of 2 limp bizkit cd’s and remove the other two from the record entirely, any thoughts on what length of time you possess a cd equates to ownership?
I’m glad you tried to help me out here, but the fact remains I bought 4 LB cds. I bought the 4th one even after I didn’t like the 3rd one. I believe that every bought cd equates ownership. They all must be owned up to. Clearly tastes change, but track record does not. I’m willing to hear other arguments though.
Ugh, how can you idiots listen to this butt rock?
Get some REAL music in your life … get some soul & blues. For the love of Christ you are all by Cleveland, a pretty damn good city for the blues!
john mayer isn’t a blues musician, he’s a pop musician who occasionally poses as a blues man via his trio. if jm isn’t butt rock, i don’t know what is.
Butt rock.
I like it.