Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Records
By: T- Millzz
Let me get this out of the way off the bat. I am a huge Linkin Park fan. I love their work and the ability that all the musicians in the band each have. Whether it is Mike Shinoda’s rap abilities, Chester Bennington’s vocal range and ability to be soft or aggressive, or even Joe Hahn’s turntable mixing. I remember being a young teenager finding Linkin Park’s music captivating and different from the sound that I had grown up with. It was edgy, it was risky and most of all, it was genuine fun for the band members and the fans of their music. Conversations would spark of which album was better, Hybrid Theory, Meteora or Minutes To Midnight?
Now here I am at 23 years old, looking at one of my favorite bands growing up and asking myself, “is this what they’re going to do now?” On the surface I will always respect the band members and their artistic approach. Genuine style and sound can change, but I will always listen to their music because it brings me back to my nostalgic days of those conversations I had when I was younger.
For the sake of this review, nostalgia needs to be put aside and take this album for what it is. I am not too sure why people look to “objectively” review albums and music, yet still say “this isn’t the band I knew anymore?” I digress…
By: T- Millzz
Let me get this out of the way off the bat. I am a huge Linkin Park fan. I love their work and the ability that all the musicians in the band each have. Whether it is Mike Shinoda’s rap abilities, Chester Bennington’s vocal range and ability to be soft or aggressive, or even Joe Hahn’s turntable mixing. I remember being a young teenager finding Linkin Park’s music captivating and different from the sound that I had grown up with. It was edgy, it was risky and most of all, it was genuine fun for the band members and the fans of their music. Conversations would spark of which album was better, Hybrid Theory, Meteora or Minutes To Midnight?
Now here I am at 23 years old, looking at one of my favorite bands growing up and asking myself, “is this what they’re going to do now?” On the surface I will always respect the band members and their artistic approach. Genuine style and sound can change, but I will always listen to their music because it brings me back to my nostalgic days of those conversations I had when I was younger.
For the sake of this review, nostalgia needs to be put aside and take this album for what it is. I am not too sure why people look to “objectively” review albums and music, yet still say “this isn’t the band I knew anymore?” I digress…
One More Light is Linkin Park’s seventh studio album, following up the bands fairly well received, The Hunting Party. For the most part, Linkin Park’s body of work is impressive, with high record sales and hits across all of their albums that have seen airplay and single sales.
This new album has a radio hit in “Heavy,” featuring Kiiara. This song makes me initially think that Marty McFly may have written the chorus, because apparently “everything is so heavy” in the year 2015… No wait, it’s 2017. Anyway, the song itself sounds like a Chainsmoker’s redux and fails to captivate the listener as something innovative for the band.
Something that One More Light should be critiqued on is how similar it sounds to things on the radio already. Songs such as “Sharp Edges,” “Halfway Right,” are in a similar category as “Heavy;” That category being the category of songs that could hit the radio and push record sales. People like Shawn Mendes, the broken up One Direction amongst others would’ve been salivating at the chance to have these songs set up for them.
In a day of music where record sales are becoming less meaningful and streaming numbers are becoming focused on, I understand why Linkin Park wanted to appeal to a bigger audience with this album. There was something very positive that can come out of this album that Linkin Park has done in the past, but we’ll get to that in a little bit.
The album starts off fairly strong with “Nobody Can Save Me,” where it is Chester Bennington’s moment to shine off the bat. He does… The one thing that could have been missing and it would be a definitive stand out would have been the sample of what sounds like a high pitched “nobody” as the synthesizer heavy chorus comes in.
One thing that stands out in such a huge negative way is how underutilized Mike Shinoda is on this album. He only appears on three songs throughout the albums thirty-five minute play. This was a little disheartening coming from a huge Hip-Hop fan. Shinoda’s presence on a Linkin Park album is what gives it diversity.
That being said, the songs that Mike Shinoda appears on happen to be some of the strongest tracks on the album. “Good Goodbye,” featuring Pusha T and Stormzy could be considered a DJ Khaled style mash-up of artists that on paper, you wouldn’t totally expect to work together. “Invisible,” is the second song Shinoda appears on solo, and delivers a hook and lyrics that will be stuck in your head. This is one of the songs that I personally found to be a song that Shinoda wrote from his heart and believed in.
Also, “Sorry For Now,” is considered a stand out song because of the back and forth style that goes on between Shinoda and Bennington towards the end of the song. I gravitated towards this track because of its upbeat tempo; however, many people may see this song as a generic one.
The rest of the album includes, “Battle Symphony,” and “One More Light,” which are also considered positive tracks because of how well it is presented by Chester Bennington and the music behind it. It definitely will take the listener a few listens to warm up to “Battle Symphony,” in particular. “One More Light” is a song that will be looked at in a few years and a listener will say, “Wow, that is an underrated song, that is very well written and means a lot.”
Now, the album itself may not seem like much when the listener gives a first listen through. It wasn’t until I put the album on shuffle during my fourth listen that I realized that there might be something deeper involved with the creation of this album.
I posed this theory to my fellow A.T.E member Gio Mio… “This album is about Chester’s struggle with drug addiction and how the band helped him pull out of it.” Immediately Gio responded with, “Yea I can see that.” This theory would also explain why Chester is more present on the album over Shinoda and would also explain why there is a departure from the sound Linkin Park fans have been accustom to.
Overall, Linkin Park’s latest album misses the mark that fans will expect for innovation and making a statement within the music industry. I do find the possibility of a story being involved to be a huge positive if it is to be confirmed by the group itself. Also, the lack of present guitar and natural drums takes away from the listener’s experience, especially if you come into the project expecting it. Chester’s vocals are still top quality throughout the album and the production value seems to be in flux, as some songs sound better than others.
That is not to say that the album can’t be successful or in a few years fans may look back and appreciate what the band has done with this record. For now, this album’s promotion will see a struggle and some backlash from longtime fans. New fans may welcome Linkin Park with open arms and that is something that is getting missed with many reviews I have read. As a musician, it is important to not only maintain the fans you have since the beginning, but also take risks and expand to newer ones. Linkin Park just might have taken too big of a risk, leaning more towards a pop sound and departing from the sound that was prevalent on their album from even just three years ago.
Side note: It is highly possible that the album as a whole could have benefited from at least two more songs as ten tracks seems just too short to create a well developed album. This further pushes the idea that experimentation was in the cards for Linkin Park on this album.
Score: 2/5
Notable songs:
This new album has a radio hit in “Heavy,” featuring Kiiara. This song makes me initially think that Marty McFly may have written the chorus, because apparently “everything is so heavy” in the year 2015… No wait, it’s 2017. Anyway, the song itself sounds like a Chainsmoker’s redux and fails to captivate the listener as something innovative for the band.
Something that One More Light should be critiqued on is how similar it sounds to things on the radio already. Songs such as “Sharp Edges,” “Halfway Right,” are in a similar category as “Heavy;” That category being the category of songs that could hit the radio and push record sales. People like Shawn Mendes, the broken up One Direction amongst others would’ve been salivating at the chance to have these songs set up for them.
In a day of music where record sales are becoming less meaningful and streaming numbers are becoming focused on, I understand why Linkin Park wanted to appeal to a bigger audience with this album. There was something very positive that can come out of this album that Linkin Park has done in the past, but we’ll get to that in a little bit.
The album starts off fairly strong with “Nobody Can Save Me,” where it is Chester Bennington’s moment to shine off the bat. He does… The one thing that could have been missing and it would be a definitive stand out would have been the sample of what sounds like a high pitched “nobody” as the synthesizer heavy chorus comes in.
One thing that stands out in such a huge negative way is how underutilized Mike Shinoda is on this album. He only appears on three songs throughout the albums thirty-five minute play. This was a little disheartening coming from a huge Hip-Hop fan. Shinoda’s presence on a Linkin Park album is what gives it diversity.
That being said, the songs that Mike Shinoda appears on happen to be some of the strongest tracks on the album. “Good Goodbye,” featuring Pusha T and Stormzy could be considered a DJ Khaled style mash-up of artists that on paper, you wouldn’t totally expect to work together. “Invisible,” is the second song Shinoda appears on solo, and delivers a hook and lyrics that will be stuck in your head. This is one of the songs that I personally found to be a song that Shinoda wrote from his heart and believed in.
Also, “Sorry For Now,” is considered a stand out song because of the back and forth style that goes on between Shinoda and Bennington towards the end of the song. I gravitated towards this track because of its upbeat tempo; however, many people may see this song as a generic one.
The rest of the album includes, “Battle Symphony,” and “One More Light,” which are also considered positive tracks because of how well it is presented by Chester Bennington and the music behind it. It definitely will take the listener a few listens to warm up to “Battle Symphony,” in particular. “One More Light” is a song that will be looked at in a few years and a listener will say, “Wow, that is an underrated song, that is very well written and means a lot.”
Now, the album itself may not seem like much when the listener gives a first listen through. It wasn’t until I put the album on shuffle during my fourth listen that I realized that there might be something deeper involved with the creation of this album.
I posed this theory to my fellow A.T.E member Gio Mio… “This album is about Chester’s struggle with drug addiction and how the band helped him pull out of it.” Immediately Gio responded with, “Yea I can see that.” This theory would also explain why Chester is more present on the album over Shinoda and would also explain why there is a departure from the sound Linkin Park fans have been accustom to.
Overall, Linkin Park’s latest album misses the mark that fans will expect for innovation and making a statement within the music industry. I do find the possibility of a story being involved to be a huge positive if it is to be confirmed by the group itself. Also, the lack of present guitar and natural drums takes away from the listener’s experience, especially if you come into the project expecting it. Chester’s vocals are still top quality throughout the album and the production value seems to be in flux, as some songs sound better than others.
That is not to say that the album can’t be successful or in a few years fans may look back and appreciate what the band has done with this record. For now, this album’s promotion will see a struggle and some backlash from longtime fans. New fans may welcome Linkin Park with open arms and that is something that is getting missed with many reviews I have read. As a musician, it is important to not only maintain the fans you have since the beginning, but also take risks and expand to newer ones. Linkin Park just might have taken too big of a risk, leaning more towards a pop sound and departing from the sound that was prevalent on their album from even just three years ago.
Side note: It is highly possible that the album as a whole could have benefited from at least two more songs as ten tracks seems just too short to create a well developed album. This further pushes the idea that experimentation was in the cards for Linkin Park on this album.
Score: 2/5
Notable songs:
- Sorry For Now
- Invisible
- Battle Symphony
- One More Light