Linkin Park Talking To Myself

An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

    Today we are reviewing a song that Linkin Park released a music video for the same day that Chester Bennington died. While I’ve technically reviewed this song before when I covered the full album One More Light, there are obviously some things to talk about in light of Bennington’s suicide. I’ve seen a lot of fans say that One More Light in general is a suicide note and seen them point out specific sections in Heavy, Talking to Myself, No One Can Save Me and others that seem to confirm this; I disagree.
    First of all, the allusions to depression have always been a part of Linkin Park’s music, Chester has never shied away from letting his demons out on the page. Secondly the song Talking to Myself is not about Chester’s depression but rather about him not being able to help someone else. The point of the song is that the narrator cannot get through to somebody else and help them with their struggle so the narrator feels like he’s simply talking to himself.
    I can see why people now might try to tie this conversation to actually being about Chester since the title is Talking to Myself, but that isn’t how that phrase is used here. Just like other songs on the album were not suicidal but rather were Chester dealing with his issues. He has stated many times after the recording of the album that these songs helped him get to a better place and if you listen most of them have a hopeful thread throughout them. That’s why I don’t think One More Light was a stealth suicide note, I think it was an album about conquering depression.
    As for this song specifically, it is the only real rock song on the album with Brad Delson having some pretty cool guitar licks in between verses and on the bridge. This would not feel out of place as a softer track on The Hunting Party, similar to Until It’s Gone. This is also one of the tracks that I liked because of Chester’s vocal delivery; love or hate One More Light but this album had some of my favorite vocal moments from Chester.
    Overall this is one of the better songs to come off of One More Light, even though I find myself liking some of the poppier songs better. This one works well as a radio rock track and like everything off of one more light has some really interesting lyrics.

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#RIPCHESTER Memorial cite

Fall Out Boy Champion: An Album a Day

An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

    So Fall Out Boy released a new single. This is the second single for their album to be released later this year, M A N I A. This will be their first new album since 2015’s American Beauty/American Psycho and reportedly is going to draw heavily on EDM influences. The first single Young and Menace featured the three years behind current trends sound of dubstep mixed with contemporary pop influences. So with the background out of the way, let’s see how Champion tackles EDM.

    To start, this song does at least appear to have guitars somewhere in the mix and does bring in a little bit of Fall Out Boy’s older sound. The issue this track has right off the bat for me is that the production doesn’t sound like Fall Out Boy; it’s crisp with that dull echoey feel that all pop music has these days. On top of this, even with the guitar in the background the opening of this song wouldn’t sound out of place as the hook on a Future or Drake track, with such a drowsy and low delivery. Also their heavy use of purple in all the marketing keeps making me think Patrick Stump was sipping lean before some of these vocal takes.

    Throughout the majority of the song Stump’s vocals are strong as ever, just like on Young and Menace, but there are a few drowsy segments that kill all of the momentum of this track. And while this track attempts to use the huge sounding drum sounds from their last album to add power, even the drums sound tired. I don’t want to be overly negative, because I hate people who throw a fit every time a band changes their sound, but there are changes that work and changes that don’t and this change does not work at all.

    Fall Out Boy’s change from pop punk mixed with emo to a more commercial arena rock sound on their last two records worked because it expanded the sound of the band and made them sound like a bigger version of themselves. This shift to a EDM influenced pop sound does the exact opposite, making it sound more and more like Patrick Stump’s solo career ghost written by Pete Wentz. Seriously, on both of the singles from Mania how many musical elements can you pick out? On Young and Menace I hear a lot of synths, a snare drum, a very slight piano once in awhile and I think a guitar buried under everything else on the drop. On Champion, there’s a guitar line, a few synths and drums; that's it.

    I find the same issue here I found with Heavy by Linkin Park when I first heard it; where is the rest of the band? Fall Out Boy feature two guitarists, a bass player and a drummer along with a vocalist; at least when Linkin Park fill an entire song with pro tools and keyboard they have the excuse of having a DJ and a keyboard player in the band. Continuing with the comparison to Linkin Park, I actually think this is worse than One More light because Linkin Park at least went all in on a pop sound and had some songs that worked as pop music. Conversely, Fall Out Boy's half pop half rock sound just makes these tracks sound confused and I personally don’t think Young and Menace or Champion work even as pop songs.

    Overall, I’m worried that Mania could be to Fall Out Boy what One More Light has been to Linkin Park. The little bit of hope I have left is that they have not fully committed to the EDM pop sound just yet, as elements of their rock sound keep bleeding through. This means that there’s a chance that a few tracks on Mania will be legitimate rock songs. We will all have our answers soon enough as the album drops in September.

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Linkin Park One More Light: An Album A Day

An album a day is posted 5 days a week, Monday through Friday



Here's an album that hasn't generated any controversy...

Maybe it's just me, but I really feel like Linkin Park caught way too much hell for this album. Is it the best album they've ever done? No, not by a long shot, but I cannot understand the outrage from some Linkin Park fans. As a longtime fan of Linkin Park myself, I’ve been seeing the same comments about the band being a sellout or needing to go back to their nu-metal roots since A Thousand Suns (and trust me, it goes back further than that.)

The thing is, they did exactly that on their last album The Hunting Party, which is a nu-metal album that is heavier than anything they’ve ever done. And the response to the album was okay, but that was all it was. Where previous albums had brought in new fans or broadened their sound, The Hunting Party was a niche album pandering to fans who would still rather listen to Hybrid Theory on repeat than hear anything new.

And that is why I can understand the frustration that spawned the comments Chester Bennington has made towards fans of the old Linkin Park. The band literally just made an album geared specifically for them and they still wanna call Linkin Park sellouts and say they don’t care about their fans.

Now that all the background is out of the way, how does the actual album hold up? Because regardless of obnoxious “fans” and backstory on the album, the only thing that matters is the music. Honestly, it’s average; some tracks are really good, some tracks are okay and a few tracks are just a boring waste of time.

The best tracks are Good Goodbye, Talking To Myself, Heavy and Sharp Edges. Good Goodbye is the song that I wish more of this album was formatted like, it is the only track to feature rapping and overall has a modern trap feel. This song would fit very well on Living Things with the ambient synths in the background with an aggressive rap beat on top. The guest verses work well with Stormzy’s verse particularly well done.

Talking To Myself features one of the only cases of lead guitar playing on the album and is a strong alternative rock song. The chorus reminds me of Handclap by Fitz And The Tantrums (another rock band to take a dip into pop) and overall this track is what Linkin Park doing pop rock can sound like at their best. This and Heavy are tied for the best overall pop track on the album, with this being more of the Imagine Dragons leaning side of pop rock and Heavy being closer to Kiiara's style mixed with twenty one pilots.

Sharp Edges is the closing track and is one of the weirder moments on this album, but I really enjoy it. It has an indie folk sound similar to Ed Sheeran and at times has an almost country feel. While it is not something I would expect from Linkin Park, I find myself really loving this track for what it is; and that is kind of the best way I can sum up this album.

While there are some real duds (Halfway Right, Battle Symphony) I generally enjoy the album for what it is. Something I learned a while back with Linkin Park is you have to approach each album as its own entity, because after Meteora they have not made two albums with the same style. As a 2010’s pop rock album it’s pretty good, definitely in the top 20 pop albums of the decade.

But as a Linkin Park album this is definitely the worst one they have done. The style of this album is so much weaker than anything they have ever tried before that it simply doesn't match up. When compared to all the other genres Linkin Park has covered on past albums, 2010’s pop rock just can’t stand up.
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