What I've Done

"It's not going to beHybrid Theory. It's not going to be Minutes to Midnight. And if we do it right, it'll have a cutting-edge sound that defines itself as an individual record separate from anything else that's out there". Well, at least you didn't lie to us. When I started making the series Regretting the Past I always had one album to cover in the back of my mind... A Thousand Suns is the reason I wanted to start reviewing albums. Even though I didn't officially began doing this regularly until almost two years after it came out. I still remembered this album as being the reason why. And after many ongoing requests to cover this album and hitting the Patreon goal, it's time to bite the bulletas. For my original experience with the album, at the time I worked for a company about 45 minutes away from my home. So on the day this album came out September 8th 2010, I bought it hard copy from Best Buy and shovedit into the car stereo for the long ride home. And it's a miracle I didn't drive into oncoming traffic! When I first heard this album in entirety, I was beside myself! I didn't even know how to process what I had just heard. On the heels of hearing the new song catalyst and being built up to the next evolution from arguably the flag bearers of good nu metal, we were presentedwith a tracklist that sounds like aliens gota hold o fit and try to use their technology to scramble any sense of music understanding and writing process. I'm not going to sit here and argue that every song on this album sucks, because they don't. Some ofyou are pretty good. But this is a concept album, and despite the messages and the concepts, the songs overall are very difficult to get through. As a whole, listening to this album in entirety feels like a chore think of a server at your favorite restaurant trying to tell you about howamazing the new salad is. You like salad and even going to the restaurant for years so you're all for it. When it comes you see some of the ingredientsyou recognize and enjoy like spinach and tomatoes;but then they dumped a battery acid and staples and called it their new vision. Linkin Park for years has beena spectacle they were the outliers and many differentgenres including the one theybelong to, completely in a world of their own.so when the first new song called the catalyst was presented along with a quote from Mike Shinoda about their upcoming venture it got many people two bites. many people like me had this since day one, at nine 99. Most expensive coaster ever a thousandsuns is undeniably Linkin Park's most polarizing album there are very few people who havea middle ground on it while the most common opinion is that it is the weakest offering from Linkin Park there are others who admire it and call it their magnum opusso instead of mejust complaining about how a thousand suns is Linkin Park at their worstwhich I really think let's hear from someonewho has the opposite opinion who thinks a thousand suns is Linkin Park at their best let's hear briefly from marquette spectrum pulse who has his own YouTube channel covering music movies culture and a lotmore let me blow your mind and say I'd argue that a thousand suns is Linkin Park's best album certainly the mostambitious in terms of sound and concept with strong melodies pretty solid hooks great production and as good of writing asyou usually find in a Linkin Park album yeah is it messyand kinda over the place yeah but that's true ofmost Linkin Park albums it hasn't agednearly as badly asHybrid Theory and you could argue that most of modern rock started following in Linkin parks more electronic direction with a lot less success look a thousand suns might be far from perfect butit's definitely underratedthere you go a pre-emptive counterpoint to someone who enjoys this album now it's my turna thousand suns is a conceptual album told in away that the actual concept is a messwhile there aremoments of clarity and unison where things match and the music becomes enjoyablea majority of this album is completely wasted space that is instantly forgettable after you hear it save a few actual songs and alsothe terrible songs as welloh you will remember the bad stuff afteryou hear it once put aside the name Linkin Park and this album were made by any other band it wouldn't have even been panned but completely passed over and ignored the only reason it is defended so highly by so many people is becausethere are diehard Linkin Park fans who refuse to acknowledge that something may notbe up to power by this bandnow I know there are some Linkin Park fans out therethat have watched up to this point the video who are already furiousyour hands are shakingat the keyboard ready to type out your first cake commentwithout even watching therest of the video so let's makeone thing perfectly clear I like Linkin Park quite a bitAxl when I was 14 Iwas the kid with a hybridtheory poster in my bedroom and a school and community wherehip-hop was really theonly thing deeper worthy to listen toLinkin Park was oneof the groups I listened to and even got others into after hearing songs like papercut in the end thatbrings us to the first point of why we should regret a thousand songs along with other albums thatalso fit to this categorythousands of people bought this album and defend itto death today just because of the name associated with it. Jjust like Metallica it's possible for a good band to put out a bad album. It's okay to say that when a band changes things up or goes in a differentdirection that it doesn't work outyou can love an artist or band and still accept itnot everything they've done is an absolute treasure. Unless you like Simple Plan then you just have to accept thatyou were wrong back in junior high in high school and everything in there is just terriblein this video I want toprove that you can like a band like Linkin Park, but still hate something they produced, and show you track by track why A Thousand Suns is a chaotic misfire so let's go track by track and figure out why a thousand suns burned many fans and just to be clear once again I don't hate everything on this albumfor one thing Idefinitely don't hate this opening track. Track One: THE Requiem god we bear son now this is how you start an album it's haunting and creative andyou instantly getthe feel of the electronic side of linkin park it starts with a little girl singing the lyrics we have heard from the catalystbefore the album came out it's slow paceand it sets a tone and apparently Linkin Park also thought this was a great wayto start the album so they decidedto go with another intro right after the first two people cried most people were silent I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the bhagavad-gita what the heck why is this hereI understand that a thousand suns is supposed to be thematic and carry more messages but why would youopen the album just to reopen it youseparated out a track just for thisif you really wanted it in the album could you have at least added to the Requiem or on the endof a song this isthe start of one of the big problems I havewith a thousand songsthe track listing the layoutof songs and interludes feels very disjointed and oddly organized it may not be my story to tell but Ithink most listeners including Linkin Park fans knowthat tracks should flow into each other and the songs continue with one another as opposedto just having an ominous backing track layer to fade into each song and make it seem like things are connectedwhen they really aren't some of you might sayit's an interlude interludes can be done verywell and you add too many albums in a great way but I honestly don't buy this as an interlude because one it's only one minute into the album andtwo it connects an opening track to the first actual songit's not that it's abad track it actually sounds ok but it makes no sense to start the album off with an intro and then have this separated track right after or the second intro our first interludeI don't even know what tocall this let's jump into the music in the for the opening song on this album it actually feels like something worth checkingout the backing track has simple effects with synthesized drums in piano and the guitaradds a lot to it in the bridge it feels like a natural song that belongs on an album even if vocally it sounds like Chester's board it still sounds finethe problem I have with birding in the skies along witha few other songs on this album is that this album was crafted to carry a message meant to have something deeper the lyricsin the song are not any more meaningful or deep than anythingfour minutes to midnight it reads it sounds likehigh school poetry the only message is regretthat's it again I do not think this songis bad but it feels like it could have been something much bigger if lyricallyit stood for something more than looking back at the past slightly disappointing but it's not that maybe that'sjust my opinion and I'm sure that a lotof peopleliked this song and I can kind of see why and I'm sure from now on the views are going to pick up a little bit more you like that wasn't that worthyour time what the heckfour tracks we only have one real song to listento so far why would they separate this out at all it makes no logical sensea thousand suns for the many fans it is polarized for Linkin Park it's supposed to at least have a message a conceptthis was supposed to be something differentin containing several focuses on different socialissues but in the first four tracks we heard a good haunting first tracka confusing continuation one actual song and then some crickets at night behind a crisis what am I supposed to get out of this so fallalright I understand there has to be a slow build and we'll just found to be at least one good track one so I'm sure thingsare just building up and they're trying to set up anatmosphere for the concept and the theme of the albumI mean this isn't just going to be aflatline rollercoaster right right sucking start trying to catch up and all does the course contain Chester singing an African tribal chants what the heck is this the static and the guitar the harsh rhythm sound incredibly jarring Mike Shinoda does not sound his best lyrically this one falls flat it's not until the lastminute of the song where Chester and Mike singin harmonythat things actually soundlike it could work but it's too late the song borates you with that chorus anatonal riff that makes you happy etc exists this is another problemI have with someof the songs on a thousand songs they clearly have an idea of what to create for about 60 secondsat a 4-minute song and things seem like they could come together but it only comes in theend of the track and you have to listen to a synthesized train crashin order to hear it the journey isn't worth the destination not every song in a thousand suns falls into this description but just think about how much better this album would be if the songs resemble the same unison and feel about 60 seconds at each track when they come for meand burning in the skies are perfect examples of that to be fair we're only goinginto tracks 6 out of 15 so there's bound to be more full songs it's not going to be just tons more interludes for intros orthird intros or whatever it's not or what sounds like movie trailer music something just soft enoughto play in the backgroundwell you see action or transformers playing on the big screen something to not distract fromwhat you're seeing vocally the song works for Chester software singing and the beat and synthesizer register well lyrically it's a bit generic but not terrible it's nothing special thoughin all honesty it really feels like you were listening to a voidonce the track isover you forget you were just listeningto music for a few minutes thereis no real punch or hook it's just a soft track to help continuethe ongoing theme of moving forwardLinkin Park who at onepoint was known forhaving so much energy and dynamic sound now resembles sad grocery storemusic with robot boy however this song actually does lead to something another 90 second break of non music really this was worth including do Ireally even need to say anything nowit doesn't sound bad it has a nice flow but it's completely unnecessary today why not right I mean this is the fourth track of somethingthat isn't an actual song in a 48 minute album I've listened through 19 minutes andfive of those minutes weren't even listed as songs that can be defined really think about it has anyone ever saidwow I really want tolisten to giornata del Muerto right now and I have listened to interludes and connecting sequence tracks intentionallyit can be done well but this just feelslike it's there to take up spaceblood finally we get something goodand a lot of you're probably thinking I wouldn't say thatat all about this album at this point or that it just wasn't possiblefair is fair there aregood songs on a thousand suns I end up with I talked before about songs having a build and even though this oneis a bit long almosttwo minutesuntil it really picks up this song has a great build overall and it leads up to something fantasticthis is one ofthe reasons why waiting for the end is a really good song and it's buried on analbum like this the build withscheffler slow singing does feel likeit could have been cut down a bit mainly because after two minutes it feels like nothing is progressing but onceChester finally cuts loose and Mike joins in everything just lights up the simple keyboard notes a percussion make the first half of the song simple and then the drums take everything up a level with Mike Shinoda's lyrics the guitar works finally appears with a great effect and the song becomes amazing I think this track is one of Linkin Park's most memorablefor a lot of reasonsit showcases what both singers are known for while slowly developing a songthe only real problemI have with itis that it comes almost halfway throughthe album the previous seven tracks feel instantly forgettableand that's when you realize the problem the album doesn'thave the sting that Linkin Park was at one time known for back on topicwaiting for the end is good maybe even great despiteit's possibly too long builtI am NOT going to bash a song justbecause it's on an album that is wholly badwhen the song is still really good there areplenty of other bad songs on this album I can bash the connecting ominousbackground static works to connect a song for about 45 seconds then theactual song starts the lyrics come in a little fasterfor ChesterII but then he starts screaming to a beatfeaturing a keyboard note loop and it doesn't match there aretwo dynamicsthat just don't mesh then at exactlyhalfway through the track it all becomes an absolutemess it's like a toddler got on top of his dad's mixing stationit just went to town pushing every button he could find that is the only way I can figure out why the vocal pattern was made so randomly and chaotic then the temple plummets and everything gets softto some more electronic involvement the last minute ofthe song is the only part that has any substance worth listening to what the singing of come downfar below both Chester and Shinoda work together in unison and the song actually feels like a song worthlistening to a four-minute track that has roughly 60 seconds of good material and the rest of it soundslike an electronically mixed mess that Skrillex has when he's hadtoo much ecstasy of redbull what's next what's nexton the album the shot I think I want to go back to ecstasyin RedBull I actually like the inclusion of Mario Savio speech at the beginning and I get the message the song was trying to continue lyrically this track might get the strongest on the albumthe problem with the song is that it's basically a track that's made tobe remixed meaning the song feels like it was madein editing software as opposed to instruments in a studio andit will only endup being played a beat level nightclubs at 2:00 a.m. eventually the song was made into several remixed in live edits it's also another exampleof something that could havebeen much stronger than the final productMike Shinoda doesn't sound like has the same fire and Chester's chorus is theonly real saving grace it's not the worst thing I've ever heardbut it's disappointing you can see that they had the pieces there but they couldn't form it into somethingcompletely good from beginning to endjust becausea song has a message likethis one does it make the song automatically good the same could be said for an interlude I don't know what to say first of all if you wantto include motivational historical speeches in your albumthat's finebut do you have to stretch samples of them out into a technovoi to create someapocalyptic nightmare it completely deflates the intention of the speeches message and if anything it makes the album's intention counterproductive second was this necessary we have the speech in the middle of these songs as a break just to jump into a more electronica chaos it just exists like every other track break intro interlude and whatever else they havein the staple acidsalads to catch do you feel cool sure you one of the themes in a thousand suns is postnuclear attack even the term a thousand suns is a term takenfrom what survivors of World War two bombing saw reading the lyrics it paints a great picture and it feels natural and organic to the mood even if the chorus tends to repeat a bit too much to possibly stretch the song iridescent still works on manylevels this is what I'm talking about with using the right piecesin the rightway if a thousand suns had more clarity andfocus and less computer-generated rhythmic noisethen it could havebeen something we are now on track 12 and only two songs are really worth diving into at this point for a band thathas so much creativity and potentialit hurts to listen to an albumlike this when so much time and presentation is just a distant memory the second after youlisten to it listening to iridescentor waiting for the end on their own works really well you just wantto listen to one track listening throughthe entire album though feels like aneternity of trudgingthrough digital madness which is also what can be said about all these back tracks that are connecting they're getting reallyold speaking of which there are so many more things I should be doing withmy life I should reapply to grad school can I stick apea Oh this is it the main eventthe catalyst was the original single to introduce people to the change up in a style of her Linkin Park and was the zone that started topolarizable longtime Linkin Park fans in total honestythis is the song that got me excited to buy the new album on day one the energy and fire is in it from all parties andwhile it is something in a new direction it still feelsholy like Linkin Park theduo of Bennington andShinoda shine on this song from beginning to end the song carries momentumwith the right electronic effects and percussion lyrically it's simple but great it sells theidea of war in crisis I really can't find anything to knit paper pull apart and after 13 tracksit hit youthat they knew howto make tracks like this good songs quality music and it consistently did it when I mentioned how when I bought thealbum and listened to it on my drive homeit was about halfway through the drive when I started realizing that this one song I heard being the catalyst was an anomalyyou can't say thisis a situation wherean album was built around one song because thealbum was intended to sound the way it does it's their album and their story and theirmusic and they can tell it however they wantbut just because the music comes froma certain band and I like doesn't mean that everything they produce is automaticallyScripture and la kids Oscar oh it keeps us the final song definitely ends on a very different note both for the album and the band hearing an acoustic performance is not a bad way toend things after singing about topics likenuclear war and oppression either the acoustic guitar works fine - the problem I have with the song is Chester's delivery this song begs to besome softly melodic but I swear you can hear mr. Bennington's blood vessels burst while screaming along to all this there are moments of great clarity when he tries toactually calm down a bit but sweet mercy does it clashoverall maybe they were goingfor a juxtaposing style here but insteadof two parts working together it sounds like a crazyman screaming his head off to a sad rhythm and lyrics of an emo Hallmark greeting card it's a shame because you can tell this song could have been magical and redefining for the band to show what they're capable of and that can be said forthis entire album as a whole they had all the pieces for a thousand suns to be something legendary and redefining for a new generation but instead they couldn't resist that urge to stick all their instruments and plug them ininto remix generating software so much of the backing tracks and electronic effects are jarring and do not flow with anything it's notmusic you can hit play onand enjoy for the ride for every song that is lyrically sound there is one that is forgettable in generic for everyone minute of good quality music there is another three of poorly structured bridges and remixes spaced outby unnecessary ominous blank space and chaotic electronica and tons and tons of interludes even taking in allthe themes pointed out and concepts presented artistically doesn't save a thousand sunsI stand by what I say when playing wretches and kingsjust because a song hasa good message or references something significant thatdoesn't make the song automatically goodI know there are many people out there who love this albumthat's fine listen to it enjoy it I don't know how you listened to it all the way through from beginning to end but whatever you do justlove the music you like but there was a reason whya thousand suns it's so polarizingand why it hasn't beendone again the transition fromHybrid Theory and media oritse minutes to midnight change things but it still workseven when living things came out in 2012 there were many more electronic effects and mixes but it still felt like an album worth listening - and didn't have several interludes and trackswere only 25% of the song was worth it it also was differentfrom all the ovens before them - changing your style and evolvingas musicians those are badthings but when you tell people especially your own fanbase that you have a new vision and it's going to take you to the next levelthat includes dot wav downloaded sample files over ten minutes ofbacktracks and tons of interludesand your full album of course yourfanbase is going to feel burned it's a bait-and-switch and it's awful but I wanted to sell that I was told I would begetting something new and satisfyingI still expected a salad though not a battery acid staple Bowl when Mike Shinoda said the new album would be separate from anything else that'sout there I was still hopingfor something complete and there is a reason therehas been anything like its sense as it stilltoday is the elephant in the room for any Linkin Park fana thousand suns was certifiedgold in theUnited States and for 2010 that is a huge deal but as the serieshas proved album sales do not mean an album is good I was one ofthe people who got burned by false hope on a new project based on one song I place blind faith in a bandI liked even though they said that they were creating would be something we never expected well they were rightI was expecting somethingfeeling we shouldn't put aband on a pedestal and worship everything they make justbecause of who they arejust because their intended vision was commendable does not mean that the finished product is worth payingterms and we included me should regret blindly supporting a band just because of an underlying message in an album that doesn't automatically make it good st. Andrew for Metallica falls into thiscategory and so does a thousand suns from Linkin Park there that shouldbe more than enough fuelfor all you angry Linkin Park fans towrite you the most rancid hateful comments on YouTube I can't believe thisasshole on the internet said bad shit about Linkin Park man my favoriteband the insane drivel that is coming outof your mouth makes me want to throwup my lightforce we can is the most pure pennyshit plant you're not specialall rightyou are just a weak stupid patheticwhite the white Chester Benjamin personal Jesusmilk toast piece of human garbagehow dare you show your own opinion on a site which is found in bomb reviews of popularculture and such your show should be called rodsit should be calledchip it sucks because it sucks you tried so hard and didn't get so far but inthe end you don't even mmmm