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| Cover art for Linkin Park's 'A Thousand Suns' |
Ever since the first album by the band, entitled 'Hybrid Theory', their fusion of Rock and Rap musical styling, as well as the lyrics in their songs connected with me. The CD had lyrics that talked of depression, of sadness, of being alone. The vocals were dark and moody, the instrumentals went from slow and brooding to fast and angry. It was the beginning of something that would be with me for a long time. The album would be known by reviewers as 'genre-defining', with them saying that the band has created something entirely new in terms of both Rock and Hip-Hop, spawning a new genre. This CD would spawn the remix album, entitled 'Reanimation'. I purchased the CD, but I wasn't a huge fan, since I wanted more original music from them.
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| Cover Art for the Linkin Park Album 'Hybrid Theory |
Two and a half years after Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park released Meteora. The album continued the music style from their first CD, but each track changed things up, bringing new emotions up, and that album connected with me so much more. Every track on the album (Minus the foreword, but honestly, who calls that a track?) held a special place on my playlist, one that would fit into the mood of that place. Each track was just a tremendous placeholder for how I was feeling when it came out, and they still bring up memories when I listen to it. This CD spawned yet another remix album, this time Partnering with Jay-Z. I never purchased this album, since having already heard the tracks and how they mashed them together with Jay-Z's work, I was severely uninterested.
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| Cover Art for the Linkin Park CD 'Meteora' |
Then the band took a hiatus, most of the members doing their own thing. I was anxiously waiting, but as time went on, I believed more and more that their next CD wouldn't come. Then, in 2006, Linkin Park released the first single from Minutes to Midnight, entitled 'What I've Done'. The song appeared on the Transformers soundtrack, as well as on their regular album. After listening to the CD, I did something I hadn't done before with one of their albums. I picked it apart and only listened to the select tracks that I enjoyed. The entire album wasn't garbage, but I didn't find the styling of the CD up to par with what they had done before. Of the twelve tracks on the album, I only truly listened to about half of them.
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| Cover art for the Linkin Park CD 'Minutes to Midnight' |
2010 then became the banner year for Linkin Park, in which they released 'A Thousand Suns'. Now, initially, my reaction to the album was mixed. When they released 'The Catalyst' to the public as the first single to the album, I enjoyed the track, but found it incredibly simplistic and devoid of emotion in a lot of cases. Then they released the entire album as one track on Myspace, and I started listening to that. I regret even doing that at this point.
The Myspace release turned me off the entire album. At the point of the release, the CD was unfinished, missing the interludes that included J. Robert Oppenheimer, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mario Savio, as well as some of the lyrics. I wasn't impressed with any of this, and made a personal vow to never listen to the CD, and be more wary of the band in the future.
However, after perusing iTunes one night, I came across the album once again. The track names were finally given to me, which piqued my curiosity a bit. Then I started reading the reviews. It was here in which I came across a review that told me exactly how to enjoy the album. "Listen to it, without stopping, and pay attention to ALL the lyrics".
At which point, I did, and I don't regret it at all.
I can say that, without a doubt, this is the best album they have ever released. The reason for this, is that while the album doesn't do something entirely new, the style of music creates a new genre once again. The album is a concept album, containing a story or apocalypse, of death and destruction. It is a Post-Apocalyptic rock album, forging a story of nuclear war from a government that we humans let grow out of control out of our own greed and stupidity.
The CD begins with a prelude opening, titled 'The Requiem', which is supposed to set a scene in our minds, of a lone girl in a wasteland, singing to herself in a sad tone as she laments on the current state of the world. The second track 'The Radiance' further enhances this, as it is J. Robert Oppenheimer's famous quoting of Hindu Scripture as he looks upon the devastation of his latest creation, the atomic bomb.
From here, the CD begins to continuously shift perspectives, going from person to person as they explain how they feel since the cataclysm has fallen. From a person who feels that the destruction is his fault and needs to repent, to the leader of one rebellion, to someone trying to move on from what has happened, each track sets a stage, tells the story of how humanity has soldiered on since the nuclear holocaust.
The Album then finishes the story with final five tracks on the album. Each track bringing us to a different emotional experience than previously in the album. And it is these five tracks that I will break down for you.
The eleventh track of the album is called Wisdom, Justice and Love. This track, long with the next one Iridescent, are meant to be played as one. This track gives us a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. that gets more and more distorted as we listen to it, implying that someone else is actually listening to this on a medium that was affected heavily by the blast, finally ending with his last line repeating over and over again:
"Cannot be reconciled with Wisdom, Justice, and Love."
After this, Iridescent begins and the track tells the story of the album itself, that every recording that we have heard previously is nothing more than this same person listening to leaders of the past, trying to figure out what to do. And now that he has learned, he's ready to put his plan into action. He asks the people that follow him to stand with him, to fight with him because that the current people in power have done nothing but repeat the same mistakes, and it is time to take action.
This then leads into tracks thirteen and fourteen, 'Fallout' and 'The Catalyst'. Fallout was an interlude which makes us hear a previous chorus being repeated, which is nothing more than a man's lament about the world around him, recorded and playing on loop until the batteries in the recorder die. This track seems a bit out of place until you listen to the last two tracks and understand what has happened. This recording is after the fact, humans have been wiped away, and this came before a final battle for peace, in which humanity ended after many years.
Listening to the CD in order made me realize why I felt that 'The Catalyst' had no emotion, since I listened to it out of order. What's the point of reading the climax of a novel without first getting to know the characters? Then comes 'The Catalyst' While listening to it this latest time, I found I was more involved with the music. The song made me angry, made me want to fight, since this track is when a massive battle is happening. The resistance against the powers that be has decided to make a stand, and it's for the fate of all of humanity.
This song captures the perfect spirit of rebellion, of what we need to do as a society now. Our government has grown too large, has gone out of control. People on both sides of the political aisle have become nothing more than puppets for lobbyists and powerful money-makers who do not have our best interests at heart. And all we have done as a society is sat back and let them make us into tools for their own gain.
The final track is the conclusion, showing that the rebellion has succeeded and that they're trying to reform everything that has happened. We as the listener are given the ability to say what has happened afterward, interpreting the 'true' ending to all of the events.
And because of this, it is why I say that this is their best album. Just like Meteora, this album will have a special place on my playlist, as well as a special place in my heart. As my life becomes more and more political, more and more divided away from what we do as a society and trying to show what we need to do, this album is a step in the right direction of where we need to be
Review:
5/5 stars.
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