Ranking the Albums: Linkin Park

Those that have followed my blog would know that I haven't done any kind of music reviews. I've thought about it before, but I don't feel I have much merit to review music. I usually just like something or I don't, and some songs I don't care for at first usually grow on me on repeated listens. Still, I thought I would attempt a music related post.
Recently, alternative rock band Linkin Park released their sixth studio album, "The Hunting Party." I finally got around to listening to it this week between drives to and from work. It got me thinking where I would rank the album amongst the band's other work. As Linkin Park is my favorite band, I thought it would be fun to share my thoughts on the band's history. That said, I would like to call this the first edition of "Ranking the Albums." Ranking from worst to best, I'll explain my thoughts on each album, along with my favorite song from it. So let's get to it.

 

6. A Thousand Suns

 



At this point in their career, Linkin Park had started to put some more political messages in their songs. While it's nice every now and then, a whole album of it just doesn't suit well for a band like Linkin Park. Described as a concept album, "A Thousand Suns" mostly had a theme of nuclear warfare, even including sound bites from political figures like J. Robert Oppenheimer and Martin Luther King Jr. While I have softened up on the album over the years, I can't forget my disappointment during the first listen-through of the album. Knowing that it had the overall theme of nuclear desolation, it was hard to find any personal connection in it. Besides that, among the 15 tracks, only 9 of them were actual songs, the others being instrumentals or political sound bites. But what I really puts this as my least favorite Linkin Park album is that there isn't a real good Chester scream-o song. You can argue we get that in "Blackout", but I really can't qualify it as one, considering that it feels like two different songs combined into one track between Chester's half and Mike's. Honestly, there just wasn't enough Chester on this album, and a little too much rapping from Mike. Don't get me wrong, the combination of Mike's rapping and Chester's rocking is one of the reasons I first got interested in Linkin Park, but there has to be a balance. I think I stand with a lot of LP fans when I say that we would like to think this album never happened. Essentially, "A Thousand Suns" is "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."
FAVORITE SONG: "Waiting for the End"
As it took awhile for me to find the personal connection in some of these song, it was "Waiting for the End" that hit me the most. Everyone's been through the end of a relationship and just not sure where to go, and even though you want to move on, part of you wants to hold on to what you lost. Besides that, it does have a classic Linkin Park feel to it, with Chester doing most of the vocals with Mike doing some intro and interlude raps.

 

5. The Hunting Party

 



Their latest release, I am still getting my fill of this album. But at this point, I can say that "The Hunting Party" goes the opposite extreme of "A Thousand Suns." I get the sense that it's a concept album, but it's not all in your face about it like "Suns." For this album, the band really wanted to go back to their roots and be a rock band. The cover with a makeshift bow and arrow and the name "The Hunting Party" really seems to show off its feeling of going back to, shall we say, less sophisticated times. I really get that sense out of it too, because some of the songs sound really raw, almost like they decided to keep it in the demo stage. Also in opposition to "A Thousand Suns", while that album started out with an instrumental, "Keys to the Kingdom" begins "Hunting Party" with Chester screaming his heart out with no music at all; it honestly scared the shit out of me when it started. Again, the band really focused on this being a rock album, as I kind of noticed they didn't rely too much on any techno/mixing like other LP albums have. In a way, it's like the band has reinvented itself. True, the band essentially does that with every album, but here, it's like they rebooted themselves. Some songs have stuck with me right away more than others, but I had a more enjoyable experience listening to this the first time than I did "A Thousand Suns."
FAVORITE SONG: "Final Masquerade"
While my other favorite songs from the album "Wastelands" and "Rebellion" had a good rock feel, they lacked the emotion present in "Final Masquerade." It deals with how something you had much hope for in the future suddenly leaves, and while there were signs it was happening, you ignored it because you were so focused on the hope. The "Final Masquerade" is when you finally realize it.

 

4. Hybrid Theory

 

I know there's probably some kind of taboo about ranking a band's first album so low amongst their other works. I'll admit, I may have ranked "Hybrid Theory" higher if I got into Linkin Park when they first started, but by the time I did, they just sounded so young and different on this album compared to listening to the same songs when the band's older and playing live. Still, I'm not saying that "Hybrid Theory" is bad in any way. It's a classic and it was the band's starting point, but I just feel that the band got better over time.

FAVORITE SONG: "In the End"



How many rock songs do you know that start off with a piano? That's part of the reason why "In the End" stands out to me. The melody is catchy and the lyrics are timeless. Who of us haven't attempted something only for it to fall away?

 

 

3. Living Things

 

If "The Hunting Party" can be seen as a reboot for the band, then "Living Things" can be described as the culmination of everything that came before it. What I enjoyed about this album is that it mixes everything that worked in the four previous albums into one. You have the emotion and sound from "Hybrid Theory" and "Meteora" and the political aspects from "Minutes to Midnight" and "A Thousand Suns." And after the disappointment I had with "A Thousand Suns", when I heard the first single, "Burn it Down", it made me feel that this was the Linkin Park I remember. It was like after I was so disappointed in "Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive", which I consider to be the worst season of the franchise, then "Jungle Fury" came along and gave me hope for the Rangers again.



FAVORITE SONG: "Powerless"

While not a concept album, I feel like each LP album has an overall theme to them. "Living Things" dealt with how we as people must deal with how we are treated by others, especially the ones we love. While other songs deal with that, I feel that the album's final track, "Powerless" is ironically the most powerful of them all. If you really want to get a full experience with this song, you should really listen to the instrumental track before it, "Tinfoil", as it's essentially an intro into "Powerless."

 

 

2. Minutes to Midnight

 

To me, this is when Linkin Park really got serious. Before, I enjoyed them for their rock, but like Green Day before them, I now also listened for the messages within the songs. This album was able to keep a mix of the emotional songs, like "Given Up" and "Shadow of the Day", and the political songs, like "Hands Held High" and "The Little Things Give You Away." The other thing that made me saw LP getting more serious with this album was because this is the first time they actually use stronger language, like "fuck", and actually getting a Parental Advisory label. I know that may not be a big deal to some, but as a teenager in school where swear words were such a taboo, I thought it was cool to hear my favorite band actually use them.

FAVORITE SONG: "No More Sorrow"

I mentioned before how Linkin Park got more political in this album. Well, I think it's best personified with "No More Sorrow." While Mike was rapping in a more melodic tune in "Hands Held High", his first solo vocals song in the band I might add, Chester went the opposite direction with a rock fueled political protest song in "No More Sorrow." Hell, it's probably the ultimate rock fueled protest song. Listening to this the first time, I immediately got that the message was to Bush for all the shit he pulled, like lying to the American people. But aside from ripping on Bush, what also makes this song kick ass is the music itself. The guitar and drums play off each other well, especially in the opening, not to mention it's just something you can bang your head or start a mosh pit to.

 

 

1. Meteora



 

I'll admit, I may have a bias here. "Meteora" was the album that just came out when I first heard of Linkin Park. While it's argumentative that the album is similar to "Hybrid Theory" in some ways, I think that what puts "Meteora" above it is the sound. I sensed the band started to embrace the mix of techno and rock in this album. Besides that, I connected more with the lyrics of the songs in "Meteora" compared to "Hybrid Theory", especially with songs like "Somewhere I Belong" and "Numb."

FAVORITE SONG: "Faint"

This song is where it started it all for me. Imagine. You're listening to the radio. This song starts with a strange violin, the drums start in, all of a sudden it totally rocks out, there are two guys singing, one raps and the other is screaming like you never heard another singer scream before. When I first heard "Faint", it was just so different from anything else I heard before. Besides from the musical structure of the song, the lyrics spoke to me as well. I always felt unnoticed and not taken seriously, and I just wanted to matter. Hell, I still feel that way sometimes. The song itself actually presents itself in a way that you just have to notice. You may like it or not, but it'll definitely get your attention.

 

So this is how I rank Linkin Park's albums. Others may have a different opinion, and that's understandable. With each album, Linkin Park attempts to reinvent themselves and try to create a different feel. It may be to some people's tastes, while others may be turned off. I've always seen people say they wish they had the "old" Linkin Park back, but if they just did the same thing over and over, they would probably complain about that as well. Hell, even within their own songs, they reference those kinds of fans. My favorite instance was in "When They Come For Me" from "A Thousand Suns". They may not be able to please everyone all of the time, but I applaud Linkin Park for consistently treading new ground and not worrying about what anyone thinks. Even I may have my ups and downs with them, but I'll stick with them as long as they keep putting out the music they want to, and hopefully I enjoy it as much as they do making it.