Linkin Park's "Minutes to Midnight" Era

[rafik4u]

so much slow songs... a little boring... i only like no more sorrow, bleed it out & given up

[zago]

damnnnitzzjohn said:

Well, I'm glad that you didn';t like. that means i will love thecd

yes, if u love Savage Garden u will love this ;)

[Haley]

zago said:

damnnnitzzjohn said:

Well, I'm glad that you didn';t like. that means i will love thecd

yes, if u love Savage Garden u will love this ;)

lmao!

Yeah, this will have to grow on me.

[Rebel Soul]

this album isn't awful, but it in no way lives up to their last 2 albums. I'm really disappointed, they lost their edge. Still, there's a few decent songs - shadow of the day, hands held high

[kingkuong]

'In Between" doesn't sound like them AT ALL....

[M]

Album is a big disappointment. Very average, even by Linkin Park's standards.

[areyoureadytojump]

Can a Mod change the title please??????

[gpduke03]

Good second performance on SNL. They probably should have passed on "What I've Done" and played another new song to create even more hype.

So with a big SNL performance? 600,000?

[Sara]

Yeah, that second performance was great. What song was that?

[gpduke03]

"Bleed it Out."

I've heard the CD version and it's OK, but it blows. Funny..huh?

[rjonline]

The album it's OUT NOW in EUROPE

[areyoureadytojump]

Out today in the USA!!

How many copies do you think it will sell in its first week?

I say 400k. Maybe 350k?

[polly]

It'll sell fast and then die. There's no fanfare.

[areyoureadytojump]

How do you know? You are in Australia.

[gpduke03]

Over 500,000.

[reception]

Reviewed by Edna Gundersen
USA Today

Linkin Park, Minutes to Midnight: * * * (out of four) Muscular reinvention

When Meteora arrived with meteoric force in 2003, hitting No. 1 after opening-week sales of 810,000 copies, Linkin Park seemed to have a lock on a winning formula. Even then, the band may have foreseen the waning tenability of rap-rock, a cocky but cockeyed hybrid that reached its commercial peak with Limp Bizkit’s baffling million-selling week in 2000.

On its third studio album, the band abandons nu-metal for a mid-career rock reinvention that entails more appropriation than originality. Raw, dense and intense, Minutes to Midnight has plenty of muscle and attitude, but there’s little fresh or dangerous in Linkin’s sonic tool chest, and in some respects, the band comes across as a late arrival to the emo party, especially in such mopey interludes as Valentine’s Day.

Singer Chester Bennington, who seesaws between a blistering wail and a whispery croon, dominates the vocals, while rapper Mike Shinoda retreats to share production duties with Rick Rubin, cropping up only periodically to spit out rhymes, most effectively on feisty beast Bleed It Out, a fine nod to the band’s old sound. The new sound is fairly old too. Paint-peeling guitar sizzle, threads of electronica, metallic thump - it’s all been done. Shadow of the Day is a solid rock anthem, yet hardly rises to the U2 stratum it aims for. And the craft and catchiness of What I’ve Done might be more impressive if its synth lines weren’t swiped from the Halloween theme. Power surges, emotional fervor and newly nuanced songwriting skills keep Midnight sparking. There’s no new wheel here. Just another spin.

[damnnnitzzjohn]

I think it should easily pass 500k

[damnnnitzzjohn]

I am loving this album.

[polly]

areyoureadytojump, Freakshow shall be your new name. :) And have you not heard the album?

[gpduke03]

Wow....I didn't buy this today!

That is a huge difference because their past albums, "Hybrid Theory, Reanimation, Meteora, Live in Texas, Collision Course" I was the first person at the store before they opened early in the morning to buy the new LP cd. Although I'll likely buy it tomorrow...this just shows how much they've lost interested fans.

[SHOOTER]

The album was all sold-out at my Target.

[gpduke03]

It will be interesting to see Hits Daily Double's "One Day Sales" tomorrow.

[gpduke03]

I've now listened to the whole album.

Big change for LP.

Sadly, on first listen I don't like it ANYWHERE NEAR as much as Hybrid Theory or Meteora. I'm trying to figure out the significance of "Minutes to Midnight" as the title. A marked difference in this album and those in the past is that I easily identified the singles on the first go-through. On Meteora and Hybrid Theory I found almost any of them to easily function as singles.

As I've said before about this album, I think they've been apart too long. Mike's solo release and Chester's time spent on his solo album has caused them to lose the fused connection of Linkin Park between hip hop and rock. They are trying to put them together again, but it's just like water and oil. A lot of the songs have a mellow hip hop vibe in the music, yet usually Chester's rock filled and screaming vocals. The cursing is a big turn off. I'm definately not against cursing, but they've been so successful in the past without it and their lyrics had substance, but now hearing Mike say "these f**kers" and stuff just dulls down the power of their lyrics.

A number of the songs sound like they've taken a page directly from other current bands. It's refreshing to hear Mike sing on "In Between," but overall his rapping is poor and Chester's delivery is weak. Very dull album that I don't much care to hear again. No real standouts, although the obvious singles "Given Up" and "Bleed It Out" are okay.

Overall, huge disappointment. 2.5 out of 5.

[gpduke03]

Hits Daily Double says first week between 550,000-600,000.

[areyoureadytojump]

HITS:

MIDNIGHT STRIKES FOR LINKIN PARK

New WB Album Set to Debut with 550k-600k in First-Week Sales

May 16, 2007

They may have moved on from rap-rock, but Linkin Park’s fans haven’t stopped loving them.

The band’s new WB album, Minutes to Midnight, fueled by the #1 Active Rock track, “What I’ve Done” and favorable reviews from legit papers like the N.Y. Times, is headed for an impressive debut of 550k, maybe even 600k, which would be by far the biggest first week of the year. Blue Note chanteuse Norah Jones’ Not Too Late was the previous topper, with 418k back in February.

That’s what our crack team of retail counters assure us is the trend as we head into the weekend.

What you heard was Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Lyor Cohen breathing a sigh of relief in two-part harmony.

Blackground/Universal Motown’s Tank is a pleasant surprise for Sylvia Rhone and company at almost 100k, while SBMG Nashville’s Gretchen Wilson will do 65-70k first week. Speaking of, look for last night’s Academy of Country Music Awards telecast, where Wilson was a presenter, to boost several titles on next week’s chart.

Metal legends Megadeth, now on industry bulwark Roadrunner, are headed for a still-impressive first-week total of 60k, give or take, while Nonesuch critical darlings Wilco return with a lauded new album, Sky Blue Sky, that seems headed for 50-55k, based on its #3 ranking on iTunes and a Starbucks presence.

The market was up less than a point vs. last week, down 23% vs same week last year and now down 17% year-to-date. You may return to dreaming about the good old days of nu metal.

[SHOOTER]

YAY TANK!!!

[reception]

Forget the snack: Linkin Park's 'Midnight' a feast

By Ann Powers
Los Angeles Times

If I were a band therapist, saving rock legends from self-destruction in stupidly expensive weekly sessions, I'd offer one key bromide to the members of Linkin Park: Dare to be who you are. Running from the past into the arms of a new image may seem necessary when a midlife crisis afflicts - many have done it, from Michael Jackson to Depeche Mode to Metallica to U2. But such a move only works if there's substance beneath the semantics. And that pith almost always flows from what made you great in the first place.

That's the case with "Minutes to Midnight," the first proper studio album from Linkin Park since 2003's "Meteora." (Interim activities included a remix project, a live DVD and a mash-up collaboration with Jay-Z.) Hyped as a leap beyond rapcore and nu-metal - the subgenres brought to commercial heights by this band - the album has all the markers of a credibility move.

Reputation doctor Rick Rubin produced; the band used vintage instruments and experimented with roles during the recording process; DJ Joe Hahn put down his scratch bible and got atmospheric; video for the headbanging "What I've Done" was shot in the desert.

Yet "Minutes to Midnight" isn't valuable because it does away with Linkin Park's formulas. It's best when the band reinvests in those codes, looking for new ways to interpret them.

Linkin Park's refusal of formal boundaries also connected to lyrical content - Chester Bennington, the androgynous punk who can scream or croon, and Mike Shinoda, the swaggering rapper who holds his machismo close to his chest, work together to express the confusion and hope of kids for whom identity is no simple game.

On "Minutes to Midnight," these now-30ish musicians grapple with what makes a sound endure beyond the cultural confluence that inspired it.

There's a contemplative feel throughout the album, especially on the pretty, somewhat indistinguishable ballads where Bennington fully takes the lead.

This is the kind of music artists make to find out who they'll become next: It reaches toward many influences - notably U2 (some songs invoke the Irish rock group almost note for note), but also Tool, Evanescence, Nirvana and Coldplay - without committing to anything.

The sound finds its mojo whenever Linkin Park remembers that its music is, as Shinoda said in one interview, "the product of a new culture" - one in which "organic" is only preferable to synthetic when you're buying apples at Whole Foods.

Shinoda, who co-produced with Rubin, clearly enjoyed the stretch the veteran studio guru demanded.

He even tries crooning one song, "In Between," and though it's not a powerful vocal (and the lyrics are worse), its Postal Service-style bed of electronics is pretty interesting. When Shinoda does rap, he really delivers.

A lefty-activist focus sparks the relaxed delivery he's developed in his other group, Fort Minor, and in "Hands Held High" he goes a step further than the average pop protest song, not just shouting "No more Bush," but asking his fans to question why they snicker at the news instead of taking action.

"Minutes to Midnight" becomes more ponderous when it becomes a bid for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Bennington brooding about heartbreak and social injustice over Brad Delson's soaring guitars and Rob Bourdon's rolling, martial (read: U2-like) drums.

These earnestly, artfully derivative songs don't show enough love for what makes Linkin Park compelling. Hahn's electronics, for example, are sometimes so underplayed that you want to reach into your stereo and yank them out. That's a mistake.

Some songs do get the balance right. "Leave Out All the Rest," a meditation on mortality destined for innumerable MySpace memorial pages, features the group's layering technique at its most gorgeous - a Moog-ish synthesizer lick is topped by a bubbling percussion loop; live drums and bass add warmth, and Bennington's angry-choirboy vocals build until everything intertwines in a gently compressed chorus.

Such careful constructions shine a light on how Linkin Park might continue to mature, by remembering the therapeutic wisdom of comedian Al Franken's creation Stuart Smalley: They're good enough, they're smart enough and darn it, people really like them.

[reception]

USA Today: Linkin Park's new album heralds change

[beextina]

All Music Guide
"Minutes to Midnight"





Damned if they do, damned if they don't -- that was the conundrum facing Linkin Park when it came time to deliver Minutes to Midnight, their third album. It had been four years since their last, 2003's Meteora, which itself was essentially a continuation of the rap-rock of their 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory, the blockbuster that was one of the biggest rock hits of the new millennium. On that album, Linkin Park sounded tense and nervous, they sounded wiry -- rap-rock without the maliciousness that pulsed through mook-rockers like Limp Bizkit. Linkin Park seemed to come by their alienation honestly, plus they had hooks and a visceral power that connected with millions of listeners, many of whom who were satisfied by the familiarity of Meteora. They may have been able to give their fans more of the same on their sophomore effort, but Linkin Park couldn't do the same thing on their third record: they would seem like one-trick ponies, so they'd be better off to acknowledge their advancing age and try to mature, or broaden their sonic palette. Yet like many other hard rockers, they were the kind of band whose audience either didn't want change or outgrew the group -- and considering that it had been a full seven years between Hybrid Theory and Minutes to Midnight, many fans who were on the verge of getting their drivers license in 2000 were now leaving college and, along with it, adolescent angst.

So, Linkin Park decided to embrace the inevitable and jumped head-first into maturity on Minutes to Midnight, which meant that poor Mike Shinoda is effectively benched, rapping on just two songs. In many ways, it seems like even the guitarists are benched this time around, since Minutes to Midnight doesn't really rock, it broods. Apart from a handful of ringers -- "Given Up," the Shinoda-fueled "Bleed It Out," easily the best, most visceral track here -- this is quiet, atmospheric stuff, dabbling with electronic textures that were cutting edge in 1996 but sound passé now. Also sounding passé are the tortured musings of lead singer Chester Bennington, who still is tormented by love, loss, family, any number of items that sound convincing coming from a man in his early twenties, but not so much so when thirties are approaching rapidly. And yet the way Bennington and his mates, shepherded by producer Rick Rubin, try to sound mature isn't convincing either, possibly because it sounds like a skate punk uncomfortably trying on his big brother's suit, but more likely because the band does not have the writing skills to make these subdued songs work. They have the chops to rock, and when they deign to do so on Minutes to Midnight they sound comfortable, they sound right, but too often they run away from this core strength, opting to create a muddled, colorless murk instead. That may be change, but it's not quite growth.

[areyoureadytojump]

LINKIN PARK

ALBUM: MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Rap-metal's sell-by date expired many, many years ago, and no one noticed more than Linkin Park, whose "Minutes to Midnight" finds the band throwing all manner of styles at the wall to distance it from a genre that currently enjoys a lower approval rating than Cheney. Linkin Park's ambitions are nearly palpable, but songs likely conceived as homages end up sounding too close to their sources. One can detect bits of Metallica ("No More Sorrow"), the theme from "Halloween" (first single "What I've Done"), "With or Without You" ("Shadow of the Day") and a breakup ballad that could have been written by the Matrix ("Leave Out All the Rest"). Sometimes the band hits: The hand-clap-powered "Bleed It Out" works up a nice lather, and Shinoda's antiwar monologue "Hands Held High" proves there might yet be more in Linkin Park's backpack than self-doubt and identity crises.