One blog, one week later. I’m really not doing very well at this, am I?
Though I’m not going to apologise, because personally I don’t think it’s worth apologising for. I could write a blog explaining that I am sorry for choosing not to apologise but I know they’re not very popular either, so I guess I should just get to the point: I’m slowly getting back into the blogging scene. Slowly, eurgh.
Those of you who are fans of Linkin Park probably recognise the title as their to-be-released album – it’s coming out this September. Linkin Park are, indeed, one of my favourite bands. 
When they released their single ‘The Catalyst’, I noticed on Last.fm that people were complaining that they had changed their style and that they weren’t as good as they were back in the days of Hybrid Theory (2000) and Meteora (2003), when they were more of a nu-metal band. They later surprised their fans with Minutes To Midnight, which was more of a rock album.
Now, Linkin Park have gone electronic, if anything else.
My point?
The thing about a band is that you can’t expect them to stick to the same style. Papa Roach, back in the days of their album Infest, were also more of a nu-metal band. Nowadays, their sound has changed. They have gained lots of hate for it, and comments for the ‘old Papa Roach’.
The same is true for my favourite band, My Chemical Romance – except none of their albums ever sound the same. If you listen to all three in a row (soon to be four), they have different themes, different sounds, different everything. You get people hating the newer albums, the older albums, or the sound the new album is going to bring.
Personally, that is one reason why I love MCR so very much – their albums are always different. Therefore, there’s one for my every mood and as musicians, they practice different styles. The best part, of all of this, however, is that with each new sound they still sound good.
So, surely, with Linkin Park, people should embrace this new sound they are going to bring.
As a band, experiments either produce something good or something bad, according to your opinions. But, let it be said… what is a ‘bad’ album? Something that is different from the usual, like Minutes To Midnight was different from Hybrid Theory? For some people, it is the other way round.
Bands change. Music changes. Sound changes. Without these experiments that bands do with their albums, surely we would all be confined to certain genres. If Linkin Park, for example, had kept their nu-metal sound, as of now they would have been a nu-metal band throughout their career.
They formed in 1996. Fourteen years of nu-metal?
Change can be good as well as bad. For me, bands experimenting is not a bad change. Of course, maybe their old sound is better, but with these experiments, maybe they will find a better sound that will appeal to more audiences. Maybe they have changed as people, and thus their old music doesn’t suit them anymore. Who knows?
- What band(s) do you know of/listen to who have ‘changed’ over their albums?
- Do you approve of this change?