Review Summary: Linkin Park has never had a dud album and Living Things is proof of this.
Linkin Park has created Living Things:
Linkin Park is a modern Alternative band that in the past decade has come out with several albums that have been huge successes including their most recent album, Living Things. The lead singer Chester Bennington along with co-founder of the band Mike Shinoda have again created harmonial bliss through the making of this most recent album in which they combined Mr. Shinoda’s rap influences and Mr. Bennington’s lyrical singing. “Living Things” proves that this band ceases yet to relinquish their seat as one of the great modern alternative bands that still exist.
Linkin Park’s first hit album Hybrid Theory brought them into the spotlight with the songs “Into the End” and “Crawling” being the two huge singles from the album which signified the band’s genre. Over the years though since this first album Linkin Park has changed and become more focused on Mr. Shinoda and his rapping. This is more prominent none other than the song “Until it Breaks” in “Living Things” in which Mike rapped throughout the entire song. This shows how the band has progressed since the release of the debut album in which there was no song in which Mike sung or even rapped.
“Living Things” even though it seemed slightly different than the sound of the band in its earlier years, still had Linkin Park written all over it. The album that helped to solidify the rapping sound within this alternative band would be “Minutes to Midnight”. Within this album there were more than a few songs that featured Mike as the lead vocalist including “Hands held High” and the hit “Bleed it Out”. These helped to integrate this rapping into Linkin Park’s already successful Alternative sound and therefore laid a basis for rapping to become more evident within more Linkin Park songs. This continues onto the band’s fourth album as well “A Thousand Suns” in which the hit “Waiting for the End” again features this rapping element and this element is similar to the song “Lost in the Echo” in “Living Things”.
Linkin Park is a band for those who want to feel emotion whenever they listen to a song. They are for those who feel like not just rebelling, but for those who feel that they need to do something in the world as evident in “Hands held High”. The album “Living Things” is for people that are tired of everything happening around them and just want to drown inside music. It is for the people out there that have ever been hurt or has experienced different instances in which they have been the fool. This album has a song for all those instances, like the main song of this album, “Burn it Down”; it is about a relationship in which after giving everything you had to this one person, they push you to the floor, but then they end up falling and you just let it happen. This is an album of emotions.
Linkin Park is recommended for those who have had past interests in bands such as Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin and even Evanescence. Just like all these bands Linkin Park first was rooted in alternative metal, but what distinguished them from all the rest was their intuitive rapping element in Mike Shinoda. The aggressive rock-rapping combination within Linkin Park is what made almost all of their albums great successes. Living Things among the other albums is proof of this, the rapping within several songs helped to glorify the album. Especially the break-out song of this album, “Burn it Down”. This single was the theme song for the NBA playoffs during the 2011-2012 season and this is what brought this album into the light. Living Things or any one of their previous albums were as a big a hit as their debuting album Hybrid Theory, but have all been successes with record sales.
Living Things is in my opinion just another great album released from a band that never disappoints. The rap-rock combo always works for them making their albums successful and making sure that they always stay atop on the charts. In the end, there are several reasons to purchase the Living Things album and those are:
Reasons to purchase this album:
1. The tone of the music that will just give you a sense of empowerment.
2. The amount of emotions that you can relate to on this album.
3. Linkin Park has never had a cd that turned to out to be a bust.
Linkin Park is a fantastic Alternative-Rock band that I know will continue to make great albums; I will keep my ears open waiting for their next album and will wait with great anticipation.
