[Music] Linkin Park – Living Things

Linkin Park were a band I listened to a bit at school through my friends’ CDs, and through Kerrang TV which was my preferred choice of background music during study leave for my GCSEs and A-Levels. I always thought that their music was ok, but not amazing. A bit too angsty for me, and full of pseudo-rap that didn’t do much for what was then a mind focused on either orchestral music or proper guitar led bands. However after hearing the single “What I’ve done” on the Transformers soundtrack, I decided to check them out again. They’ve gone through a bit of a reinvention, becoming a bit more mellow in their sound but keeping the lyrical style, and also become a bit more political.

Album cover for "Living Things" (Credit: culturetease.com)

“Minutes to Midnight” (from which “What I’ve done” is drawn) was a decent album with a couple of stand-out tracks. “A Thousand Suns”, their next album, seemed to follow rapidly, and again had some excellent tracks. A bit of a concept album in style, it had a lot of short, linking tracks that only really work in the context of a complete album playthrough.

“Living Things”, in contrast, is a return to a more traditional album style. It’s really an album of two halves. The first half invokes memories of Linkin Parks earliest albums, with shouting, rapping, and short, punchy choruses. About halfway through, in the middle of one of the tracks, it transitions towards the style of Minutes to Midnight, with a more lyrical style which I definitely prefer. Overall the album works really well as a whole, and there are at least 3 tracks that I absolutely love, one of which is already one of most played songs on iTunes. A great album.