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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
You can tell this was written on the road., 5 May 2007
This album is not up to the usual standard of Linkin Park, the songs sound poorly produced, the lyrics are bland and go nowhere, songs never seem to build or have any real emotion to them.
This album feels like it's a cash in on the bands fans, I was dissapointed upon hearing this. For an album with only two songs of any quality, What I've done and In Pieces (and to a lesser extent Shadow of the Day) it's seriously lacking from former albums, where almost every song was always an interesting listen.
Just feels so bland to me, feels like the band is exhausted.
To clarify: I listened to the genuine thing, not a fake leak.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
It Saddens Me Deeply, But There Is Nothing Good About This Album., 7 May 2007
I just heard the new Linkin Park album, "Minutes to Midnight". I was going to buy it because I've been a fan since "Hybrid Theory" and I love their last album "Meteora". It really brought the band into their own and showed you that music doesn't always have to be deep or complex to be great. It's one of the best produced albums I've ever heard and one that, although it's under 40 minutes long, I could listen to for hours and not get sick of. So you'd think I would be one of the first people to go out and buy the new album. After hearing the first single which is completely bland and contains no rapping, one of Linkin Park's defining attributes, and seeing the terrible music video chock full of animal clips and stock footage of clouds and gas pumps, I decided to download it first. And it's probably the smartest thing I've ever done.
The album is weird, there have been several times that I've heard a follow up album from a band and just been completely confused. Every time this happens I really want to sit down with the band, talk to them, tell them all the stuff I love about them, and ask them what the hell they were thinking making an album like this one--I really wish someone could make me understand why a band would make a great album and follow it up with a really horrible one. It's one of the most frustrating experiences in the world, but onto the review of the album.
"Minutes to Midnight" tries really hard to not be loud, there are a couple parts where it's just clapping and some ambient synth--it's bad. There's really no substance at all, which makes it very boring and bland. Mike Shinoda doesn't appear until track 4--which makes the album feel completely unbalanced. When he does appear his rapping is too specific for a Linkin Park song and his flow is too mainstream instead of being this flat cool sounding generic few lines. Linking Park is one of the few bands that makes generic songs but makes them very well, so whenever they stray from that and it even slightly becomes self indulgent it sounds stupid. Shinoda appears again on track 7 and it's not any better, it's a mellow track and just as bland as the others, again his rapping sounds like it was written for a Dr. Dre beat, it just doesn't work. The guitars don't sound like anything from the other albums, they sound like standard metal guitars turned way down--which is very cheesy sounding. There's barely any electronica, if you find any it will be in the background. The album has no flow to it, it will go from a screaming track to one of the many slow empowering Chester ballads, which all sound pretty much the same since they all use like three instruments and stay really mellow. Track 10, "In Between" is clearly something Mike Shinoda composed himself in garageband, and it's his ballad song which comes right after another ballad. It's one of the best produced songs on the album but Shinoda's the rapper and it's really dissappointing to hear him singing like the postal service with way dumber lyrics--"the only thing that's worse than one is none"--that's really bad. It's hard to picture them performing this album alongside their other material, it's so soft and soo boring. On every song if you've heard the first verse you've basically heard the entire thing, man I don't even know if the whole band is even on this album. I heard two little scratches from Mr. Han. Track 11, "In Pieces" has a decent vibe to it, it sounds nothing like their other stuff but it's the one track I don't hate. There is no Mr. Han instrumental track, like on the previous albums, and they're usually one of the best parts. The Mr. Han track was the one thing I was still looking forward to because even if the band changed Mr. Han could still cook up a sweet-ass beat for us. But he doesn't, and that was a huge dissappointment. The album ends with a 6 minute long song which is just wrong for Linkin Park. I always loved that their songs stayed around the three minute mark, that way they never got old and you could loop the album for hours and it would stay fresh. But the song isn't completely horrible, it's the one instance on the album where they actually get their soft sounding sound to work, then Mike Shinoda starts singing for some reason and it makes the song worse instead of adding something cool, then the album ends and you're forced to write a review of how bad it is.
It's hard for me to believe that my favorite producer Rick Rubin oversaw this horrible album. Linkin Park really could have taken some notes from Deftones and Nine Inch Nails if they wanted to make a softer album while maintaining their unique sound. Sorry guys but this is a horrible album. It's an even worse follow-up than Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish, which pretty much destroyed them. I read that the band wrote over 100 songs for this album and was all excited that they used vintage guitars and Rick Rubin's old 808. The formula for recording over 70 songs for Meteora worked out great, but here it just sounds like Linkin Park lost sight of their musical identity and got wrapped up in trying new things and having fun in the studio. They treated their recording experience like a field trip and figured if they tried a bunch of things a good album would happen. They clearly did not focus and the interviews with the band gushing about how advanced, deep, and significant Minutes to Midnight is, make me sick. After recording over 100 songs they just picked 12 that could work as an album. All I can hope for now is a Mr. Han solo album. I really don't see Linkin Park recovering from this one, it's very dissappointing.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No reviews, 14 April 2007
I thought I'd write a message here to defend Linkin Park.
Minutes to Midnight has not been leaked, and no one has heard it yet. There is a fake release out which some are presuming is the album, when the release if actually tracks from another album from another band.
No review is referring to Linkin Park's new album. The band have confirmed that the only confirmed track is the new single What I've Done. The track list that's also out is only a rumour.
If you want a review try the print publications in a few weeks.
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