When a band is reduced to the point that I have to call enjoying them in the slightest a guilty pleasure, it’s pretty obvious that there’s something wrong. When said band reinvents their style and still fails to grasp my attention, there’s a bigger problem. Linkin Park is that band. I originally used to garner some enjoyment from them, but I’ve realized that bands should probably have some skill. Linkin Park was a holdover from the rap-metal days that now with their third album (not counting a remix album and a meeting with Jay-Z) Minutes to Midnight sounds like a watered-down version of Thousand Foot Krutch (not the most complex band to begin with)--shallow alt-rock with a few hints of rap.
So I could say Linkin Park has sold out. But honestly it’s more like a failed experiment. Responding to criticisms of unoriginality, the band decided to completely scrap what made them famous. They swapped angsty unoriginal rap-metal (see Meteora--and disregard my four-star rating)
Interests
for angsty unoriginal alt-rock with a slight hint of current events mixed in here and there. There’s one excellent song to be found, but it’s the tide of bland mediocrity and unoriginality that kills this album.
The change is quickly apparent in Given Up, the first track following a brief pointless instrumental. There’s no hint of Mike Shinoda’s rapping in this one, and Chester Bennington takes the lead with laughably angsty lyrics: “ Take this all away; I’m suffocating; tell me what the f*ck is wrong with
