In which we are raged against…
Ian Mathers: To the extent that Linkin Park ever were/are cool, it’s at least partly because they absolutely do not seem to care if some people find them cringey. The teenagers (and others) who resonated with “One Step Closer” et al, and now find that the lyrics here touch on the pain and grief of living in our increasingly/eternally dystopian times, don’t need the band to be less sincere. Recruiting a new singer who was inspired to both sing and scream via her love of Hybrid Theory (and who has apparently distanced herself from Scientology, or else my tone would be… different), but who doesn’t sound like she’s just doing a Chester Bennington imitation, is probably about the only way to handle this short of going the Shinoda-only route. Slightly to my surprise, I find that I’m happy they’re back.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Aptly titled.
[3]
Mark Sinker: Genius dot com tells me this song is about the CRITICS and how all they want to do is TAKE YOU DOWN — but I prefer to believe that it’s an intransigent Adorno-esque critique of administrated present-day life, its lures and its hells. Emily Armstrong has the kind of voice I unreservedly love (and Mike Shinoda does not).
[7]
Harlan Talib Ockey: No one else is ever going to sound like Chester Bennington, and the (poorly-considered) choice of Emily Armstrong implies that Linkin Park wasn’t looking for an impressionist anyway. But their first single with a vocalist who is very audibly not Bennington is the blandest possible version of Linkin Park, including the right ingredients to show fans they’re still the same band while filing off just enough serial numbers that it doesn’t sound retrograde. There aren’t any concessions to Armstrong’s vocal style or musical influences, either of which could’ve made this less slick and more distinctive. I do appreciate how Linkin Park has grown up with their listeners, as the teens raised on Hybrid Theory are now the prime age for an anthem against soul-sucking corporate adulthood — that still understands audience calibration and brand identity.
[4]
Nortey Dowuona: The frustrating part about the brouhaha about Emily Armstrong is that whatever her affiliations, she understands becoming part of a cult formed out of the wound of abuse and the agony of cutting yourself out. We are only social creatures, many of us choosing unhealthy groups to find our own identities, only for the lucky few to get free and enter a healthy community — or, more likely, loneliness again. Perish a thought for those who can never get free.
[7]
Jel Bugle: I like their new singer, she’s adding some much needed energy – I’m not sure if Mike’s opening lines were deliberately dreary, to highlight Emily’s power? Anyway, it’s a smart move by Linkin Park. Musically, it’s alright, not that exciting – they should go more metalcore rather than pop nu-metal. But as a radio-friendly unit shifter, this will do well! Music for traffic jams.
[6]
Jeffrey Brister: I liked them more when they were “Refused for teens who have absolutely no idea who the fuck Refused is.”
[1]
Taylor Alatorre: Packaging your radically rebooted line-up in an unadorned riff repeater is the alt-rock version of the median voter theorem — you can’t be seen as going too far too fast, and reassurances must be given to key voting blocs. Of all potential compromises, though, this one is far from the worst, and it reinforces the band’s preferred narrative in subtle ways. The dry, compacted production lends the feeling of a group restarting from scratch, huddling in the proverbial garage as they try to figure out what works and what doesn’t, which elements are central to the Linkin Park sound and which are secondary. The album title From Zero nods to the band’s late-’90s predecessor, and there is indeed a sense of pre-history here, mixed with alternate history — what if Hybrid Theory was the sophomore sellout album, and this was what the originalists had clamored for all along? It’s an intriguing little fantasy, and it becomes more credible when Emily Armstrong is given her cue to explode, fulfilling in an instant the dreams of a generation by making a million bedroom cover songs canon. The lyrics are not so transferable, though, given how clearly LP-centric they are — no one could ever think that “your favorite point of view” is about overbearing parents or high school backbiters. But it would be absurd to a expect a “view from nowhere” account from a band whose identity is suddenly a melee free-for-all.
[6]
Katherine St. Asaph: More like the empty content machine. The band couldn’t have predicted — or, at least, hopefully didn’t predict — that the “fuck the haters” lyrics would sound offputtingly defensive in the context of the Emily Armstrong backlash. (It’s irritating how people see her as some rando and not the frontwoman of a long-running band, but man, between that and later singles, Dead Sara’s reputation has just cratered.) But given that Armstrong’s role here seems to be sounding as much like Chester Bennington as possible, was it all necessary?
[5]