A: Cassettes were long archaic by the time I bought their CD in middle school, JB…
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[4.17]
Jonathan Bradley: Chester Bennington’s howl hasn’t lost any anguish, but it was built for bedrooms, not stadia. On that scale, you need to bring it like Nine Inch Nails circa–The Fragile, not a badly dubbed Depeche Mode tape. (Extra credit questions: Is Hybrid Theory too recent to have received a cassette release? Is Linkin Park the quintessential Discman band, and is it thus fitting they sound so poorly suited to the iPod era?)
[2]
Brad Shoup: Although others may swear to the opposite, I’ve long thought LP’s sturdy compositional sense recommended them much more than Chester’n’Mike’s well-meaning phlegmpathy. The slow-unrolling synth line is a nice analogue to Shinoda’s rippity-rap, but melody trumps sloganeering for me.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: Chester Bennington’s voice is good for one or two things, but does best with conveying the idea of being a weakling (see “In the End” or “Numb”). The dinky synth-pop is a nice foundation, if chirpy synth-pop is your goal, but it can’t make Bennington seem aggressive and empowered enough by comparison. The rest of the track is bloodless enough that it doesn’t enhance his exhortations to burn it down, whatever “it” is. It’s wimpy but it doesn’t know it, let alone embrace or wallow in it, the secret trick that powers their best singles. The rap section is… a diversion, nothing more
[4]
Iain Mew: This could be really good as a Depeche Mode song — I mean, you wouldn’t have to do much more than switch the main vocalist and do something with the raps. I’m pretty sure that they would hit the target of darkness and intensity, which it misses by a mile at present.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Archaeologists unearthed a Linkin Park song from 1800; it sounded just like this. Archaeologists in 2300 did the same, though they were able to describe the synths better. It’s nice to have constants in life.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Remember when Bowie went jungle? This is Linkin Park goes Moby.
[4]