In the end, however, any defense anyone can muster up for One More Light or any theory on the band having pure motives going in to the album with a genuine desire to create pop tunes can be easily negated with the context surrounding The Hunting Party and its aptly titled Carnivores tour. One may even argue that One More Light would be the most logical progression in the band’s sound because of how often the band has hinted at their soft spot for pop songwriting. Yes, Linkin Park has always been a commercial entity and had a primarily pop edge at the core of their songwriting. The thing is, this complete 180 in sound and style would have some amount of redemption (like every other album after Meteora) if it isn’t for the fact that the end result is this flagrantly half baked and pandering. With One More Light, it seems only hardcore fans and Linkin Park apologists enjoy (or at least claim to) the new material. Sure there was detractors for the stretch of albums from Minutes to Midnight up to even The Hunting Party, but one would not have to search hard for non-hardcore fans who enjoy these albums. This freak out is probably the most unique in the band’s career in that the overall reception of the material released prior to the album’s official drop was overwhelmingly negative. However, when Shinoda said that scrapped material during the Living Things tour were deemed too “poppy” and he didn’t “even believe in this music,” fans and listeners certainly had a right to be angry at the abrupt change in style and sound. Since then, the band has been on a downward spiral into irrelevance.įast forward to recent times, with Chester and Mike’s rhetoric concerning the support and thought process of The Hunting Party, listeners were simply bewildered upon listening to lead single “Heavy.” Now, it’s not like the band has not dabbled in electronic flavored pop music the crux of Living Things was essentially this but with clumsy integrations of the band’s rock sound.
The band commercially peaked during their nu metal days and remained so until the end of their Minutes to Midnight run.
One can only hope.Review Summary: "Please don't give up on me"Īt this point of time, there isn’t really much to say about Linkin Park. Maybe they will return to their roots in Hybrid Theory. Linkin Park make the music they want to make so the one good thing is, you have no idea what Linkin Park will do next. (Linkin Park, Hunting Party – One More Light). The title track One More Light doesn’t stray far from the other tracks and is probably the slowest track on the album (a true ballad? Heaven forbid!)īands do move on, sometimes it works (U2, Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby), sometimes it doesn’t. There are some nice rhymes by Pusher T on Good Goodbye and the track Heavy features some smooth sounds of Kiiara, but the track is far from heavy. If you love the opening track Nobody Can Save Me, you will like the entire album. You never know what track you are on as they tend to blend into each other. The biggest concern of the album is the “sameness” of the album. A bit of useless trivia, this is the first Linkin Park album that has a song on the album that is the name of the album. Now in 2017 we have One More Light, and we are seeing Linkin Park in a completely new light. In 2000 they released their debut album The Hybrid Theory which has gone on to sell in excess of 11 million copies.
Linkin Park came together in 1996, in the nu-metal age of rock. It seems Linkin Park have always taken risks and if you don’t like what they doing, they don’t give a flying…. They have issued electronic and alt-rock tracks before and heck, even a concept album with the A Thousand Suns album. Linkin Park have been dabbling occasionally into other areas of music for a few albums now. Naturally there has been a backlash from fans, many who will move on from the band after this album. After their return to the original Linkin Park sound with their 2014 album “The Hunting Party”, the album One More Light is Linkin Park Lite.
Album Review – LINKIN PARK – One More Light