This album was a good seller with 4 million and 800,000 copies sold for the first year and earned then Grammy as the best rock album of the year. In a year, they released their debut album Hybrid Theory, featuring the material accumulated for many years. In 1999, Linkin Park managed to get a contract with Warner Bros. Thus, they called themselves Linkin Park. The young men went into troubles with the other band under the same name charging them with a copyright infringement. As he had agreed to join the band, it was called Hybrid Theory. His unique voice made a deep impression on the other members. It took the group a while to find a new vocalist. After multiple refusals of labels to cooperate, the original singer Mark Wakefield made up his mind to seek his fortune in another band. In spite of the limited finances, the band started recording several songs in Shinoda's bedroom, their first studio. The group was founded in 1996 by classmates Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. Living Things is another challenge for those who believe the band has written all it could, and an irresistible offer to those who keep faith in this ensemble.Linkin Park is a rock band from Los Angeles playing alternative rock. They may be changing ratio of electronic to rock music, switching from melancholy to fury, but the basic elements are all the same and recognized quickly. So, Linkin Park remain well aware of their strengths and keep using them to the limit. The concluding part of the album is presented by a combination of instrumental Tinfoil and half-ballad Powerless sharing the same piano theme. In the slow Until It Breaks singing is done by guitarist Brad Delson who did not do it in quite a while. In fact, after the first obviously electronic and pop-adjusted half, Living Things displays pieces of variety here and there. Those closest to this status are In My Remains with battle march rhythms, single Burn It Down with silly lyrics but killer vocal parts, and Victimized, unexpectedly heavy and violent track as if thrown into this record accidentally. The evenness of the Living Things track list might be the album’s biggest shortcoming as it can be quite a challenge to single out the necessary two or three hits. In the meantime, there will be no more suspense, tension and aggression of the early works here all the energy that the record has is accumulated in choruses, molded specifically for concert performances. Compact sound and distinct rhythmic cycles, offered on the opening Lost In the Echo, will hold on throughout the entire album. The band does not have a Joe Bonamassa or a Yngvie Malmsteen, so a decision was made to dig guitars deep under the thick and fertile layer of electronic soil, and upon it Shinoda’s confident rapping and Chester’s trademark nervous vocals should rest. Speaking of audacity, the musician appeared brave enough to admit that their guitar part is quite simple and there is not progress that can be made in this respect. The process is on, and there can be no recall, but the fresh release at times does remind us of the old Linkin Park, and when it does not it please with novelty and creative audacity. Presented as a real return to their roots, Living Things, of course, has not become such. Keeping in mind the extremely conceptual and experimental nature of A Thousand Suns (2010), that scared a good half of Linkin Park followers, it was quite obvious in what direction the Americans would follow making their next long player.
After all, who really cares if it is good, as usual? There is no doubt that after listening to their fifth, just released, studio album Living Things no one will wonder what this is and if the legends of nu metal have the right to do anything like that. These rockers do whatever can and will sound nice and make listeners one more time forget to ask what kind of genre it is and why they walk so freely from across music.
There is actually no form, just like no borders, contours, rules or restrictions. Because Linkin Park are associated with the absence of forms, but the permanence of deep and solid content. Nu metal, you say? Well, how much metal is left in the music of the American band? Even if the answer is positive ‘none’, no one will throw a stone at them, nor will anybody give them a scornful look. While musicians of all genres and trends are judged ruthlessly for their stylistic fluctuations and betrayals of their own beginnings, Linkin Park are established firmly as an ensemble that must be different, must change, from album to album, or even within an album.
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