[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Igster

And yet they have outlasted just about every band mentioned in this thread and are still going strong. Hard to argue with that.

This argument absolutely sucks because again, that means every rock band of the last 15 years is bowing down to Nickelback. Really, really hard to argue for that. Longevity and record sales are relevant to popularity, not impact on music or ground broke.

That's all really. That's mine and other's issue in this thread. Linkin Park can be your favourite band ever, you can think of them as being 1,000 times better than the Beatles. Love them all you want, just don't think of them as ground breaking, because factually speaking, they aren't. Nothing they did was original, and nothing they did sparked a significant change in music.

And for fun, an outstanding review of Linkin Park's "ground breaking" albums.

Linkin Park originally called itself Hybrid Theory, a name they retained for the title of their debut album. The "hybrid" in question is the overly familiar one of rap and metal, to which the group has little new to add. The guitars and drums lock into standard thrash patterns, over which singer Chester Bennington and rapper Mike Shinoda alternate in furious expressions of rage and frustration. "One Step Closer," the track released to radio in advance of the album's release, is a typical effort, with lyrics like "Everything you say to me/Takes me one step closer to the edge/And I'm about to break." It might be easier to believe in all this angst if the group members didn't take such pains to thank their families in the lengthy acknowledgments in the booklet, followed by an extensive list of product endorsements. But even without the fine print to undermine its sincerity, Linkin Park sounds like a Johnny-come-lately to an already overdone musical style.

Perhaps if the cut-'n'-paste remix record Reanimation hadn't appeared as a stopgap measure in the summer of 2002, Linkin Park's second record, Meteora, would merely have been seen as a continuation of their 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory, instead of a retreat to familiar ground. Then again, Reanimation wasn't much more than a way to buy time (along with maybe a little credibility), so it's unfair to say that its dabbling in electronica and hip-hop truly pointed toward a new direction for the group, but it did provide a more interesting listening experience than Meteora, which is nothing more and nothing less than a Hybrid Theory part two. Which isn't to say that Linkin Park didn't put any effort into the record, since it does demonstrate that the group does stand apart from the pack by having the foresight to smash all nu-metal trademarks -- buzzing guitars, lumbering rhythms, angsty screaming, buried scratching, rapped verses -- into one accessible sound which suggests hooks instead of offering them. More importantly, the group has discipline and editing skills, keeping this record at a tight 36 minutes and 41 seconds, a move that makes it considerably more listenable than its peers and, by extension, more powerful, since they know where to focus their energy, something that many nu-metal bands simply do not. (It must be said that there will surely be consumers out there that will question paying a $19.99 retail for a 36-minute-and-41-second record, though some may prefer getting a tight, listenable record at that price instead of a meandering 70-minute mess.) So, it must be said that Meteora does deliver on the most basic level -- it gives the fans what they want, and it does so with energy and without fuss. It's also without surprises, either, which again gives the album a static feeling -- suggesting not a holding pattern for the band, but rather the limits of their chosen genre, which remains so stylistically rigid and formulaic that even with a band who follows the blueprint well, like Linkin Park, it winds up sounding a little samey and insular. Since this is only their second go-round, this is hardly a fatal flaw, but the similarity of Meteora to Hybrid Theorydoes not only raise the question of where do they go from here, but whether there is a place for them to go at all.