Pretty Odd Minutes to your Paycheck, or Why two of my favorite bands suck

Hey,

Well, My last year of high school is winding down. That's right, I'll be off to live alone with much more free time. Maybe that means more time for posts like this one and less Digg posts. Who knows and who cares. All I know is that I've got a paper due on Monday, so it's time to stall myself as I am prone to do. So, I'll write up another one of the many posts festering up in my head.

You may have heard it on the radio, but Linkin Park came out with a new album a little while ago. I got it when it came out, as Linkin Park is one of the few bands that I would monetarily support. They sound different, and their music has always been a soundtrack to my life. Always until I popped "Minutes to Midnight" into my computer to start the ITunes transfer. I was flabbergasted. What was this bullshit. There were songs with no rapping. There were barely any Mr. Hahn sounds. Every other song was a ballad. BALLADS. FROM LINKIN FUCKING PARK.

I looked in the booklet and regret it to this day. The band that had first introduced a young mind to metal guitars and good music looked like a hippie Good Charlotte. There was a guy with an afro. I knew what was going on, although it took me many months to accept it. They sold out to the studios. This music wasn't Linkin Park music, it was Lincoln Park music. It was appealing to a much wider demographic, it had basic guitars instead of techno sounds, and the girls sure do love their ballads don't they. There is nothing they could do at this point to regain me and many others like me as fans. Anything they do now is dead to me, and it makes me sick.

What finally pushed this post through my fingers onto the keyboard was another bands very recent album, Panic! at the Disco's "Pretty. Odd." (That exclamation point IS a part of your name GOD damn it). After a very successful debut album which almost sounded like a pop version of a System of a Down album, they have turned in a generic "classic rock inspired" waste of space. I couldn't even get through the album. I guess the success got to their heads, but I wish it could have waited for at least one more album, as I really liked their first effort.

Why is it so hard to give music fans what they want. A good band IMO is a band that can turn in an album that is different enough from their previous work while still being in the same genre (at the very least). One good example is another favorite band of mine, Disturbed. Disturbed has made three very good albums, all hard rock, but each with their own flavor, and as the listener, I appreciate that. Both Lincoln Park and Panic! have failed this horribly, one band because they have given up their artistic ideals and one band because they let super stardom blind them to their purpose. And it's a damn shame.

One last factoid, Lincoln Park recorded fifty to sixty songs in their attempt to pump out Minutes to Midnight. I wont be surprised at some quick new albums coming from them in the next few years with that material, as they are a business now, and you can't waste good product just because it was made a few years ago.

-May your band of choice rock on with their integrity intact
Pudge
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Now playing: Creed - My Own Prison
via FoxyTunes