Review Summary: These wounds, they will not heal.
Linkin Park have always been known for their early nu-metal work, not the incredibly lazy and sloppy electronic side of them. When they remixed
Hybrid Theory back in 2002 for
Reanimation, the result was an incredible waste of potential, especially since none of the songs lived up to the original piece. Since
Reanimation has always been one of their least popular albums, a sequel to it, this time remixing tracks from
Living Things, was incredibly surprising. This dabble with dubstep and EDM is an obvious attempt to cash in with the current electronic trend, and like KoRn before them, the result is less than satistifing (although it is better than
The Path of Totality).
Living Things was not one of Linkin Park's best albums, and even they know it. So why make an entire remix album filled with songs solely from it when its original material wasn't even that good to begin with? Remixing
Hybrid Theory wasn't a bad idea because there was actually quality material to work with and change. Both it and
Meteora are leagues ahead of
Living Things, which proved that Linkin Park was nine years past their prime. Tracks like "Powerless" or "Lost in the Echo" weren't bad at all, but for the most part,
Living Things was a big slap in the face to their original fans, and with
Recharged, they've proven that they're drifting farther and farther away from their nu-metal roots. Electronic music may be one of the biggest-selling genres in the industry today, but every song on this album is filled with lots of drops and excessive use of dubstep. Make no mistake: this is an electro/dubstep record, not a rock one.
Our first taste of
Recharged, lead single and opening track "A Light That Never Comes", is one of the band's weakest tracks in their entire discography. The song is reminiscent of some sort of "Burn it Down: Part 2"; Shinoda lazily raps the verses, Chester sings the chorus and electronic elements are scattered around the track. Yet, the end result is one even worse than "Burn it Down", and that's mainly due to the out of place dubstep in the chorus and Shinoda's weak and bored delivery. Lines like "What don't kill you make you more strong" (a Metallica reference, perhaps, because that's what was truly missing) do nothing to the track but dig it deeper into its own hole. "Castle of Glass" wasn't that bad of a song, but Mike Shinoda's remix adds nothing to the song but a few too many drops and an overly lengthy run time of six minutes.
And yet, even through all of this, they can't be blamed entirely for this mess. The repetitive, over-use of dubstep is mainly the fault of the assorted group of DJs that were chosen to remix these songs. DirtyPhonics, Tom Swoon and a bunch of other relatively unknown remixers are the ones who made turned these tracks into stereotypical dubcrap. These guys are so used to making brash, drop-heavy songs that they don't realize that they're overdoing the electro elements by a lot. Had there been more variation in the album, it would have been a lot more bearable. None of the guest DJs even try to go out of their way and be unique; rather, they blend in with the rest of the crew.
Perhaps the worst remix on
Recharged is done by Mike Shinoda himself; his reworking on “Victimized” is incredibly sloppy and overdone. We all thought it was an extremely lazy and haphazard composition on
Living Things, and Shinoda somehow found a way to make it worse. The sheer volume of the song is really its greatest enemy, since the overuse of drops and breakdowns completely drowns out Chester’s vocals. Many of the remixes here are too loud for its own good; a dose of ambience would have saved many of these tracks from being the vapid creation that they are.
Recharged is an album that truly shows what Linkin Park have become: a band that doesn't give two damns about turning its back on their nu-metal roots and resorting to dubstep to cash in on a popular music trend. The entire album is based in electronic and dubstep roots, and they know it. It's not even a
good dubstep album; there's no variety to any of the tracks, and all of them are filled with the same bass drops and breakdowns. It gets repetitive within the first three tracks, and sitting through a whole hour of this sterile crap is nearly impossible. The only glimpse of hope comes in Money Mark Headphone's remix of "Until it Breaks", which keeps the electronic dubstep elements to a minimum. There's no use trying to tell each remixer apart from each other, since most of them take from the same bag of tricks anyway.
Recharged isn't a Linkin Park album; it's a dubstep one, and if that's its goal, it fails miserably at it. In the end, if this is all they have left, we'll all be waiting for the end of their career.
