Review Summary: Meh...
Linkin Park is one of the most celebrated acts in recent history. Their blend of mainstream rock and hip-hop elevated them above the rest. Linkin Park was simply a band people liked. No matter what genre listeners preferred, I’d always find at least one Linkin Park song on their playlist. It’s hard to describe why people liked them so much. Bands would come and go out of the spotlight, yet in Linkin Park’s case, they remained in the same position. Backtracking over ten years (yes, it has been that long), Linkin Park was on the rise.
Hybrid Theory and
Meteora captivated audiences worldwide. Linkin Park got big fast and understandably took some time off after their second outing. This only fueled the anticipation as to what their third installment would be. After all, over a year in the making means
Minutes to Midnight *must* be good.
Hype has a tendency to kill things before they start. I would attribute most of
Minutes… disappointment to the infinitely high standards held by LP’s faithful. Can’t say I blame the fans. Linkin Park was capable of striking gold twice in a row: why not a trifecta? However,
Minutes to Midnight was off from the start. Firstly, the album name is a reference to nuclear warfare. That right there is out of place for a Linkin Park album. I remember reading Watchmen and seeing the doomsday clock at 11:59 and thinking something bad is about to happen. I never thought I’d be thinking the same about a Linkin Park album. The stranger part is how unfitting the title is. Nothing in
Minutes to Midnight has anything to do with nukes or superheroes. Hell, nothing in the album really works anyways.
‘Hands Held High’ is about the closest listeners will get to war, but even so, that’s a generous comparison. ‘Hands Held High’ is more of a ‘let’s pick on Bush’ track than anything as advanced as Hiroshima. It’s hard to really base an album off of a state of affairs track, but its clear Linkin Park wasn’t aiming for anything more than a catchy title. Not to mention ‘Hands Held High’ is the most insignificant song on the album, but more on that later. ‘What I’ve Done’ was the lead single for
Minutes to Midnight and true motive of the album. What do fans notice about ‘What I’ve Done?’ Well, obviously it’s not nu-metal. The song has a solo, inspiring theme, and light atmosphere. This isn’t the Linkin Park we’re used to, but it’s too early to judge. Finally, a few months later,
Minutes to Midnight hit the shelves and we got what we expected.
Don’t let ‘Given Up’ fool you; that’s about as heavy as
Minutes… will get. No longer will we come one step closer to breaking the habit, rather, we’ll have no more sorrow about what I’ve done. The entire purpose of
Minutes to Midnight is to move as far away from nu-metal as possible. Now that you think about it, that’s the point of every album after. Hmm… some food for thought right there. In numerous interviews, the band would often state how classic rock and hip-hop were the grounds for which
Minutes… was built. By classic rock they mean U2. For hip-hop, well, they really mean Mike Shinoda. Most of the album feels like U2 weaseled their way in somewhere during the recording. ‘What I’ve Done’ has that soft rock melodic feel. ‘Shadow of the Day’ has a moody contemporary vibe U2 sometimes employs. Most of the album has that general ‘stand-up-speak-out’ notion Bono is most famous for. For what it’s worth, Chester Bennington even started dressing like him.
Minutes to Midnight’s music is one of the records faults. Although it’s a lot different than its predecessors, that doesn’t mean it’s good. The record shifts between alternative, punk, and contemporary. It doesn’t stand out from anything else released in 2007. The music blends in and sounds exactly like what every single alt-rock band was doing. I swear if listeners blasted ‘No More Sorrow’ or ‘What I’ve Done’ and listened to any alt song after, there would be no difference.
Minutes to Midnight goes out of its way to incorporate every 2000’s rock trend into an album and make it theirs.
Minutes… is like a time capsule of every popular rock sound of 2007. It’s sad actually because this is one of the few albums Brad Delson doesn’t play in the background. Guitar is prominent on most of
Minutes… tracks. The riffs are just forgettable. Remember the riff from ‘Valentine’s Day?’ No? What about the solo from ‘In Pieces?’ Damn, that’s rough. What about the breakdown from ‘In Between?’ That’s a trick question, but who even remembers anyways?
Minutes to Midnight has no character. Everything is bland, generic, and lifeless. Finishing the album is like a chore. There’s nothing past the eighth track worth staying for. In fact, I’m positive few listeners actually cared enough to listen past ‘No More Sorrow.’
Minutes to Midnight is two-thirds complete. There are 12 tracks and only 8 are what people came to hear. There’s also a weird tonal shift throughout the album.
Minutes… tries to be energetic and lively, but more than half the songs drag the tone. It’s very inconsistent because
Minutes to Midnight was marketed to be some kind of pit-starting rock album and half of the record are ballads. If Delson isn’t chugging power chords or vocal melodies, in comes a string orchestra and a sad Bennington voice. Still, I’d love to see a wall of death during ‘Shadow of the Day.’
Really, the only way to describe
Minutes to Midnight is Linkin Park made an alternative album. It’s not a good or bad album, it’s just okay. If any other band released a record like this, anyone would have been fine with it. The fact Linkin Park, being the “unique” it group of the era, released something as average as this makes the impact harsher. You go from their first two albums that had a lot of character and raw energy to ‘Bleed it Out’ and ‘No More Sorrow.’ Listeners could hear Linkin Park trying to have the same edge as
Hybrid Theory in those songs, but they played it safe and awkwardly. I get a lot of people liked this album, and more power to you, but I don’t find it worthy of the defense it gets. Fans feel justified in ripping apart “haters” of
Minutes…. They feel we either hate it because it’s not nu-metal or don’t understand the ‘complex message’ of the album. Speaking of message, what was the theme of
Minutes to Midnight? Am I the only one who didn’t get the overall meaning? It’s a tossup between redemption and depression. Wait, no, that can’t be right. That’s the same as every other –
In Linkin Park’s quest to separate from the past, they paved an unclear path to their future. Instead of
Minutes to Midnight being a musical achievement demonstrating their diversity in styles, they dropped a painfully average bout that lowered expectations. Nothing in
Minutes… works enough to make me actually care about it. The album hasn’t aged well nor has it any lasting effect on the band as a whole. Everyone forgot about the album after Linkin Park’s electronic phase that lasted 4 years.
Minutes to Midnight wasn’t memorable enough to be bad or good enough to mention. It’s destined for purgatory by being so painfully average.
Minutes… wasn’t made to impress people by any means. It was a poorly spoken statement to fans on where they’re going. It wasn’t a goodbye to nu-metal, rather a nasty divorce from it.
Minutes to Midnight wasn’t a good or bad album – just an album that’s given up.
Standout Tracks
Leave Out All the Rest
