Linkin Park quotes Battlestar: Galactica

...or actually, they quote the same quote that BSG quotes. Confused? Let me explain.

Linkin Park's new album 'A Thousand Suns'. If you own this image then please let me know if you want me to take it down

So I'm driving along listening to the new Linkin Park song ‘Wretches and Kings’ when I hear a very familiar piece of dialogue coming through my speakers, particularly the line "and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop". I knew it from somewhere, but I couldn't remember. It wasn't until they played the same quote at the end of the song that it twigged: Chief! This is Chief Tyrol of Battlestar! At first I thought it was weird, but since Linkin Park have said that they wanted this album to have influences of the unorthodox and abstract sounds they experimented with in the early stages(1), so why not include a quote from an well-known and often time critically acclaimed series?
When I went home I looked it up and realised that the speech wasn’t exactly the Chiefs, it was Mario Savio. He was a free rights advocate in American in the 60s and gave this famous speech in Berkly. Chief paraphrased the speech (just putting this here in case anybody thinks I believe the BSG writers copied this word-for-word) when he spoke to the union on New Caprica, and it worked to rouse them to striking and standing up to the Cylons.
The rest of the album is an awesome mix of beats and music, alternating between powerful ballads and just plain crazy tunes. It’s not exactly back to their ‘old’ stuff, but it’s along a similar enough vein to please those who have disagreed with their new stuff. My favourite, though, is the mix of ‘The Requiem’ and ‘The Radiance’. There’s no gap between these songs on the album so it seems like the two are one, and this is simultaneously the best and the creepiest music I have ever heard. The female voice they have repeating the chorus to ‘The Catalyst’ is odd enough, but the music and the J Robert Oppenheimer(2) quote in the background really drive home to oddities.
This is one of the best albums that I have heard in a long time. Everything gels together so well that this is a work of art. Well done to Linkin Park and the gang who put this together.

So, did you like this album or the songs mentioned? Or do you listen to repeats of 'Meteora' on your music player of choice? Let me know in the comments.

Kathy

(1)   Note from the band in the album sheet. 

(2) The album title is also a line attributed to Oppenheimer when discussing the first nuclear blast.

Music Time! Linkin Park "Iridescent"

Linkin Park has had some truly spectacular songs in the past, and while iridescent is awesome it doesn’t stack up to a lot of their older, more edgy pieces.

LP is a band of two time periods, one that has displayed their growth as people and musicians through their music. You cannot compare “Paper Cut” to “Leave out All the Rest”, it’s impossible, and yet both songs were created by the same band. “Iridescent” is along the same path as “LoatR” in that it’s softer and not a lot of auto-tune or computer generated sounds, and not a bamboo flute to be heard. And yet, this is a Linkin Park song, no doubt about that.

This is not just because of Chester’s unique voice (you hear that and you know who’s singing), but the tone and message of the song.

It’s called iridescent because it would be shiny if we could all ‘let it go’, but the truth is that it does take a lot to do that. But even as the song says “remember all the sadness and frustration/and let it go”, because you cannot truly let something go unless you have remembered it full. Whether it’s a past love or hurt at the hands of another or the pain of failing at something or never having gotten the chance to succeed, you cannot move past unless you have fully lived it, and accepted it.

Like most LP songs, most of the lyrics are powerful: “When you were standing in the wake of devastation” and “you build up hope, but failure's all you've known” are two of the most powerful lines in the song.

The music video is very weird, and I don’t think I got whatever they were trying to do. I like it enough, but I don’t get it. The Transformers are in there, cool coz I like them, and a couple of religious undertones (the snake, the last supper), but apart from that nothing else stood out. Chester’s eyes freak me out, but that effect was very well done indeed.

I really like this song, regardless of what this review might say. I’ve listened to it a few times and I think it’s a good mix of uplifting message to a downbeat... beat. It will never be called an inspiration song a la “Eye of the Tiger”, but it does have a nice positive message in it at the end.

What does everyone else think? Is it a good song or kind of iffy? Do you miss old school LP or do you prefer this style? Leave it in the comments.

Kathy

Themes: Linkin Park, Iridescent, Chester, LP, LPU, transformes, dark side of the moon