Influential albums

This was actually one of the ideas I had on my mind when I was writing the first paragraph of the Nada Surf review back in January. I was planning to do this as a part of the "older albums revisited" section but it was st. tropez who finally forced me to get down to it. It took me three months...

I got into music much, much later than most of you. It wasn't until I discovered the secret of downloading. Yes, big surprise, I'm a pirate. Therefore almost all the albums mentioned here will be from the noughties. I may not listen to many of them anymore, but these records had a tremendous impact on my life and I'll always have a soft spot for them. Let's start with 21 albums that didn't make the final cut. I'm pretty sure I'll revisit them one day too.

AFI Sing the Sorrow
Arcade Fire The Suburbs
Ash Meltdown
Avenged Sevenfold City of Evil
Biffy Clyro Only Revolutions
Blink 182 Enema of the State
The Cure Disintegration
Fightstar Be Human
The Gaslight Anthem The '59 Sound
Idlewild Broken Promises
Journey Escape
The Killers Sam's Town
Lostprophets Liberation Transmission
Muse Black Holes And Revelations
Oasis What's the Story Morning Glory?
Rise Against The Sufferer & the Witness
Saosin Saosin
Silversun Pickups Swoon
Snow Patrol Eyes Open
Story of the Year Page Avenue
Taking Back Sunday Louder Now
Travis The Boy With No Name

The Beatles Help!

I think it's safe to say, that the Beatles have been with me all my life. I digged all of their songs when I heard them on the radio. But it wasn't until the 2009 remaster, which offered a great opportunity, that I checked their whole catalogue out and discovered there's a lot more to love than just the notoriously known singles. I could easily choose any Beatles' album, but I chose Help!, because the first track of the same name was literally the very first song ever to gain the title "my favourite song". Although, I was in elementary school and probably didn't even know any other band at that time. But that's not the point. I love the Beatles, period.

Living Things

Well, I'm gonna be leaving for another vacation later today, thus I decided to go ahead and post one last thing before I go as a brief goodbye.

I used to totally adore Linkin Park back in the day. Hybrid Theory and Meteora were the jam and the soundtrack to almost any party we threw as kids. Nu metal craze was at its peak (or at least what everyone thought nu metal was) and there wasn't a single kid who wouldn't like one or two LP songs. But the band's omnipresence couldn't last forever and like any other act, Linkin Park slowly started to lose their momentum. Most significantly some time around Midnight.

Minutes to Midnight was supposed to show the band's poppier, more melodic sensibilities and show they're capable of stretching their sound. Linkin Park wanted to become a bigger band, U2 for the 21st century. And the album itself wasn't all that bad, some of its songs belong to the better part of the band's catalogue. Unfortunately, though, it also marked their transformation into a more mainstream and generic act with songs like Leave Out All the Rest or Shadow of the Day. Besides, collaboration with Micheal Bay certainly didn't help. (Not to speak about Chester Bennington's sideproject Dead by Sunrise, what was that supposed to mean?)

So they did what most actual bands would do. With fear of fading into irrelevance, they tried experimental stuff in order to find a new distinct sound, their own thing. And they succeeded. There were a lot of people who enjoyed the hell out of A Thousand Suns. For me, unfortunately, that album was a complete misstep and marked the moment I lost my faith and interest in the band almost completely.

Two years later, Linkin Park released their fifth studio album, named fittingly Living Things, as if they wanted to assure everyone they still exist. And I gotta admit, it came out as a rather pleasant surprise.

First of all, this is their rawest album since Meteora. Once again, the band isn't afraid to let the anger out and show us Chester Bennington's screaming capabilities. He's still got it. As a result, any song from Living Things has more energy than all the tracks from A Thousand Suns combined.

On the other hand, this record isn't the sound of progress. Rather, it's a consolidation of forces. The band took all the ingrediences that paid them off in the past, big guitar riffs, catchy choruses, rap and their newly found electronic self, added them into one mix and voilà, it works pretty well together. However, if you wanna find something even remotely new and unheard, look elsewhere.

Nonetheless, this is a solid record, which, I'm pretty sure, will appeal to most of their old fans. And if that was the goal, then LP succeeded quite well. I must say I didn't expect I would enjoy Living Things so much. I can totally see the appeal to my fifteen-year-old self. Although the days of Hybrid Theory and Meteora are long gone, Linkin Park's latest effort does quite a good job of bringing back the memories.

Best tracks: Lost in the Echo, I'll Be Gone, Castle of Glass

Burn It Down

For all those remaining Linkin Park fans out there...



Well, this is at least a lot more interesting than their last album.

Iridescent

New music video from Linkin Park for a song that will be featured in the next Transformers movie. What I've Done was amazing, New Divide was very generic but still kinda okay, Iridescent, on the other hand, is just bland and boring...

Sparkle's albums of the year 2010

You know that with my Alzheimer's maybe an album I was addicted to in 2010 is missing. I have made a list of albums I love anyway, the ones different from Memphis'.

A Thousand Suns

Linkin Park

I know I am the only one but this album means a lot to me and I am a huge LP fan as you know.

Feeding The Wolves

Ten Years

 

An old band that I am following since the beginning.

All American Nightmare

Hinder

 More rock and i like it.

The Constant

Story Of The Year

Another old band I am following.

Without The Hour

Chasing Avalanche

A debut album, very interesting for me.

Damage Control

Cinder Road

Vessels

Ivoryline

ABIII

Alter Bridge

I love this album's sonority.

Happy new year again, with plenty awesome music to thrill us. :)

Sparkle

My first post in a month or so...

For the past few weeks, I've been listening to The Killers immensely. But they are currently on hiatus and their frontman Brandon Flowers is releasing his own solo material. The new album is due out September 14. You can watch the first music video below. The song is great but the video takes it into a whole new level, because Charlize Theron and Ninjas are in it!


It quite surprises me, that it doesn't sound like The Killers at all.




On a related topic, Linkin Park announced, that they'll be releasing new album A Thousand Suns on September 14 too.


Edit: You can listen to new Anberlin's song here.