First of all, it's been over 2 years since I've blogged here! I just got distracted and kept meaning to start up again. Well I've decided to continue this music journal.
Now let's get to the subject of this post, and bare in mind that this is all my personal opinion. How could Linkin Park's "The Hunting Party" possibly be important? Well to begin, it is an amazing album, and one that old Linkin Park fans have been craving so long! But I want to set a scene up for you, let's do a quick history lesson. Linkin Park came up with the Nu-Metal scene that started in the 90's and early 00's. With Grunge shattering the hold that Metal and AOR bands had on MTV and the music industry of the 80's, the melting pot of music genres began to boil. Anthrax's team up with Hip-Hop/Rap group Public Enemy, and bands like Faith No More, had shown that the mixture of different genres was accepted very well by fans. Bands like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry gave the influence of Goth and Industrial Rock, the aforementioned coupling of Rap-Rock/Metal, and the aggression of Punk and Grunge (and generation X itself) all came together in the new breed of bands to carry on the banner of Heavy Metal. This genre was cleverly called Nu-Metal. Dominated by bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down, and Rage Against the Machine; Linkin Park's Diamond certified debut album "Hybrid Theory," launched the band to the forefront of the scene (arguably). At the time they came around they were one of the few Nu-Metal band (along with Limp Bizkit and Evanescense) that was known to me and my friends, because that's what was popular on MTV and VH1.
As happens in the music industry, the Nu Metal "fad" began to wane and crumble as fans started looking for the next hot thing. But bands like Korn and Linkin Park still stayed relevant and popular. As their career advanced, Linkin Park started adding more Rap and electronic elements to their new albums; enough to capture many new fans and mostly keep loyal ones, but alienating many others. But on their 2014 album "The Hunting Party," Linkin Park stripped away the electronic elements and went back to the roots of where they started.
So here is where we come back to my original point: Why this album is important. Recruiting Page Hamilton of Helmet, Daron Malakian of System of a Down, and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine for guitar/vocal work and suddenly going back to the Hard Rock and Metal elements of "Hybrid Theory," "Meteora," and "Minutes To Midnight," is going to be a real shock to the fans they earned with the electronic fueled albums "A Thousand Suns" and "Living Things." It shows these new fans a scene that they most likely have not been exposed to before, alienating some undoubtedly (as "A Thousand Suns" did to me), and making others look into this once popular music style. Asking some of their influences and Nu-Metal peers to perform with them, and going back to their original Nu-Metal sound will also bring back fans they lost, not only to Linkin Park themselves but to Nu-Metal as a whole. You may think I'm crazy for saying one album will start a movement of Nu-Metal bands coming back into the limelight, and you most likely are right, but I'm willing to bet that this album is strong enough and released at the right time to do just that. Let's just hope Limp Bizkit isn't one of those comeback bands...
