By 2003, Linkin Park was already considered an innovative and popular band with a style that practically no one could replicate, despite many attempts. In this year, the group led by Mike Shinoda and the late Chester Bennington released “Meteora” the album that would solidify them as the new strong force in the so-called “Nu Metal” selling over 13 million copies.
The band broke with the paradigms of metal, incorporating into their compositions fragments of rap, scratches, electronic sequences, guttural and clean vocals, resulting in a powerful blend filled with different auditory textures.
What can we hear?
A band with a lot of groove, where rhythm plays a stellar role, whether in vocals, drums, or even guitars, making you nod your head from side to side. Linkin Park solidified themselves with a sound that combined different styles in one place, and here lay the key to their success:
– Nu Metal: Guitars, drums, and bass draw inspiration from the genre, being, to some extent, straightforward, serving as the rhythmic foundation.
– Hip Hop: With Mike Shinoda handling the rap vocals, the band explicitly incorporated the genre as part of their identity. Additionally, they use sampling and scratching by Joe Hahn, giving the album a more urban style.
– Death Metal: Chester Bennington employs guttural vocal techniques in the heavier passages.
– Alternative Rock and Pop: Similarly, Chester uses his voice again, but this time in a clean manner, creating very memorable melodies.
Songs made for jumping at a concert.
With all the elements mentioned earlier, the band crafted gems of songs that mostly share something in common: they introduce the audience to a perfectly prepared energetic climax, ideal for “moshing” or “jumping”. To illustrate this, let’s analyze the track “Figure 0.9,” featuring an introduction that builds up before instrumentally exploding, then introducing the vocal groove of rap, and finally culminating in a very catchy melodic chorus. It’s a successful formula that doesn’t complicate things.
The album finds its balance in songs like “Easier to Run”, “Breaking The Habit”, or the instrumental “Session”. These tracks break the pattern of the “explosion” and lean more towards the alternative side, while still maintaining their “urban” imprint. These songs also hinted at what the band would do in their next work titled “Minutes To Midnight”, where they moved away from Nu Metal to embrace more of an alternative rock sound.
The use of beats, scratches, and sequences makes this work highly innovative, as evident in “Somewhere I Belong”, creating a sound full of proposition.
A sound that could have been explored for more years...
Meteora marked the end of an era, as the band subsequently dedicated themselves to innovating in more musical areas, gradually moving away from metal. This speaks to the creativity and hunger of the band to explore new frontiers and step out of their comfort zone.
Meteora is the first album that brought us closer to metal, with us being just 8 years old, listening to the CD repeatedly, feeling the energy that a record with so much “punch” brings to the body and neurons when experienced for the first time. Undoubtedly, it’s a gem of an album that made history in contemporary music.
What are your thoughts on this album? Feel free to share your comments!
