Yeah, I know some of you are sick of hearing my Linkin Park hate, but I have come to a conclusion tonight: they are absolute, irredeemable trash - not just normal trash. I've just finished listening to a ton of their stuff (via also indescribably bad AMVs, but that's a rant for another day), so hear me out. :P For starters, I actually have trouble telling their songs apart - they can't seem to be original within themselves. Unlike many bands, it isn't that they aren't original in comparison to a lot of the competition - they just found a reasonably new type of sound and stuck with it. It's actually just... boring to listen to them; now that I've heard their rehashed sound so many times, it's almost like I'm listening to the same 2-3 songs over and over again.

And seriously, it's not just the sound they stick with that's repetitive - it's the lyrics. I pay close attention to lyrics, and let me tell you that all their songs are the same in this regard. With maybe a handful of exceptions, it's just the same empty, angsty stuff in every song. I don't know about you, but listening to someone scream about how everything they do is meaningless song after song is not something I can put up with. Plus, I doubt they even give a crap about their lyrics at this point - they're big, they're popular and they have a distinct market with the types of people who can stand this sort of thing. Why say something meaningful when it means risking the alienation of your largest market and losing money, eh?

Now here's the thing: some of the Linkin Park songs actually have a few interesting things in them. I do like some of the sounds they use, and some of the notes they hit are very cool (Points of Authority, in particular, has several parts that I like). It's just that moments like these are diamonds in the rough, and it really isn't worth listening to that same rap or rock song (Linkin Park's 2 most distinct sounds) again and again to get to them. You can only hear "Crawling" and "With You" so many times before you just can't take it anymore (only after I typed this did I realize the irony).

So yeah, they're horrible and irredeemable at this point, but they had a chance to be decent. If only they'd exploited their more interesting sounds instead of falling into angsty repetition. And if you're wondering why the heck I'm saying all this with Meteora as my avatar... it's a joke. :P I can't stand LP, so why not put them in my avatar? Try asking yourself that sometime.

Lastly, I think you should watch this. It will change your life forever, trust me. :o

(Note: sorry about the 1337 speak in the title. "Sucks" is filtered some some bizarre reason. Man, do I love GS...)