Linkin Park
A Thousand Suns

As a first review on this beautiful site, I've chosen the latest album I've personally listened to.

Yes, dear well-fed readers, it's about "A Thousand Suns" (a thousand suns, for the ignorant ones) by Linkin Park, a stars-and-stripes band born in 2000 and dead in 2007 with the release of the album "Minutes to Midnight", which marks the beginning of their "poppification" (a synonym for commercialization) that reached its peak in 2010 with the release of this album that I'm about to review.

As you may have guessed, this album has nothing to do with the fine nu-metal of Hybrid Theory and Meteora, nor even with Minutes, which had something good in it.

This album is in every way a pop album, which only in a few songs (Blackout) still presents the screams that vocalist Chester Bennington consistently misses at every concert and that fans (including me) like so much. For the rest, it's just a mix of rap, electronic, pop (...so much pop) and speeches by unknown American people like a certain Martin Luther King.

Now let's analyze the tracks individually:

The Requiem is one of the many instrumental interludes that act as conduits between the tracks: no rating

The Radiance same: n.r.

Burning in the Sky is the first sung track and the third single released from the album. It's not bad, a good pop-rock track: 6.5

Empty Space like the first two: n.r.

When They Come for Me is a mix of electronics, Shinoda's rap, and Bennington's Egyptian-style wails that, if they were missing, would have surely changed the rating: 5.5

Robot Boy reminds me of Hands Held High from the previous album, meaning it sucks: 5

Jornada del Muerto: n.r. (no need to explain why)

Waiting for the End: a good track that starts with Shinoda's rap and continues with Chez's melodic singing: 6.5

Blackout also isn't bad, reminiscent of the early albums, but unfortunately it's the only one that does: 6.5

Wretches and Kings is all rap and electronic, nothing special: 5.5

Wisdom, Justice, and Love: n.r.

Iridescent is a beautiful track, perhaps the best of the album, with melodic singing by Mike Shinoda and Chester, and it’s the only track in the history of LP where all the members sing together: 6.5

Fallout: n.r.

The Catalyst is the longest track of the album, it's not bad, but these aren't the real LP: 6

In conclusion, it can be said that "A Thousand Suns" is a decent album for a neutral listener, but absolutely inadequate for a fan.

If we want to give a rating, we can say that for the first the rating is 6, while for those more tied to LP it's a pitiful 4. For DeBaser, instead, I give it 2 out of 5.