Composition
In an interview featured in the March 21, 2012 issue of Kerrang! magazine, Bennington stated that the band has returned to more 'familiar' territory on their new record, saying "with this album, we've incorporated a lot of guitar work with big choruses and the heavier electronic stuff to give it that really big wall of sound feeling without getting too metal. This will be more familiar to people than A Thousand Suns was, where we were like 'Fuck it, we're just going to go bonkers." Bennington also said that the new album's lyrics would be personal and avoid being political, adding "We've been writing a lot about relationships." Bennington and Shinoda echoed similar statements during an interview with Spin, with the former commenting that "We now know we have the skills and the tools to take those ideas and make them into what we're actually looking for, as opposed to getting into it and discovering that it just sounds really nü-metal. That's always going to be gross to us, but we can take elements of that and reinvent the vibe, make it new and fresh." The two previewed five songs from the album, as well as announced that they had collaborated with Canadian musician Owen Pallett. The vocalists also stated that they have adopted numerous influences and topics for the album, particularly about people.
Bennington told Live 105 that the band is "embracing everything that have done in the past," taking the "best pieces" of their previous four albums and "smash them together into this new record." Shinoda explained in an interview with NME that the album would not return to their nu metal sound, however they assured that the record "gets back to our roots and it's captured a feeling that we haven't gone after in many years." He also spoke similar statements to Bennington about combining elements of all four albums, saying, "We've learned so much from all the albums we've done, so we've taken everything we've learned and mixed it all into one." Shinoda stated that the album is more "rap-centric" compared to their previous two albums. Shinoda told Musique Mag that the band wanted the album to be "more energetic song-based", as opposed to their previous album, A Thousand Suns, which was more of a concept record.
The band had numerous influences and inspirations for Living Things. Shinoda told Rolling Stone that "Skin to Bone" and "Roads Untraveled" contained folk music influenced by the works of Bob Dylan, as well as the inspirations of Dylan. In the seventh track "Victimized", which Rolling Stone described as "the band's most aggressive track in years", was influenced by punk rock bands such as Pennywise and Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. Shinoda noted the minimal content of numerous punk rock songs attributed to the short length of "Victimized"; bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrel noted that the song's working title, "Battle Axe", "which to me is..what that song is; it's just this big 'crack' and then you're out." Like the band's first two albums, the penultimate track ("Tinfoil") is an instrumental. Brad Delson, the band's guitarist, has vocals in the tenth track "Until It Breaks", which was Delson's idea.
Read more about this topic: I'll Be Gone
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Vices enter into the composition of virtues as poisons into the composition of certain medicines. Prudence and common sense mix them together, and make excellent use of them against the misfortunes that attend human life.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (16131680)
“It is my PRIDE, my damnd, native, unconquerable Pride, that plunges me into Distraction. You must know that 19-20th of my Composition is Pride. I must either live a Slave, a Servant; to have no Will of my own, no Sentiments of my own which I may freely declare as such;Mor DIEperplexing alternative!”
—Thomas Chatterton (17521770)
“Every thing in his composition was little; and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind, without any of the virtues, or even the vices, of a great one.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (16941773)