"Papercut" by Linkin Park (2001)

Longing for the old Linkin Park

Too bad Linkin Park doesn't make music like this anymore, and we old fans are kept wanting for more nu metal or rap metal. We long for Chester Bennington shouting or screaming at the top of his lungs and Mike Shinoda blowing us away with his rap while the rest of the band play their instruments. We still long for the sound that's reminiscent of the songs in Hybrid Theory and Meteora.

"Papercut" single cover

The shift after Meteora

After the release of Meteora in 2003, the band began exploring other genres and experimenting with new sounds. The effort led to the release of their third studio album Minutes to Midnight in 2007. With the release of that record, they had deviated from the signature nu metal sound. More albums followed, with more alternative metal, electronic rock and rap rock, but no more nu metal. Mike still raps, though, like with their 2012 single "Burn It Down" and Chester still has his recognizable vocal.

With rock, particularly alternative rock and nu metal, not getting the sales and airplays they need nowadays, attention is getting scare for Linkin Park, though they still churn out albums and tour around with other bands.

The band doing their stuff

Linkin Park experience through people

First heard Linkin Park way back in 2002, when a classmate recorded "Papercut" and "In The End" instead of the NYSNC songs that I asked for. He even told me "Papercut" is an NSYNC song. After playing the song multiple times on the cassette player, I concluded NSYNC doesn't sound like that and realized my classmate lied to me, but I wasn't angry. I liked what I had heard, and I asked my classmate about the name of the band.

Months later, I bought a bootleg cassette of Hybrid Theory from another classmate and borrowed a VCD of music videos from another. Months later too, my mother sent me Meteora. I then started composing song lyrics and tried rapping too. Years later, I saw Megan Fox in Transformers.

But the nu metal sound is gone. As we should know, nothing is permanent but change. We need to adapt to change. Wherever Linkin Park goes, we go.

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