10 Albums That You Need To Listen To More Than Once

There’s always going to be a part of your fanbase that just expects you to make the same style of music for as long as you live. Even if you have the potential to go far beyond just your generic pop or rock songs, there’s always a pressure that your fans either won’t show up for your new sound or just complain about how you’ve changed. The truth is that fans don’t know what they want, and A Thousand Suns is proof that you need to take chances.

Because when Linkin Park first released this record, fans were absolutely appalled by what they heard, thinking that the hardened nu metal guys that they knew from Hybrid Theory had gone down the electronic direction and promptly disappeared up their own ass. That couldn’t be further from the truth on this record though, as the band take more chances with electronic sounds and create a concept record centered around the idea of nuclear fallout and what happens when the bombs eventually drop. While this is by no means a perfect album by any stretch, you can definitely tell what the band is going for the more times you listen to it, with Waiting for the End playing into the despair that comes in those seconds before destruction to taking a stand against the corrupt government leaders who carry out these actions on songs like Wretches and Kings.

And while the numerous interludes might not be the most ideal way to listen to the record for some people, they actually serve the role of tone painting, almost to put you right in the middle of the mayhem as the songs play out in front of you. Whereas fans may have expected a collection of bangers like before, this is Linkin Park’s statement record where they tried to reach the same heights as Radiohead and Pink Floyd. And with a little polish, they came pretty damn close.