“Burning in the Skies” by Linkin Park, Wednesday, June 29, 2022
When a rock band gets as big as Linkin Park got, it becomes trendy to hate the band. I must admit that during their career, I wasn't in line with every step the band took--mainly because of the band's usage of profanity from their third album throughout the rest of their career. However, I could never understand critics and listeners who casually compared the band to butt rocks like Nickelback. Yes, Linkin Park's music is formulaic at times, and the band knew how to write a song to get on the radio. The comparison between Linkin Park and any other rock band seems like comparing Nickelback to Nike because Linkin Park was a brand more than band, complete with a consistent audio and visual aesthetic. The band didn't simply create records, but told stories.
I'M SWIMMING IN THE SMOKE OF THE BRIDGES I HAVE BURNED. Linkin Park's fourth record, A Thousand Suns, is a multifaceted concept record. The band intended for album to be listened to in one sitting, inviting listeners into the post-apocalyptic world of the record. Although, A Thousand Suns is not a direct sequel to their third record, Minutes to Midnight, both records reference the doom of the human race. Minutes to Midnight is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, which calculates the impact of human action that could bring the end of civilization, midnight being the end. A Thousand Suns refers to the blast of nuclear weapons that could end humanity. The album explores the darkness of human nature which could cause the bombs to drop. Short interludes build classical or operatic themes throughout the work, drawing most attention to the penultimate track "The Catalyst," the album's optimistic theme "Waiting for the End," and today's song, the album's true opener "Burning in the Skies." The album opens with two tracks that function as an overture: "The Requiem," which is the hook of "The Catalyst"sung by a heavily autotuned childish female voice and "The Radiance" which is a sampled recording of J Robert Oppenheimer describing the first test of the nuclear bomb.
I'M LOSING WHAT I DON'T DESERVE. Both tracks set an eerie tone for the record, despite the somewhat serene "Burning in the Skies." A Thousand Burning Suns certainly has a hierarchy of catchy songs with "Waiting for the End" and "The Catalyst" being polar opposite in mood. The third most memorable track would be "Burning," which follows a Linkin Park formula: both Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington sharing vocal duties, electronic sampling loops, and a guitar solo based on the melody of the chorus. It's the lyrics that bring this song to life, especially in the context to the rest of the album. The song describes when the bombs fell, which given the speaker's ability to editorialize the event, seems to have happened long before this song is sung. There's an acceptance to the fault--is it Bennington who caused the bomb to drop? Is that the guilt born by one soul? Or is it a realization that all humanity could have made that decision? The music video further visualizes the events, which seem to have happened on night when people gathered together for small parties, it kind of reminds me a small New Year's celebration. In 2011, a song like "Burning in the Skies" sounded like bad Emo, like a church kid who grew up with terrible self esteem and never got past the "I'm a piece of shit" theology. Eleven years later, the album starts to feel more and more relevant as the fears of climate change seem ever present and world leaders have itchy fingers when reaching for their nuclear weapons. The question is will humanity "lo[se] what [they] don't deserve"?
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