Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to a futuristic land of pop culture, celebrities, glamour, and fame. Yes, celebrities, most people love or like one or more celebrities, because of their specialty, uniqueness, or the connection and feel that people find about that person or maybe different reasons. Here in this land of the future, people like to build them up as statues of stone and metal. Cold as ice. Further separating them from their humanity. we have hundreds of little drones that can do it in just a few hours. Just choose the celebrity and upload the plans to the drones’ memory. And we make them gigantic. Towering above us all. After all, the bigger they are…
“BURN IT DOWN” (Yes, in all caps. That’s how Linkin Park wrote it.) is an electronic-rap-rock song by the American band “Linkin Park”. Released in 2012, it was the lead single of their fifth studio album “Living Things”. The song is much more on the electrical side of things and it’s well appreciated to be quite honest. It did Exceptionally in both the charts and in the reviews, topping several charts in different countries at number one. It’s a pretty dynamic and vigorous song with its 110 bpm tempo, so that explains how it toppled so many charts. The track also has a really sanctimonious feeling to it, helped by both the lyrics, the vocal prowess of Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, and also the A minor key.
You press play and the song wastes no time in pulling you into an array of electronic melodies and give you that futuristic vibe all over. The harmony that begins at the 9th second boasts itself clearly as it’s obviously the main melody of the vocals. The song keeps pacing up until the 25th second and here come the drums. Feel the power of the future folks, it’s invigorating. 00:42 and Bennington’s vocals begin the first verse as most of the electronic harmonies quiet down in awe. As always, his voice covers a whole spectrum from the most blissful calmness to a most thunderous rage. We see the first aspect in the verses and the second in the choruses where he’s also accompanied by the heavy and distorted guitar riffs. Every chorus is followed by a little instrumental-electronic solo which is a pretty little touch. 2:28 and here comes the rap bridge of the song, performed by Shinoda. As always he’s got a strong, “punchy” hook with a smooth sailing flow over the song. The bridge is followed by a pre-chorus by Bennington through which we can hear a lively drum passage into the chorus. God this song’s full of little bursts of energy. The outro is a give and takes between the two vocalists as the beat holds its climax. And in the end, the fuel runs out. Perhaps the song was burning down all along with all that energy, huh?
The lyrics of this song are very much open to interpretation, even leading to some critics and fans chiding them. But what’s wrong with art being open to interpretation? We all can relate them to our own stories and lives, right? Nevertheless, Shinoda in an interview with the Huffington Post stated: “...We're talking about my personal story and his personal story, and there's also a layer of pop culture that plays a role in the lyrics of the song. For example, people build up a certain celebrity or musician or actor or whatever and they're popular one minute and the next thing, you know either they've done something wrong or they've done nothing wrong and there's just a bad rumor that goes around about them and then everybody's attacking that person. That's just the way things are. We've actually lived through that as a band. All that stuff plays a role.” which is an absolutely great issue to pertain to in my humble opinion. Another interpretation could be about romantic relationships, where one or maybe both of the participants make an idol out of the other one, leading to unhealthy obsessions or unreachable expectations, only to realize one day that it’s not as they had in mind and be forced to burn it all down because they can’t hold the monolith they’ve created.
In any case, folks, don’t build something you know you’re gonna burn down! Let’s just use the drones for something more productive from now on. I’ll see you all, at the next review.
Regards,