Carnivores

I used to be a hardcore Linkin Park fan when I was younger. Although I've largely grown out of the sound and gone much heavier and complex since then, I still find myself listening to every new album that's released simply because I owe the band my introduction to heavy music. And they still amaze me to a certain extent.

At the time of writing this article, it's been hardly a week since the album "The Hunting Party" was released. Linkin Park had a lot to live up to with it and not only did they nail it but they have also restored a lot of hope to the fans who didn't like the direction they were taking with the previous three albums.

While I could go on and on about the music, there's something a little more interesting about the album I want to highlight and that's the title: "The Hunting Party". This title has not only a unique origin as explained by Mike Sinoda but it reminded me of a long lost thought I once had about the new generation. And with the help of his words, let me explain it to you.

Elders all over the world are concerned that the new generation of kids are becoming 'herbivores' of a sort.

The new generation of kids is found to be really passive in the way they approach life. Instead of going out there and getting a job, applying human effort and working towards improving their lives, they'd prefer to sit back and let things happen to them and wait for opportunities to come to them.

Of course, many will argue that kids these days work harder than almost any preceding generation. What, with all the stress of school, extracurriculars and social pressure? Of course! The problem lies not in the magnitude of the work they do but rather how they mentally approach it.

Instead of going out and actively improving their skills to help their situation, they'd rather sit back and concisely channel all their energy and study for a degree or lesser equivalents. Something to lean back on, insurance that guarantees that you get a job. It's tried and tested and known to work. It's the 'safe' way out.

For them there's no room for hypothetical futures.

But sadly there's also no sense of adventure and experimentation.

And therein lies the problem. In the race to plan everything, map out their life and following a pre-defined path, are they possibly, forgetting to live? In the race to get what they need, are they forgetting what they want?

And what exactly is the point of planning such a life if you're not going to be able to enjoy it as some point?

I shudder to think about what would happen to the world if everyone was to turn into an 'herbivore'.

I'm now going to quote Mike Shinoda (Of Linkin Park)and how he applied this concept to the music:

"Mainstream Rock music is getting increasingly 'herbivorous' these days. These young bands prefer to stick to the calm, jingly and catchy music which is know to sell well. Barely anyone experiments any more. I was looking for the type of music that moves me and strangely, I couldn't find anything out there. Instead, I found myself listening to bands from the 90's. There was something visceral, sincere and noticeably aggressive in that music despite sometimes, actually being quite light. 

So, I decided that our new work was going to be an attempt to get back that feeling. Make rock music dangerous again. We wanted to make mainstream music more 'carnivorous'. That's why we named the album "The Hunting Party" putting ourselves into the role of the proverbial 'huntsmen'.

What is your stance on this? Do you feel that the new generation is really becoming passive or do you think that experimentation, uncertainty and aggression is detrimental to progress?

Get inspired.
Signing Off,
Shawn Kenneth Fernandes

Artwork from "The Hunting Party"