Minutes To Midnight - Linkin Park
Metascore
56 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 15 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 15
  2. Negative: 3 out of 15
  1. Most of Minutes is honed, metallic pop with a hip-hop stride and a wake-up kick.
  2. 70
    There's no great leap into maturity... They've kept their salient feature--scorching, adolescent tantrums--unchanged. [Jun 2007, p.109]
  3. 70
    The music privileges texture over catchiness. [Jun 2007, p.97]
  4. Whatever else it is, Linkin Park's third studio record is a nu-metal record at heart.
  5. This is the kind of music artists make to find out who they'll become next: It reaches toward many influences - notably U2 (some songs invoke the Irish rock group almost note-for-note), but also Tool, Evanescence, Nirvana and Coldplay - without committing to anything.
  6. The California rap-rockers are stymied by their decision to stay roughly within the shrieky boundaries of their genre (albeit with less emphasis on the rap).
  7. We've heard a lot of this despair before.
  8. These half-arsed stabs at nu-AOR end up pleasing no one, least of all the band itself.
  9. Amid the stabs at growth, every new effect sounds borrowed.
  10. Linkin Park's ambitions are nearly palpable, but songs likely conceived as homages end up sounding too close to their sources. [26 May 2007]
  11. As you might imagine, the band's emo makeover doesn't always go smoothly.
  12. While more than half the album flounders and meanders uselessly to arrive at roughly four truly worthwhile numbers, parts of Minutes to Midnight set the foundations for a whole new array of sounds that the band can and hopefully will pursue in the future.
  13. The shift in subject matter cannot disguise Linkin Park's acute lack of creativity.
  14. What follows is the sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity - boy-band balladry, U2-style stadium rock and Metallica-esque melodic crunch are all attempted with predictably patchy results.
  15. Try as they might to sound different, or even to touch on issues bigger than their own narcissistic garbage, LP still sound like they're stuck back in 00, which is where they should have stayed.
User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 454 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 83 out of 293
  1. RanelG
    10
    This is an excellent album, listen to it. The haters here on this site just hate this album because they don't like Linkin Park's music. They accuse us LP fans of having poor taste in music, well what do you guys listen to? Exactly. Full Review »
  2. Linkind park was my favourite band...i remember my family laughing at me because i stood under the shower and shouted with chester during songs like with you, there were feelings in their songs that just wanted you to move and join in singing...but it seems all gone with mtm...some of the songs are ok, you can listen to them when they run in the radio, but linkin park threw away its magic...there is nothing left making me dance, the hard electro beats are mostly gone, replaced by popish sounds fit for the radio...and its really sad because theyr music used to be so great Full Review »
  3. Really just proves how mainstream LP has gotten, They have left their unique sound for now a generic rock/pop band sort of feel and it disapoints. While you may enjoy the track, Any fan of the old LP will be disapointed with it. Full Review »