Linkin Park are back after a near two-year hiatus (don’t pretend you haven’t missed them), and have debuted their song "New Divide" at radio, iTunes and on their official site. The track will be featured on the soundtrack to this summer’s Transformers sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, with Shia LeBeouf. (Side note: LeBeouf is now apparently a music video director. LeStrange.)
Transformers is a big, loud, dumb noise-fest (essentially a videogame masquerading as a movie), so the pairing with Linkin Park makes sense. (Plus, the band had a song on the soundtrack for the first movie, too.) So how’s the new tune? Not bad, actually, if heavy on a dose of the self-serious. It just features vocals from Chester Bennington though, so those expecting some rhymes might be disappointed. But midway through there’s a robo-riff that will surely melt the faces off of plenty of angsty teens. A video is forthcoming, to be directed by the band’s resident DJ, Joe Hahn. Listen to "New Divide" below and decide: Classic Linkin Park, or classic radio-rock garbage?
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A dumb noise fest? Describes this article perfectly since you “attempt” to be a movie critic.
Dude, it’s Transformers… even Bay knows it’s just “Giant f*cking robots” fighting each other. “Noise fest” is probably giving it a lot of credit, all things considered.
What are you talking about? Linkin Park songs have always been serious. I think they are incapable of putting garbage on the radio. New Divide – classic Linkin Park.
This song is pretty awesome. It makes me look forward to the film.
Uhh, Harvey? Transformers has always been giant robots fighting. It’s not like Michael Bay brought that concept to the franchise. Move along.
Dumb Noise Fest? you must be a amatuer writer, what is Michael Bay supposed to make the movie into a soap opera with no fighting,of course there is going to be a lot of noise,maybe you should tell him how to make the movie, im sure it would be great. Im pretty sure the first movie was incredible, and What Ive Done fit perfectly, so will New Divide. pc
Linkin Park continues on this path…maybe its because rap-rock is hard to sell nowadays?
this, like all but 2 songs on the sub-par MTM, needs MORE SHINODA…also, less autotune
Uh, Anon and Yesir, the first Transformers IS a dumb action movie. Stylish, yes, but stupid nonetheless. Why ridicule Jeremy for telling it like it is? Without the robots around, I sure wouldn’t see the ‘movie’ surrounding Transformers. The plot was nothing but a cliche fest, full of one dimensional characters, misguided attempts at humor, and crummy dialogue. The original cartoon and Beast Wars (the direct predecessor) showed how you can make memorable protagonists/antagonists and a decent plot around the fighting. What could have been idiotic cartoons about fighting robots were instead surprisingly smart and engaging. The 2007 movie wasn’t, beyond the enormous action, and judging from the trailers, neither is Transformers 2.
As for Linkin Park, I enjoy the band enough not to look down at them for often producing mindless music (albeit catchy mindless music), but ‘What I’ve Done’ sounded like a crappy pop track from an entirely different band. ‘New Divide’, in contrast, ain’t half bad
All im saying is its nearly impossible to write a truly good movie, you make it seem like the small mistakes are so obvious, try writing/directing a movie sometime im sure its real easy..what do you expect from giant ass robots, you want them to share their feelings with eachother instead of beat the crap out of each other.. of course its an action fest.. but to say its dumb and overall bad is pretty ridiculous..it does have a plot, they dont just throw the transformers at each other and say fight,im pretty sure Transformers was #20 in the top grossing films of all time.. no big deal I guess.
That song is awesome. It’s about time they came out with some new music. I was a little afraid that it might not be that good considering they’ve been gone for a while and it was made specifically for a movie, but they’ve blown my mind yet again. This shows how great a band they are.
LONG LIVE LINKIN PARK!!!!!!!!!
deez nutz Mon, May 18, 2009 at 11:09 PM EST
Linkin Park continues on this path…maybe its because rap-rock is hard to sell nowadays?
this, like all but 2 songs on the sub-par MTM, needs MORE SHINODA…also, less autotune
as a music producer/engineer i can tell you that this song does not contain autotune…i to hate autotune but have used it on a number of songs. but i assure you this is not autotune nor any other pitch correcting software.
Linkin park has always brought the best of the best to there albums. Gotta love what they do. and yes.. cant pretend we haven’t missed them
OF COURSE WE HAVE!
This is a great rock song
The vocals are average but it’s the music that stands out.
I can only remember parts of the chorus as many many lp songs sound like it.
But the guitars and drums are stuck in my head permanently.
That’s what’s so great about em: melodic, catchy yet meaningful music!
Unlike some artists out there we know.
This song is pretty decent, I’ll give it that but I have to echo the comments of some others here. Mike Shinoda was part of LP’s original sound, and I’m all for bands reinventing themselves – lord knows Madonna reinvents herself every day in the mirror – but they have to keep a bit of themselves in tact or they just fade into background noise. For me, LP is about to fade out. It sounds like too much I listen to these days. Bring back Hybrid Theory style invention.
the writer is correct. The movie is lame, and so is Linkin Park. More formula rock noise for another formula movie. It sounds the same as all the other LP crap. BORING! Is it still 2002?