Week 1 Prompt I

Alone in a quiet room. Listen. What do you hear?

The empty, quiet room, is not usually an experience I have very often. Recently, I either have had the 37 year old radio playing, or as is more often the case, I have the laptop playing music. Whether I am reading E. Phillip Oppenheim, writing english, or something else, I generally am listening to music at the same time. And most of the time, that music is from the laptop, from my favorite band Linkin Park, as it is at this current moment. A couple of years ago, I had a John A. Goldfine (A term meaning to be in very little possession of knowledge about current music- people defined by this term are often thought to be quite fortunate by me) amount of knowledge on anything related to recent music, but over the last couple years I have picked it up, and am glad I did. And the one band that has really pulled away for me is Linkin Park. In all of my listening to recent music, I despise rapping. I just don't see the appeal it holds to some people. But I like what little rapping Linkin Park does do. I like it a lot. Linkin Park is queer, in that they are somewhat undefinable, either called "rap-rock", or "nu-metal", or something like that. They have one singer who raps, and another who sings. They also are unusual in that one of their main instruments that one member of the six man band does is 'Scratch', with a record player. They have been very popular with songs like "In the End", "Numb", "Breaking the Habit", "What I've Done", "Shadow of the Day", and "New Divide." But what I have found is that it took a long time of hearing them for me to desire an affinity for their music, yet, once I did, it grew rapidly, to the point where every song they have ever made is at least ten times better than the best song made by anyone else. Linkin Park are unusual in that they do really loud songs, with a lot of rap, like "In the End", and really quiet ones with no rap, like "Shadow of the Day". Also interesting, in spite of their rap and sometimes raucous style, they did not have a single swear word in any of their songs for their first two albums. They have varying styles, but in the end, it seems that it is inherent to me to enjoy their music. As I am right now while I am writing this.