Linkin Park's "Waiting for the End": Making of

Linkin Park just put up a Making Of video for "Waiting for the End," and I am stoked.

"I thought 'Breaking the Habit' was the bar, but this one is a lot easier," Mike said. Considering that "Breaking the Habit" is animated, I find this a little hard to believe. But I imagine it's close. For WFTE, the guys stood on slowly rotating platforms in poses reminiscent of tai chi. (...I could do that. Can I be a rockstar too?)

The real achievement of WFTE is the editing. Holy cow. This is not just your run of the mill editing, piecing together filmed moments aesthetically. No no. Every figure in the video is overlayed with this ghostly blue tint and covered in what I can describe best as a 3D constellation map.

From the video: "The whole premise is the fleeting aspect of time. Things are evolving. You can see time's progression. It feels very liquid."

True. Do you notice it shows electronic equipment, but then also turning cogs? Future and past. How about the skulls, and then the animals? I'm amazed that the skulls don't contribute any morbidity. Instead, in conjunction with the band members, they give it a mystery and rawness that your brain doesn't bother trying to understand -- it does instinctively.

The video has this brilliant futuristic feel, without the burden of determining what that future is going to be like. With the spacey overtones, it's more about exploration than cynicism, or renewed hope. It says "wait and see".

This fits with the lyrics, of course ("it's out of my control" "picking up the pieces, now where to begin?" "this is not the end, this is not the beginning" etc). But I confess, it's not what I had pictured. There's just so much more positivity in the sound than in a lot of LP's other work, so I was looking for something that reflected that rather than the lyrics.

At the same time, I can understand. LP has undergone some surprising and wonderful evolutions on this album, but it wouldn't be the band we know and love if they'd gone too far with it.