“A Thousand Suns” is a concept album dealing with nuclear warfare and themes of war in general.  The album’s title comes from the quote: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one,” which is in reference to the atomic bomb.  Drummer Rob Bourdon admitted that the album was a challenge to complete.  “We’ve been making music for a long time so one of the challenges was to evolve and make something to keep us interested and also have a lot of fun in the process.”  Adding to the political theme, the album features samples of notable speeches by political figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Mario Savio.

The first single off of Linkin Park’s new album is “The Catalyst”, which has performed fairly well on the charts in comparison with their previous singles.  The band is also promoting their new songs digitally.  Six songs from the album (“Blackout”, “Burning in the Skies”, “The Catalyst”, “The Messenger”, “Waiting for the End”, and “Wretches and Kings”) are available as downloadable content in the game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.  The track pack was released on October 19th on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, and the Wii Shop.

Upon listening through the album, the experimental sound and difference from Linkin Park’s previous albums is very evident.  “A Thousand Suns” is a new platform that the band is using to transition from the traditional rock band stereotype to their own unique sound.  The variety of songs makes it hard to place a single genre on this album.  The band has shifted their concentration to the melodies of their songs and the development of a “layered” song structure.  The guitar riffs don’t dominate nearly as much as before, but rather each instrument is distinctively heard.

The overall sound of the album and how each song seamlessly links to the next has been done very well.  Be it intentional or not, “A Thousand Suns” is meant to be listened to as a whole instead of each song individually.  When the songs all come together they seem to tell a story and express the band’s thoughts and theme of the album.  For more casual listeners, some of the better songs to try out would be “Blackout”, “The Catalyst”, and “Burning in the Skies”.

After how displeased Linkin Park fans were with their prior album, “Minutes to Midnight”, “A Thousand Suns” may alienate a significant part of the band’s fan base.  If you’re looking for hard-hitting guitar riffs and vocals on every track, you may have to look elsewhere.  Linkin Park is taking their band in a totally new direction and they are making the music they truly want to make.  I don’t think their mindset is to maintain the fame generated from their previous work, but to try and redefine the industry.  Overall the album is well done and has some notably good songs.  The fact that Linkin Park keeps trying out different styles of music instead of producing the same guitar lines with new lyrics thrown on top is very respectable.

The current economic situation is a birth to new businesses. College seniors are not finding the jobs that they once were right after graduation. A candid source from the human resources department at Rose-Hulman casually stated that job placement of graduating seniors is down 10% from last year’s average. Knowing that some are not going to be able to make the money necessary to pay back college loans, seniors are choosing to start their own business or go to grad school.

One such student is Matthew Fouts, a junior at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Ranked #1 ten years in a row by USA Today as the best Undergraduate Engineering School in the country), who said, “Knowing job placement will most likely still be low by the time I graduate, I wanted to take control of my income and not rely on other companies to make a living.” With his new start up, Rose-Learning ( http://www.Rose-Learning.com ), he provides struggling high school students a new means to get help on academic studies. Utilizing Rose-Hulman students to teach others in the Terre Haute, Indiana area he is helping students reach their academic potential. According to his website, the subjects that a student can receive personalized one on one tutoring help with are: Math, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. ACT/SAT and Advanced Placement test preparation are also available.

Now that more people are using the web instead of the newspaper or phone book to find services, Matthew has expanded his services and added an interactive online whiteboard to his website. This enables the student and tutor to be online together drawing and typing on the same screen even though they are hundreds of miles apart. This new technology by Twiddla makes it possible to tutor locally and nationally across the web. Rose-Learning is helping to provide jobs, help struggling students, and improve test scores. Rose-Learning can be contacted via phone at 812-241-5653.