History
Early years (1996–1999)
The founding of Linkin Park began
with three high school friends; Mike Shinoda, Rob Bourdon, and Brad Delson. After graduating from high school,
the three began to take their musical interests more seriously, recruiting Joe Hahn, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and
Mark Wakefield to perform in their band, Xero. Though limited in resources, the
band began recording and producing songs within Shinoda’s makeshift bedroom
studio in 1996. Tensions and frustration within the band grew after they failed
to land a record deal. The lack of success and stalemate in
progress prompted Wakefield, at that time the band's vocalist, to leave the
band in search of other projects. Farrell also left to tour with Tasty Snax and other
bands.
After spending a considerable time
searching for Wakefield's replacement, Xero recruited Arizona vocalist, Chester Bennington, who
was recommended by Jeff Blue, the vice president of Zomba Music in
March 1999. Bennington, formerly of a post-grunge band by the name of Grey Daze,
became a standout among applicants because of the dynamic in his singing style. The band then agreed on changing its
name from Xero to Hybrid Theory. The newborn vocal chemistry between
Shinoda and Bennington helped revive the band, inciting them to work on new
material. The band’s renaissance culminated with a change in name; from Hybrid
Theory, the band once again changed its name, this time to Linkin Park, a play
on and homage to Santa Monica’s
Lincoln Park. However, despite these changes, the band still struggled to sign a record
deal. After facing numerous rejections from several major record labels, Linkin Park turned to Jeff Blue
for additional help. After failing to catch Warner Bros. Records on three previous reviews, Jeff
Blue, now the vice president of Warner Bros. Records, helped the band sign a
deal with the company in 1999. The band released its breakthrough album, Hybrid Theory, the following year
Hybrid
Theory (2000–2002)
Linkin Park released Hybrid Theory on October 24, 2000. The album, which represented half a decade’s worth of
the band’s work, was edited by Don Gilmore. Hybrid Theory was a massive commercial success; it sold more than 4.8 million copies
during its debut year, earning it the status of best-selling album of 2001,
while singles such as "Crawling" and "One Step
Closer" established themselves as staples among alternative rock radio play lists during the year. Additionally, other
singles from the album were featured in films such as Dracula 2000, Little Nicky, and Valentine. Hybrid Theory won a Grammy Award
for Best Hard Rock Performance for the song "Crawling" and was nominated
for two other Grammy Awards: Best New Artist and Best Rock Album.
MTV awarded the band their Best Rock Video and Best Direction awards for "In the End". Through the winning of the Grammy for Best Hard Rock
Performance, Hybrid Theory’s overall success had catapulted the band into mainstream success.
During this time, Linkin Park
received many invitations to perform on many high-profile tours and concerts
including Ozzfest, Family Values Tour and KROQ Almost Acoustic
Christmas. The band also formed its own tour, Projekt Revolution, which
featured other notable artists such as Cypress Hill, Adema,
and Snoop Dogg. Within a year’s stretch, Linkin Park had performed at
over 320 concerts.[15] The experiences and performances of the precocious
band were documented in its first DVD, Frat Party at
the Pankake Festival, which debuted in November 2001. Now reunited with former bassist Phoenix,
the band began work on a remix album, dubbedReanimation, which would include works
from Hybrid Theory and non-album tracks also. Reanimation debuted on July 30, 2002, featuring
the likes of Black Thought, Jonathan Davis, Aaron Lewis, and many others. Reanimation claimed the second spot on theBillboard 200, and sold nearly 270,000 copies
during its debut week. Hybrid Theory is also in the RIAA's Top 100
Albums.
Meteora (2002–2004)
Following the success of Hybrid
Theory and Reanimation, Linkin Park spent a significant amount of time
touring around the United States. The band members began to work on new
material amidst its saturated schedule, spending a sliver of their free time in
their tour bus' studio. The band officially announced the production of a new
studio album in December 2002, revealing its new work was inspired by the rocky
region of Meteora in Greece, where numerous monasteries have been built on top of the rocks. Meteorafeatures a mixture of the band's
previous nu metal and rapcore styles with newer innovative effects, including the
induction of ashakuhachi (a Japanese flute made of bamboo) and other
instruments. Linkin Park's second album debuted on March 25, 2003 and instantly
earned worldwide recognition, going to No.1 in the US and UK, and No.2 in
Australia.
Meteora sold more than 800,000 copies during
its first week, and it ranked as the best selling album on the Billboard charts at the time. The album's singles, including "Somewhere I Belong",
"Breaking the Habit",
"Faint", and "Numb",
received significant radio attention. By October 2003, Meteora sold nearly three million copies. The album's success allowed Linkin
Park to form anotherProjekt Revolution, which
featured other bands and artists including Mudvayne, Blindside, and Xzibit. Additionally, Metallica invited Linkin Park to play at the Summer Sanitarium
Tour 2003, which included well-known acts such as Limp Bizkit, Mudvayne andDeftones. The band released an album and DVD, entitled Live in Texas, which consisted of audio and video tracks of some of
the band's performances in Texas during the tour. In early 2004, Linkin Park started a world tour titled
the Meteora World Tour. Supporting bands on the tour included Hoobastank, P.O.D., Story of the Year and Pia.
Meteora earned the band multiple awards and
honors. The band won the MTV awards for Best Rock Video for "Somewhere I
Belong" and the Viewer's Choice Award for "Breaking the Habit". Linkin Park also received
significant recognition during the 2004 Radio Music Awards, winning the Artist of the
Year and Song of the Year ("Numb") awards. Although Meteora was not nearly as successful as Hybrid
Theory, it was the
third best selling album in the United States during 2003. The band spent the first few months
of 2004 touring around the world, first with the third Projekt Revolution tour,
and later several European concerts.
Following Meteora's success, the band postponed
working on a new studio album for the next few years. Instead, Linkin Park
continued to tour and work on many side projects. Bennington appeared on DJ Lethal’s "State of the Art" and
other work with Dead by Sunrise, while
Shinoda did work with Depeche Mode. In 2004, the band began to work with Jay-Z to produce another remix album,
entitled Collision Course. The album, which featured
intermixed lyrics and background tracks from both artists' previous albums,
debuted in November 2004. Shinoda also formed a new band, Fort Minor, as a side project. With the aid of
Jay-Z, Fort Minor released its debut album, The Rising Tied, to critical acclaim. At the same time, the band's relationship with Warner Bros. Records was deteriorating rapidly on account
of several trust and financial issues. After months of feuding, the band
finally negotiated a deal in December 2005.
Linkin Park also participated in
numerous charitable events, most notably raised money to benefit victims ofHurricane Charley in 2004 and later Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The band donated $75,000 to the Special
Operations Warrior Foundation in March 2004. They also helped relief efforts for the 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami victims by staging several charity concerts and setting up an additional
fund called "Music for Relief". Most notably, however, the band participated at Live 8, a series of charitable benefit concerts
set up to raise global awareness. Alongside Jay-Z, the band performed on Live 8's stage
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a global
audience. The band would later be reunited with Jay-Z at the Grammy Award Ceremony 2006, during which they
performed "Numb/Encore", en route to winning a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung
Collaboration. They were joined on stage by Paul McCartney who added verses from the song
"Yesterday".
They would later go on to play at the 2006 Summer Sonic music festival, which was hosted by Metallica in Japan.
Minutes
to Midnight (2006–2008)
Main article: Minutes to Midnight
(album)
Linkin Park returned to the
recording studios in 2006 to work on new material. To produce the album, the
band chose producer Rick Rubin. Despite initially stating the album
would debut sometime in 2006, the album was delayed until 2007. The band had
recorded thirty to fifty songs in August 2006, when Shinoda stated the album
was halfway completed. Bennington later added that the new album would stray
away from its previous nu metal sound. Warner Bros. Records officially announced that the band’s
third studio album, entitled Minutes to Midnight, would be released on May 15, 2007
in the United States. After spending fourteen months working on the album, the band members opted
to further refine their album by removing five of the original seventeen
tracks. The album’s title, a reference to the Doomsday Clock,
foreshadowed the band's new lyrical themes. Minutes to Midnight sold over 625,000 copies in its
first week, making it one of the most successful debut week albums in recent
years. The album also took the top spot on the Billboard Charts.
The album's first single, "What I've Done", was released on April 2,
and premiered on MTV and Fuse within the same week. The single was acclaimed by listeners, becoming the
top-ranked song on the Billboard'sModern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock
Tracks charts. The song is also used in soundtrack for the 2007 action film,Transformers. Mike
Shinoda was also featured on the Styles of Beyond song "Second to None"
which was also included in the film. Later in the year, the band won the
"Favorite Alternative Artist" in the American Music
Awards. The band also saw success with the rest of the albums singles, "Bleed It Out", "Shadow of the Day", "Given Up", and "Leave Out All the
Rest", which were released throughout 2007 and early 2008. The
band also collaborated with Busta Rhymes on his single "We Made It", which was released on April
29.
Linkin Park's touring and live shows
have, among other things, included a performance at Live Earth Japan on July 7, 2007. and headlining Download Festival in Donington Park, England and Edgefest in Downsview Park, Toronto, Canada. The band
completed touring on its fourth Projekt Revolution tour before taking up an Arena tour
around the United Kingdom, visiting Nottingham, Sheffield andManchester, before
finishing on a double night at the O2 arena in London. Bennington stated that
Linkin Park plans to release a follow-up album to Minutes to Midnight. However, he stated the band will
first embark on a United States tour to gather inspiration for the album. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Bennington said that the band had already begun
writing new material for the album, and Shinoda too stated that the album could
well be released in late 2009. Mike Shinoda also announced a live CD/DVD
entitled Road to
Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes, which is a live video recording from the Projekt
Revolution gig at the Milton Keynes Bowl on June 29, 2008, which was
officially released on November 24, 2008.
A
Thousand Suns (2008–2011)
Main article: A Thousand Suns
Linkin Park
performing at Sonisphere Festival in Finland.
In May 2009, Linkin Park announced
they were working on a fourth studio album, which was planned to be released on
2010. Shinoda told IGN that the new album would be 'genre-busting,' while
building off of elements in Minutes to Midnight. He also mentioned that the album would be more
experimental and "hopefully more cutting-edge." Bennington also addressed the media
to confirm that Rick Rubin would return to produce the new album. The band later
revealed the album would be called A Thousand Suns.
While working on the new album,
Linkin Park worked with successful film composer Hans Zimmer to produce the score for Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen. The band released a single for the movie, entitled "New Divide". Joe Hahn created a music
video for the song, which featured clips from the film. On June 22, Linkin Park played a
short set in Westwood Village after the premier of the movie. After completing work for Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen, the band
returned to the studio to finalize their album.
On January 19, 2010, Linkin Park
released a new song entitled "Not Alone" as part of a compilation
from Music for Relief calledDownload to Donate
for Haiti in support of the Haiti Earthquake
crisis. On February 10, 2010, Linkin Park released the official
music video for the song on their homepage.
On April 26, the band released an
app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad,
a game called 8-Bit Rebellion! It featured the band as playable characters, and a new
song called "Blackbirds" which was unlockable by beating the game.
The song was also later released as an iTunes bonus track on A
Thousand Suns.
A
Thousand Suns was released on September 14. The album’s first single, "The Catalyst", was released on August 2.
The band promoted their new album by launching a concert tour, which started in
Los Angeles on September 7. Linkin Park also relied on MySpace to promote their
album, releasing two additional songs, "Waiting for the End"
and "Blackout" on September 8. Furthermore, a documentary about the
album's production, entitled Meeting of A Thousand Suns, was available for streaming on the
band's MySpace page. On August 31, 2010, it was announced that the band would
perform the single live for the first time at the 2010 MTV Video Music
Awards on September 12, 2010. The venue of the debut live performance of the single was Griffith Observatory, an
iconic location used in Hollywood movies. "Waiting for the End" was released as the
second single of A Thousand Suns.
Linkin Park reached No.8 in Billboard Social 50, a chart of the most
active artists on the world's leading social networking sites. In other Billboard Year-End charts, the band reached
No.92 in the "Top Artists" chart, as well as A
Thousand Suns reaching No.53 in the Year-End chart of the Billboard Top 200 albums and No.7 in the 2010 Year-End Rock
Albums, and "The Catalyst" reaching No.40 in the Year-End Rock Songs
chart.
On January 11, 2011, an updated
version of Download to Donate for Haiti was launched, called Download
to Donate for Haiti V2.0, with more
songs to download. For the updated compilation, the band released Keaton
Hashimoto's remix of "The Catalyst" from the "Linkin Park
featuring YOU" contest. "Burning in the Skies"
was released as the third official single of A Thousand Suns on March 21, 2011.
Shinoda designed two t-shirts, in
which the proceeds will go to Music For Relief to help the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku
earthquake and tsunami disasters. Music For Relief released Download
to Donate: Tsunami Relief Japan, another compilation of songs, in which the proceeds will go to Save the Children.
On April 13, 2011, Shinoda confirmed
that the album's fourth single will be "Iridescent". He also confirmed that there
will be a new, slightly shorter version of the song, which will be part of the
soundtrack of the upcoming film Transformers: Dark
of the Moon, continuing
the streak of Linkin Park songs being the theme songs of the Transformers films (after "What I've Done"
and "New Divide"), as well as the fact that a music video will be
shot for the single. The video was directed by Joe Hahn, who directed the
videos for both of the previous songs.
The band was nominated for six Billboard Awards in 2011 for Top Duo or Group, Best Rock Album for A
Thousand Suns, Top Rock
Artist, Top Alternative Artist, Top Alternative Song for "Waiting for the
End" and Top Alternative Album for A Thousand Suns, but did not win any award.
The band charted in numerous Billboard Year-End charts in 2011. The band
was No.39 in the Top Artists Chart, No.84 in theBillboard 200 Artists chart, No.11 in the Social 50 Chart, No.6 in the Top Rock Artists Chart, No.9 in the Rock Songs Artists Chart, No.16 in the Rock Albums Chart, No.4 in the Hard Rock Albums Chart, and No.7 in the Alternative Songs
Chart.
Living
Things (2011–present)
In June 2011, Bennington revealed to Kerrang! that Linkin Park has begun working on new material for
their next album.
He explained, "We've been working on a new record for the past two months.
The music is great and we're well ahead of where we're expecting to be. There
aren't a whole lot of noises going on, but there are a lot of good songs."
Rick Rubin will be a producer on the
new album. "Typically we'll have a once-a-week meeting to go listen to the
songs that they're coming up with and talk about them. For so early in the
project, they are much further along than they have been on the last two albums
we did. On A Thousand Suns there were still a lot of irons in the fire. We knew,
'OK, we can't do this forever. Let's leave this batch and we'll come back and
address it when we start up again'", Rubin said.
In July 2011, Bennington told Rolling Stone that Linkin Park aims to produce a new album every
eighteen months, and that he would be shocked if a new album did not come out
in 2012. The band continues to record and produce new material even while
touring. Bennington commented on Linkin Park's schedule, stating, "Touring
for two years is excruciating. When we would tour for two years even the most
resilient person in the band, at the end of that, was fucking miserable." He further elaborated on their ideas
in an interview with MTV saying, "We do have a really great head start.
We've got some great music, some good ideas. The creativity has continued to
flow for us for the last few years, consistently." He later revealed in another
interview in September 2011 that the band was still in the beginning phases of
the next album, saying "We just kind of began. We like to keep the
creative juices flowing, so we try to keep that going all the time...we like
the direction that we're going in."
In an interview featured in the
March 21, 2012 issue of Kerrang! magazine, Bennington stated that the band has returned
to more 'familiar' territory on their new record, saying "with this [new]
album, we've incorporated a lot of guitar work with big choruses and the
heavier electronic stuff to give it that really big wall of sound feeling
without getting too metal. This will be more familiar to people than 'A
Thousand Suns' was, where we were like 'Fuck it, we're just going to go
bonkers." Bennington also said that the new album's lyrics would be
personal and avoid being political, adding "We've been writing a lot about
relationships."
On March 28, 2012, Shinoda confirmed
that the band is filming a music video for "Burn It Down",
which will be the album's first single to be released for radio-play on April
16. Joe Hahn
directed the video. Shinoda spoke to Co.Create about the album's art, saying that it will "blow
them [the fans] away...the average person is not going to be able to look at it
and go, I understand that that's completely new, like not just the image but
the way they made the image is totally new. So there's going to be that."
On April 15, 2012, Shinoda announced
via his website that Living Things would be the title of Linkin Park's fifth album, with
the pre-release sale to start on the April 16. Mike Shinoda stated that they chose the title Living
Things because the album is more about people, personal interactions, and it's far
more personal than their previous albums. The band will promote the album on the 2012 edition of
the Honda Civic Tour, with co headliners Incubus.
Musical
style
Both Hybrid Theory and Meteora combine the alternative metal, nu metal, and rap rock sound with
influences and elements from hip-hop, alternative rock, and electronica, utilizing programming and synthesizers. William Ruhlmann from Allmusicregarded it as "a Johnny-come-lately to an already overdone musical
style," whereas Rolling Stone described their song "Breaking the Habit"
as "risky, beautiful art".
In Minutes to Midnight the band experimented with their established sound and
drew influences from a wider and more varied range of genres and styles, a
process Los Angeles Times compares to a stage in U2's work. In it, only two of the songs feature rapping, and the
majority of the album can be considered alternative rock. NME magazine's Dan Silver criticized the
band's approach, calling it the "sound of a band trying and failing to
forge a new identity", and referring to the song "Hands Held
High", a song about terrorist attacks and war, as "far and away the
funniest thing you will hear all year".
The vocal interplay between Chester
Bennington and Mike Shinoda plays as a major part within Linkin Park's music,
with Bennington being the lead vocalist and Shinoda as the rapping vocalist. On Linkin Park's third album, Minutes
to Midnight, Shinoda
sings lead vocals on "In Between", "Hands Held High", and
on the B-side "No Roads Left". On numerous songs from band's fourth
album, A Thousand Suns, such as the album's four singles, both Shinoda and
Bennington sing. On most of the record's tracks, the band notably used
electronic drumbeats along with outro drumbeats. The album has been regarded as
a turning point in the band's musical career by notable critics, some noting
the band utilizing the electronic rock genre. James Montgomery, of MTV, compared the record toRadiohead's Kid A, while Jordy Kasko of Review, Rinse, Repeat likened the album to both Kid A and Pink Floyd's landmark
albumThe Dark Side of the
Moon. Shinoda stated that he and the other band members were deeply influenced by Chuck D and Public Enemy. He
elaborated: "Public Enemy were very three-dimensional with their records
because although they seemed political, there was a whole lot of other stuff
going on in there too. It made me think how three-dimensional I wanted our
record to be without imitating them of course, and show where we were at
creatively". One of the record's political elements is its samples of notable speeches
by American political figures.
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