Latest Release
- 15 NOV 2024
- 11 Songs
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
- From Zero · 2024
Essential Albums
- When LINKIN PARK started writing the album that would become 2003's Meteora, they were touring behind their 2000 debut Hybrid Theory, a wildfire hit that took even the band by surprise. Their blend of guitar rock's pummelling riffs, hip-hop's swaggering grooves, and intricately emotional lyrics delivered by co-vocalists Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda turned them into one of the 21st century's biggest new artists. Meteora allowed LINKIN PARK to prove their versatility to the world, to show that they were more than just a run-of-the-mill rap-rock band. “One of the benefits of having a second album is to say, ‘Okay, cool—you understand this much about us, let us fill in a lot of gaps and add a whole bunch of other colours,’” Shinoda told Zane Lowe in 2023. Individually and as a collective, LINKIN PARK pushed their artistic limits on Meteora, which is apparent from the details on each song: The duelling vocals of “Somewhere I Belong” recall an internal monologue being annotated in real time; the urgent plea for reconciliation “Faint” is animated by high-drama strings and a relentless drumbeat; the seething “Nobody's Listening” pivots on a serpentine sample played on bamboo flute; and the glitchy instrumental “Session” hints at LINKIN PARK's CD wallets containing selections from electro masters like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. Then there was “Breaking the Habit”—a track that, according to guitarist Brad Delson, “never could have been on our first album”. A breakneck plea for the world to make sense that combines the knotty guitars of emo with flashes of Joe Hahn's turntablism and icily looming strings, it's also a spotlight for Bennington's emotion-wracked wail, with Shinoda, who wrote the track, taking a break from rapping. “We said, ‘We're going to do a song that's going to be dark, emotional. It's a single. It's going to be no heavy guitars. It's going to be no screaming. It's just going to be a powerful LINKIN PARK song,’” recalled Shinoda. In addition to the original album, the 20th-anniversary edition of Meteora contains live sets in Texas and Nottingham, a collection of rarities from 2003-2004 and demos. It also includes the intense showcase for Bennington's vocals “Lost”, which was recorded during the Meteora sessions and which had not been released until 2023. “Breaking the Habit” wound up being the final single from Meteora, making the album's era a definitive statement about how LINKIN PARK would defy expectations over the course of their career, whether by working with JAY-Z on the world-swallowing remix of Meteora cut “Numb” or by further expanding their musical ideals with Rick Rubin on 2007's Minutes to Midnight. “Hybrid Theory was like us against the world,” said Delson. “What was both so liberating and terrifying about Meteora is, no one effed with us on Meteora. It was like, ‘Okay, you guys did it. Now, what do you really want to do?’ And this album was the total pure expression of ‘This is us delivering what we want to make.’”
- LINKIN PARK’s debut doubles as a mission statement for the California-born band, whose tense, ferocious brand of rock borrows from hip-hop and emo, dance-punk and alt-rock. Over skittering beats and massive guitars, caterwauler Chester Bennington and defiant MC Mike Shinoda examine heavy emotions up close. The cavernous “In the End” and the paranoid “Crawling” combine their bad vibes with deep grooves and huge hooks, while album opener “Papercut” amps up the agitation with crushing, metal-inspired riffing that anchors Shinoda’s frantic raps.
Artist Playlists
- The alt-rockers who helped write—and then tear up—the nu-metal playbook.
- Alt-metal, hip-hop and industrial have shaped their nu-metal.
- Hip-hop and alt-rock collide to change the sound of pop.
- The bandmates curate personal classics from Beastie Boys, House of Pain and Metallica.
- Their acolytes mash up alt-rock, hip-hop and electronic music.
Live Albums
Appears On
More To Hear
- The band on their reunion lineup and album.
- Chester Bennington’s final album with the band, seven years on.
- The story behind the band's once “Lost” track.
- Conversation around the 20th anniversary of 'Meteora.'
- Brad Delson joins Jenn to celebrate 20 years of 'Hybrid Theory.'
- Chester's wife Talinda speaks, plus a Mike Shinoda playlist.
More To See
About LINKIN PARK
When Mike Shinoda and the late Chester Bennington were writing lyrics for Linkin Park’s 2000 breakthrough, Hybrid Theory, they made a pact: No cussing. It wasn’t just about keeping their audience, a portion of which might’ve had trouble slipping Parental Advisory stickers past their parents. It was more that in avoiding blunt, four-letter expressions of frustration, Shinoda and Bennington could challenge themselves to lean into—and lay bare—their pain in ways that cussing only covered up. On a deeper level, the choice set a kind of metaphorical course for catharsis: Linkin Park were angry, but their anger burned clean. Hybrid Theory was a once-in-a-generation album, arguably the commercial and creative pinnacle of rap-rock. But part of the reason the band survived was that they were always more versatile than their moment. Heavy as it could be, the music was almost never macho, trading in hard-rock pomp for the arty vulnerability of emo and synth-pop. When they wanted to take the guitars down a little, they moved toward a brooding, post-hardcore vision of electronic music that let Bennington flex his inner Depeche Mode fan while retaining a sense of anguish that, it turns out, didn't need aggression to find expression. And by the time they went “pop” (2017’s One More Light), they’d been redefining the terms of commercial rock music for nearly two decades. Formed on the outskirts of Los Angeles in 1996, the group spent their first few years struggling—at one point, an executive suggested they fire Shinoda, their MC, and take a more conventional rock-band route. Hybrid Theory was a kind of Rubicon in hard rock, making the influence of hip-hop and electronic music impossible to ignore. Meteora came out in 2003, followed by a run of albums (2007’s Minutes to Midnight, 2010’s A Thousand Suns, 2012’s Living Things and others) that shifted more heavily toward electronic music. While it may have seemed that Bennington's death in 2017 would mark the band's ending, a new interation featuring singer Emily Armstrong debuted in 2024 with the release of From Zero.
- ORIGIN
- Agoura Hills, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 2000
- GENRE
- Hard Rock