Cheyenne Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Formed in 1996, the band rose to international fame with their debut album Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005 and multi-platinum in several other countries. Their following studio album Meteora, continued the bands success, topping the Billboard 200 album chart in 2003, and was followed by extensive touring and charity work around the world. In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth-greatest band of the music video era and the third-best of the new millennium. Billboard ranked Linkin Park No. 19 on the Best Artists of the Decade chart. The band was recently voted as the greatest artist of 00s in a Bracket Madness poll on VH1. Having adapted nu metal and rap metal to a radio-friendly yet densely layered style in Hybrid Theory and Meteora, the band explored other genres in their next studio album, Minutes to Midnight . The album topped the Billboard charts and had the third-best debut week of any album that year. The band continued to explore a wider variation of musical types in their fourth album, A Thousand Suns, layering their music with more electronic sounds and beats. Their most recent work, Living Things, combines musical elements from all of their previous records. The band has collaborated with several other artists, most notably with rapper Jay-Z in their mashup EP Collision Course, and many others on Reanimation and Recharged. The three attended Agoura High School in Agoura Hills, California, an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. 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, resulting in a 4-track demo tape. Tensions and frustration within the band grew however after they failed to land a record deal. After spending a considerable time searching for Wakefields 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’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. The band initially wanted to utilize the name Lincoln Park, however they changed it to Linkin to acquire the internet domain linkinpark. 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. The album, which represented half a decade’s worth of the band’s work, was edited by Don Gilmore. MTV awarded the band their Best Rock Video and Best Direction awards for In the End. The band also formed its own tour, Projekt Revolution, which featured other notable artists such as Cypress Hill, Adema, and Snoop Dogg. Reanimation claimed the second spot on the Billboard 200, and sold nearly 270,000 copies during its debut week. Hybrid Theory is also in the RIAAs Top 100 Albums. Meteora 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. Meteora features a mixture of the bands previous nu metal and rapcore styles with newer innovative effects, including the induction of a shakuhachi and other instruments. The albums 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 albums success allowed Linkin Park to form another Projekt Revolution, which featured other bands and artists including Mudvayne, Blindside, and Xzibit. The band released an album and DVD, titled Live in Texas, which consisted of audio and video tracks of some of the bands performances in Texas during the tour. Meteora earned the band multiple awards and honors. The band won the MTV awards for Best Rock Video for Somewhere I Belong and the Viewers 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 awards. After months of feuding, the band finally negotiated a deal in December 2005. Side projects Following Meteoras success, the band postponed working on a new studio album for the next few years, instead, working 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. Linkin Park also participated in numerous charitable events, most notably raised money to benefit victims of Hurricane Charley in 2004 and later Hurricane Katrina in 2005. 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 8s stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a global audience. 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 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, titled 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 bands 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 single was acclaimed by listeners, becoming the top-ranked song on the Billboards Modern 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 embarked on a large world tour titled Minutes to Midnight World Tour. The band promoted the albums release by forming their fourth Projekt Revolution tour in the United States which included many musical acts like My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, HIM, Placebo, and many others. They also played numerous shows in Europe, Asia, and Australia which 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 and Manchester, 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. A Thousand Suns In May 2009, Linkin Park announced they were working on a fourth studio album, which was planned to be released in 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, titled 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 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 albums production, titled Meeting of A Thousand Suns, was available for streaming on the bands 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 worlds 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. 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 the Billboard 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 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. 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 were going in. Later, on March 28, 2012, Shinoda confirmed that the band is filming a music video for Burn It Down. Joe Hahn directed the video. Shinoda spoke to Co.Create about the albums art, saying that it will blow them away...the average person is not going to be able to look at it and go, I understand that thats completely new, like not just the image but the way they made the image is totally new. So theres going to be that. On April 15, 2012, Shinoda announced that Living Things would be the title of Linkin Parks fifth album. Shinoda stated that they chose the title Living Things because the album is more about people, personal interactions, and it is far more personal than their previous albums. The band promoted the album on the 2012 edition of the Honda Civic Tour, with co-headliners Incubus. The band performed Burn It Down at 2012 Billboard Music Awards. On May 24, the band released the music video for Burn It Down and debuted Lies Greed Misery, another song from Living Things, on BBC Radio 1. Powerless, the twelfth and closing track of the album, was featured in the closing credits of the film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Living Things sold over 220,000 copies during its debut week, ranking No. 1 on the US Albums Charts. Linkin Parks single, Castle of Glass, was nominated for Best Song in a Game at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. The band also performed at the award ceremony on December 7, but lost the award to Cities by Beck. Linkin Park also played at the Soundwave music festival in Australia, where they shared the stage with Metallica, Paramore, Slayer and Sum 41. Recharged and sixth album The band is currently working on the soundtrack for an upcoming film called Mall, directed by Joe Hahn. In an interview with Fuse, Mike Shinoda stated they have began working on their sixth album. On May 19, 2013, Bennington confirmed that he would begin recording material with Stone Temple Pilots. He still plans on remaining part of Linkin Park. The new EP had been announced on August 29 via their official website and Facebook, titled as High Rise, which features the singles Out of Time, released on May 19, 2013 for digital download, and Black Heart,which was released on September 18, 2013 via iHeart Radio). The song was released on October 8, 2013 through Play Pen, LLC, under the artist name Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington. On August 10, 2013, Shinoda and Bennington collaborated with American musician Steve Aoki to record the song A Light That Never Comes for Linkin Parks online puzzle-action game LP Recharge, which was launched on Facebook and the official LP Recharge website on September 12, 2013. On the day of the games release, Linkin Park made a post on their Facebook explaining that the song used to promote the game would be included on a new remix album, entitled Recharged, which was released on October 29, 2013 on CD, vinyl, and digital download. Similar to Reanimation, the album featured remixes of all the songs from Living Things with contributions from other artists, such as Ryu of Styles of Beyond, Pusha T, Datsik, KillSonik, Bun B, Money Mark, and Rick Rubin. Linkin Park is scheduled to perform at Download Festival on June 14, 2014, where they will play their debut album, Hybrid Theory, in its entirety for the first time. Linkin Park confirmed that they will headline Rock am Ring and Rock im Park in 2014, along with Metallica, Kings of Leon, and Iron Maiden. They will also headline with Iron Maiden again at the Greenfield Festival in 2014. Mike Shinoda recently hinted in a status update on his blog that the sixth album will be released in summer of 2014. On Wednesday, March 5th, the band released their new lead single, Guilty All The Same from the upcoming release through means of the music app, Shazam. The single was made available for listening to anyone who Shazamed any of their previous tracks. Shinoda, having tweeted about an action packed week ahead; also teased the possible new album title, The Hunting Party. Charity On January 19, 2010, Linkin Park released a new song titled Not Alone as part of a compilation from Music for Relief called Download 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. The single itself was released on October 21, 2011. 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 Hashimotos remix of The Catalyst from the Linkin Park featuring YOU contest. 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. The band released the song titled as Issho Ni, meaning were in this together, on March 22, 2011 via Download to Donate: Tsunami Relief Japan. In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, Linkin Park played at Club Nokia during the Music for Relief: Concert For the Philippines in Los Angeles, California, and raised donations for victims. The show was broadcast on AXS TV on February 15. Other artists during the tour included The Offspring, Bad Religion, Heart, and The Filharmonic. Musical style and influences 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 Allmusic regarded 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 U2s work. NME magazines Dan Silver criticized the bands 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 Parks music, with Bennington being the lead vocalist and Shinoda as the rapping vocalist. On Linkin Parks 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 bands fourth album, A Thousand Suns, such as the albums four singles, both Shinoda and Bennington sing. On most of the records tracks, the band notably used electronic drumbeats along with outro drumbeats. The album has been regarded as a turning point in the bands musical career by notable critics, some noting the band utilizing the electronic rock genre. James Montgomery, of MTV, compared the record to Radioheads Kid A, while Jordy Kasko of Review, Rinse, Repeat likened the album to both Kid A and Pink Floyds landmark album The 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 records political elements is its samples of notable speeches by American political figures. In their fifth album, Living Things, Linkin Park once again utilizes the electronic rock genre, but includes influences from their other albums prior to A Thousand Suns, resulting in a heavier sound by comparison. Linkin Parks influences include Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, The Roots and Aphex Twin. Linkin Park became the first rock band to achieve more than one billion YouTube hits. Band members Current members Rob Bourdon – drums, percussion Brad Delson – lead guitar, keyboards, bass Dave Farrell Phoenix – bass guitar, backing vocals Joe Hahn Mr. Hahn – turntables, samples, programming, keyboards, backing vocals Mike Shinoda – vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, piano Chester Bennington – vocals Former Xero members Mark Wakefield – vocals Session Kyle Christener – bass guitar Ian Hornbeck – bass guitar Scott Koziol – bass guitar
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 23:41:02 +0000
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