2008–2011: A Thousand Suns
Main article: A Thousand Suns
Linkin Park performing at Sonisphere Festival in Finland on July 25, 2009
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 .[71] He also mentioned that the album would be more experimental and “hopefully more cutting-edge”.[72] 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 .[73] 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 .[74] 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.[75] On June 22, Linkin Park played a short set in Westwood Village after the premier of the movie.[76] After completing work for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen , the band returned to the studio to finalize their album.[77]
Brad Delson performing with Linkin Park on A Thousand Suns World Tour in 2010
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 .[78]
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.[79][80][81] Linkin Park also relied on MySpace to promote their album, releasing two additional songs, “Waiting for the End” and “Blackout” on September 8.[82][83][84][85] Furthermore, a documentary about the album’s production, titled 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.[86] The venue of the debut live performance of the single was Griffith Observatory, an iconic location used in Hollywood movies.[87][88][89] “Waiting for the End” was released as the second single of A Thousand Suns .[90][91]
Linkin Park reached No.8 in Billboard Social 50, a chart of the most active artists on the world’s leading social networking sites.[92] In other Billboard Year-End charts, the band reached No.92 in the “Top Artists” chart,[93] as well as A Thousand Suns reaching No.53 in the Year-End chart of the Billboard Top 200 albums[94] and No.7 in the 2010 Year-End Rock Albums, and “The Catalyst” reaching No.40 in the Year-End Rock Songs chart.[95]
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.[96] The band charted in numerous Billboard Year-End charts in 2011. The band was No.39 in the Top Artists Chart,[97] No.84 in the Billboard 200 Artists chart,[98] No.11 in the Social 50 Chart,[99] No.6 in the Top Rock Artists Chart,[100] No.9 in the Rock Songs Artists Chart,[101] No.16 in the Rock Albums Chart,[102] No.4 in the Hard Rock Albums Chart,[103] and No.7 in the Alternative Songs Chart.[104]
2011–2013: Living Things and Recharged
Main articles: Living Things and Recharged (Linkin Park album)
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 we’re going in”.[105] Later, on March 28, 2012, Shinoda confirmed that the band is filming a music video for “Burn It Down”.[106][107] Joe Hahn directed the video.[108] 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”.[109]
On April 15, 2012, Shinoda announced that Living Things would be the title of Linkin Park’s fifth album.[110] 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.[111] 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 .[112]
Living Things sold over 223,000 copies during its debut week, ranking No. 1 on the US Albums Charts.[113] Linkin Park’s 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.[114] Linkin Park also played at the Soundwave music festival in Australia, where they shared the stage with Metallica, Paramore, Slayer and Sum 41.[115]
On August 10, 2013, the band collaborated with American musician Steve Aoki to record the song “A Light That Never Comes” for Linkin Park’s online puzzle-action game LP Recharge (short for Linkin Park Recharge ), which was launched on Facebook and the official LP Recharge website on September 12, 2013. On the day of the game’s 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 features remixes of ten of 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.[116][117] The band also worked on the soundtrack for the film Mall , which was directed by Joe Hahn.[118]
2013–2015: The Hunting Party
Main article: The Hunting Party
Bennington and Shinoda performing live in Montreal on August 23, 2014
In an interview with Fuse, Shinoda confirmed that Linkin Park had begun recording their sixth studio album in May 2013.[119] The band released the first single from their upcoming album, titled, “Guilty All the Same” on March 6, 2014 through Shazam.[120] The single was later released on the following day by Warner Bros. Records and debut at No. 28 on the US Billboard Rock Airplay charts before peaking at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock charts in the following weeks.[121][122] Shortly after the single’s release, the band revealed their sixth album would be titled The Hunting Party . The album was produced by Shinoda and Delson, who wanted to explore musical elements from Hybrid Theory and the band’s earlier material.[123] Shinoda commented the album is a “90s style of rock record”. He elaborated, "It’s a rock record. It’s loud and it’s rock, but not in the sense of what you’ve heard before, which is more like ‘90s hardcore-punk-thrash.’[124] The album includes musical contributions from rapper Rakim, Page Hamilton of Helmet, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, and Daron Malakian of System of a Down.[125][126] The Hunting Party was released on June 13, 2014, in most countries, and later released in the United States on June 17.[127]
Linkin Park performed at Download Festival on June 14, 2014, where they played their debut album, Hybrid Theory , in its entirety.[15][128][129] Linkin Park headlined Rock am Ring and Rock im Park in 2014, along with Metallica, Kings of Leon, and Iron Maiden.[130][131] They also headlined with Iron Maiden again at the Greenfield Festival in July.[132] On June 22, Linkin Park made an unscheduled headline appearance at the Vans Warped Tour, where they played with members of Issues, The Devil Wears Prada, A Day To Remember, Yellowcard, Breathe Carolina, Finch, and Machine Gun Kelly.[133] In January 2015, the band embarked on a tour to promote the release of The Hunting Party , consisting of 17 concerts across the United States and Canada. The tour was canceled after only three concerts when Bennington injured his ankle.[134][135] On May 9, Linkin Park performed at the first edition of Rock in Rio USA, in direct support for Metallica.[136]
Dave Farrell performing with Linkin Park in 2014
On November 9, 2014, MTV Europe named Linkin Park the “Best Rock” act of 2014 at their annual music awards ceremony.[137] The band won the ‘Best Rock Band’ and ‘Best Live Act’ titles of 2014 on Loudwire’s Music Awards.[138] Revolver ranked The Hunting Party as the fourth best album of 2014.[139] In an interview with AltWire on May 4, Shinoda reflected on The Hunting Party and commented on Linkin Park’s future, stating; “I’m really happy with the reaction from The Hunting Party , and I think we’re ready to move somewhere new on the next album, which will be coming [in 2016]”.[140]
Linkin Park collaborated with Steve Aoki on the song “Darker Than Blood” for Aoki’s album Neon Future II , which was released in May 2015.[141] The first preview of the song came during Aoki’s performance on February 28, 2015 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois.[142] The song was debuted on Twitch.tv on April 13 and released on April 14.[143]
Linkin Park performed at the closing ceremony of BlizzCon 2015, Blizzard’s video game convention.[144]
2015–present: One More Light and Bennington’s death
Main article: One More Light
Linkin Park began working on new material for a seventh studio album in November 2015.[145] Chester Bennington commented on the album’s direction by stating, “We’ve got a lot of great material that I hope challenges our fanbase as well as inspires them as much as it has us.”[146] In February 2017, Linkin Park released promotional videos on their social network accounts, which featured Shinoda and Bennington preparing new material for the album.[147] Mike Shinoda stated the band was following a new process when producing the album. Brad Delson elaborated: “We’ve made so many records and we clearly know how to make a record and we definitely didn’t take the easy way out this time.”[148]
One of Bennington’s final performances with Linkin Park on July 4, 2017 at the O2 Brixton Academy in London
The first single from the new album was revealed to be titled “Heavy” and features pop singer Kiiara, the first time the band has featured a female vocalist on an original song for a studio album. The lyrics for the song were co-written by Linkin Park with Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter.[149] The single was released for download on February 16.[150][151][152] As they have done in the past, Linkin Park had cryptic messages online in relation to the new album. The album cover was revealed through digital puzzles across social media; the cover features six kids playing in the ocean.[153] The band’s seventh album, One More Light , was released on May 19, 2017.[10][154]
Bennington died on July 20, 2017; his death was ruled a suicide by hanging.[155] Shinoda confirmed Bennington’s death on Twitter, writing, “Shocked and heartbroken, but it’s true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one”.[156] The band had released a music video for their single “Talking to Myself” earlier that day.[157] One day after Bennington’s death, the band canceled the North American leg of their One More Light World Tour.[158] On the morning of July 24, Linkin Park released an official statement on their website as a tribute to Bennington.[159] On July 28, Shinoda announced that donations made to the band’s Music for Relief charity would be redirected to the One More Light Fund, which had been set up in Bennington’s memory.[160] On August 4, when the band was initially scheduled to play on Good Morning America , Chris Cornell’s twelve-year-old daughter Toni (who was also Bennington’s goddaughter) appeared with OneRepublic to perform “Hallelujah” as a tribute to Bennington and her father.[161] Bennington had previously performed the song at the funeral for Cornell, who had also died from a suicide by hanging two months earlier.[161]
On August 22, Linkin Park announced plans to host a tribute concert in Los Angeles to honor Bennington. The band thanked fans for their support, stating, “The five of us are so grateful for all of your support as we heal and build the future of Linkin Park”.[162] The band later confirmed that the concert, titled Linkin Park and Friends: Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington, would take place on October 27 at the Hollywood Bowl. The event included Linkin Park’s first performance following Bennington’s death.[163][164] The event featured multiple guests performing Linkin Park songs along with the band.[165] The event was over three hours long and was streamed live via YouTube.[166]
In November 2017, the band announced that a live album compiled from their final tour with Bennington, titled One More Light Live , would be released on December 15.[167] On November 19, Linkin Park received an American Music Award for Favorite Alternative Artist and dedicated the award to Bennington.[168]
During an Instagram live chat on December 17, 2017, Shinoda was asked whether Linkin Park would perform with a hologram version of Bennington in the future. He replied, “Can we not do a holographic Chester? I can’t even wrap my head around the idea of a holographic Chester. I’ve actually heard other people outside the band suggest that, and there’s absolutely no way. I cannot fuck with that.”[169]
On January 28, 2018, Shinoda replied to a tweet from a fan inquiring about his future with Linkin Park, writing “I have every intention on continuing with LP, and the guys feel the same. We have a lot of rebuilding to do, and questions to answer, so it’ll take time.”[170] On March 29, 2018, however, Shinoda stated that he is uncertain of Linkin Park’s future when being interviewed by Vulture .[171]
On April 17, 2018, Linkin Park was nominated for three awards at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, but did not win any of them.[172]
The band was presented with The George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement at UCLA on May 18, 2018.[173]
On February 18, 2019, Shinoda said in an interview that the band is open to the idea of continuing though what form that takes has yet to be decided. Shinoda stated "I know the other guys, they love to be onstage, they love to be in a studio, and so to not do that would be like, I don’t know, almost like unhealthy.” When asked about the band’s future minus Chester, Shinoda stated, “It’s not my goal to look for a new singer. If it does happen, it has to happen naturally. If we find someone that is a great person and good stylistic fit, I could see trying to do some stuff with somebody. I would never want to feel like we are replacing Chester.”[174]
Philanthropy
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 Hashimoto’s remix of “The Catalyst” from the “Linkin Park featuring YOU” contest.[175]
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.[176][177] Music for Relief released Download to Donate: Tsunami Relief Japan , another compilation of songs, in which the proceeds will go to Save the Children.[178] The band released the song titled as “Issho Ni”, meaning “we’re in this together”, on March 22, 2011 via Download to Donate: Tsunami Relief Japan .
In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, Linkin Park played at Club Nokia during the “Music for Relief: Concert for the Philippines” in Los Angeles, and raised donations for victims. The show was broadcast on AXS TV on February 15. Other artists during the show included The Offspring, Bad Religion, Heart, and The Filharmonic.[179][180]
Musical style and influences
Linkin Park combines elements of rock music, hip hop and electronica, and have been categorized as alternative rock,[25][181][182][183] nu metal,[25][181][184][185] alternative metal,[5][186] rap rock,[25][5][187] electronic rock,[182][186] hard rock,[188] hip hop,[181][188] rap metal,[25] pop,[181] industrial rock,[182] and pop rock.[189] Despite being considered nu metal, the band never considered themselves as such.[190]
Both Hybrid Theory and Meteora combine the alternative metal,[5][191][192] nu metal,[193][194][195] rap rock,[194][196] rap metal,[197] and alternative rock[198][199] sound with influences and elements from hip hop, and electronica,[200][201] utilizing programming and synthesizers. William Ruhlmann from AllMusic regarded it as “a Johnny-come-lately to an already overdone musical style,”[202] whereas Rolling Stone described their song “Breaking the Habit” as “risky, beautiful art”.[203]
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.[7] Only two songs on the album’s tracklist feature rap vocals and the majority of the album can be considered alternative rock.[204][205]
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 singles (“The Catalyst”, “Burning in the Skies”, “Iridescent”), both Shinoda and Bennington sing. The album has been regarded as a turning point in the band’s musical career, having a stronger emphasis on electronica.[206][207] James Montgomery, of MTV, compared the record to Radiohead’s Kid A ,[208] while Jordy Kasko of Review, Rinse, Repeat likened the album to both Kid A and Pink Floyd’s landmark album The Dark Side of the Moon .[209] 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”.[210] One of the record’s political elements is its samples of notable speeches by American political figures.[211] A Thousand Suns was described as trip hop,[212] electronic rock,[213][214] ambient,[212] alternative rock,[215] industrial rock,[216] experimental rock,[217] rap rock,[218] and progressive rock.[219]
Their fifth album, Living Things , is also an electronic-heavy album, but includes other influences, resulting in a harder sound by comparison.[220][221] The band returned to a heavier sound compared to their last three albums on The Hunting Party , which was described as an alternative metal,[222][223][224] nu metal,[225] hard rock,[222][226] rap rock,[227] and rap metal album.[228] Their seventh album, One More Light, was described as pop,[229][230] pop rock[231][232] and electropop.[233]
Linkin Park’s influences include Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Machines of Loving Grace, Metallica, Refused, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Descendents, Misfits, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, A Tribe Called Quest, Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, N.W.A, Public Enemy, KRS-One, Boogie Down Productions, Led Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, and the Beatles.[234][235]
but I’ve always seen it as inclusion 
in a way it’s not fair for people to have to translate nonstop when we’re writing like normal 
I understand and all I’ve just never seen wrong with a few messages here and there playing with the idea but anyway…water under the bridge 
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run out of your hiding holes peopleeeeee!!! Ruuuuuuun!!! 
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the forum is being weird 