Linkin Park

Linkin Park is a music band well known for its natural mixing of different music styles that is far different from the music nowadays bands would like to offer. This phenomenon makes this band a "hybrid" in the type of music they play and their fan-base too. Linkin Park began its early origin in 1996 when rapper guitarist, Brad Delson and the MC/vocalist, Mike Shinoda started a band called Xero. Both of them had attended high school together, where they met the band's drummer, Rob Bourdon. Later on Shinoda hooked up with DJ Joseph Hahn while studying illustration at Art Center College in Pasadena, where as Delson, who was attending UCLA, shared an apartment with bassist Phoenix, who left the band after college and returned a year later. To be the last member of the group was Mark Wakefield, the band's vocalist.

At the beginning of the group career, Xero released a four track demo tape, which includes "Fuse", "Stick N' Move", "Rhinestone" and "Reading My Eyes". Soon after Mark Wakefield left the band, the other members agreed to change their name to Hybrid Theory, after which Phoenix also decided to leave the band to tour with another band called the Snax. As the two persons left, the rest of the band continued to play together primarily for fun. Later they signed with Zomba Music, an occasion that fortunately came about when they played at The Whiskey Club in Los Angeles. And the time came for the vocalist Chester Bennington, who had made records since his 16 year age and whose pitch notes was "great," to complete the empty seat on the band. Replacing Mark Wakefield, the combination of Bennington's singing talent with Shinoda MC-ing talent has helped to define Linkin Park's distinct vocal quality that weaving influences as diverse as Deftones, Nine Inch Nails, Aphex Twin, and The Roots into a unified whole. That's the way Linkin Park "want everything to come together without feeling forced," explains Shinoda.

Bennington's arrival, as expected, had helped rocketing the band to success, as in the year of 1999, "Carousel, And One, Technique, Step up, High Voltage, and Part of Me" were born as a six track EP to tremendous applause. Became famous than ever, the band members came to some legal wrangling made it necessary to change the band's name, and based on their "hybrid' spirit, Linkin Park was chosen. Soon afterward, new demos were made and the chase for a record label was on. Warner Records who heard the music, liked it and signed up Linkin Park and thus the story began. In October 2000, Linkin Park released their debut album named "Hybrid Theory", which includes several hits, like "One Step Closer", "Crawling", and "In The End", by which the album respectively received 8 times platinum. What so special about this album that it could gain such achievement is that its distinct trend set up that doesn't contain any curses or swear words due to the band's willingness to write an honest lyrics. That's why they do not include any swear words that will absolutely take away attention from the music itself, rather Linkin Park try to offer their fans something they could listen to over and over again and enjoy repeatedly.

The band entered the studio for sophomore album in mid 2002. Finally, one year later "Meteora" was released and debuted at #1 in Billboard 100. Highly anticipated, it sold 810,000 copies in the first week and then accumulated 11 million copies worldwide. Not waiting too long, the band released DVD/CD titled "Live in Texas". After touring to promote the album, the band laid relatively low in 2005 and concentrated more on their social works. The band established Music for Relief, an organization dedicated to helping those affected by tsunami in 2004. A contract conflict between the band and its label Warner Bros has left each member busy with their solo projects. Fortunately as soon as the matter was settled, the lots hit back to the studio for the third album. On May 15, 2007 "Minutes to Midnight" was released with preceding single "What I've Done" coming out on April 2.

Linkin Park did not release any album after releasing "Minutes to Midnight". However, they embarked on a tour called "Projekt Revolution" in 2008. The band went across Europe and United States before wrapping it up in Texas.

While working on their fourth studio album, Linkin Park released a single entitled, "New Divide" in 2009, which is a soundtrack for "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". In the following year, they released a mobile game called "8-Bit Rebellion" before finally releasing "A Thousand Suns" on September 14 with lead track "The Catalyst". In order to promote the album, the band released a documentary clip on MySpace called "Meeting of A Thousand Suns", which showed how the band made the album.

While Linkin Park did not release any album in 2011, the rock band took part in charity for Haiti's earthquake by releasing a single called "Not Alone". On April 15, 2012, Shinoda announced that the title for the band's fifth studio album would be "Living Things" as the album talked about people and personal interactions. Shortly after the release of the said album, it topped U.S. Pop charts after selling 223,000 units in its first week of release.

In the following year, the band collaborated with Steve Aoki to record track "A Light That Never Comes", which served as the official track for their online puzzle-action game "LP Recharge", which was released on September 12. Promoting the game, Linkin Park released a remix album titled "Recharged" on October 23. The effort features remixes of ten of the songs from "Living Things".

Their sixth studio album, "The Hunting Party", was released on June 14, 2014. Ahead of the release of the effort, Linkin Park premiered the lead track entitled "Guilty All the Same". The song debuted at No. 28 on the U.S. Billboard Rockplay Airplay chart and peaked on Mainstream Rock chart. Later in the same year, Linkin Park was presented with the Best Rock Award at MTV Europe Music Awards. They also took home Best Rock Band and Best Live Acts Awards at the 2014 Loudwire's Music Awards.

In the following year, Linkin Park once again collaborated with Steve Aoki on track "Darker Than Blood" before announcing that they had begun working on the band's seventh studio album, "One More Light", which was released on May 19, 2017.

Two months after releasing the effort, they were hit by disheartening news. The band's frontman Bennington was found dead after committing suicide by hanging, leading the band to cancel the North American leg of their "One More Light World Tour". In October, Linkin Park held a tribute concert to the late vocalist called "Linkin Park and Friends - Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington". Multiple guests performed at the concert, including Avenged Sevenfold and Blink 182.

Linkin Park didn't stop paying their tribute until there. In November, the band announced that they would release a tribute live album compiled from their final tour with Bennington titled "One More Light: Live". The effort is set to be released on December 15.