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Minutes to Midnight (album)
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Minutes to Midnight is the third studio album by American rock band Linkin Park that was released, depending on location, between May 9 and May 18, 2007. The album has been certified 2× platinum in the United States and shipped over 3.3 million copies worldwide in its first four weeks of release. It is their first studio album with a Parental Advisory label.
The album debuted at number one in the United States and in 15 other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, around the world.
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Encyclopedia
Minutes to Midnight is the third studio album by American rock band Linkin Park that was released, depending on location, between May 9 and May 18, 2007. The album has been certified 2× platinum in the United States and shipped over 3.3 million copies worldwide in its first four weeks of release. It is their first studio album with a Parental Advisory label.
The album debuted at number one in the United States and in 15 other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, around the world. In the United States, the album had the biggest first week sales of 2007 at the time, with 625,000 albums sold. The album reached number twenty-five on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007. The album has sold 6,469,060 copies worldwide as of February 14, 2009.
Release
Minutes to Midnight was delayed several times before its release. First scheduled for Summer of 2006, then Fall of 2006, then early 2007, the album's release date was finally set for May 15, 2007. In an interview in September 2006, Shinoda explained: "When songs are pouring out you don't ever want to stop that. We already have over 100 roughs for songs. We've narrowed it down since but we're not ready to commit to those yet."
From the late stages of the demo sessions, the song "QWERTY", which was rumored to be on Minutes to Midnight, appeared on the Linkin Park Underground v6.0 CD on December 5, 2006 in both live and studio demo versions.
"This was a year-and-a-half long process of really hard work and experimentation in the studio that yielded about 150 rough songs," guitarist Brad Delson told Billboard.com. "Not only is this album incredibly diverse, but the depth of the material is really strong."
The first single, "What I've Done", was released April 2, 2007, and debuted at number one on the United States Modern Rock chart.
"Given Up", "What I've Done" and "No More Sorrow" made their live debut on April 28, 2007 in Berlin. Live performances of these three songs at the Sessions@AOL were released on AOL on May 5, 2007.
On May 12, 2007, Linkin Park played "Bleed It Out" on Saturday Night Live, along with "What I've Done". Also, on May 18, 2007, Linkin Park appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and again performed "What I've Done" and "Bleed It Out".
On December 20, 2007, "No More Sorrow" was released as a playable song for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. It is available in the Xbox Live Marketplace to buy for 500 Microsoft Points in a pack with two other songs. The song is also available for the PlayStation 3 to buy in the PlayStation Network.
On January 16, 2008, "Valentine's Day" finally made its live debut in Hannover, Germany.
"What I've Done" is a playable song on the game Guitar Hero World Tour.
CD/DVD special editions
A CD/DVD Special Edition of Minutes to Midnight is available. It is designed to look like a book and contains a 24-page art book featuring the lyrics and conceptual art by artists who are friends with the band, along with pictures of the recording process. The cover of the North American version is grey, but in all other areas is black.
The bonus DVD contains the following:
- Advanced Resolution PCM Stereo (48 kHz/24-bit) versions of all 12 tracks
- The Making of Minutes to Midnight Documentary
- The Making of "What I've Done"
- The "What I've Done" music video
The DVD-ROM features are:
- A PDF booklet with lyrics
- A flash widget and a fansite toolkit.
- One Instant Messenger Buddy icon
- Exclusive DVD links to the official Linkin Park website, only accessible through the DVD
- Screensavers
- Wallpapers
The band also released a Super Fan Edition of the album which is only available on their online store. The only difference to the Special Edition was the book (being of 68 pages rather than 24). The DVD contains the same content.
There have been a number of problems with the DVD. Users have experienced problems accessing the DVD-ROM features, as certain computers may not be able to access the enhanced portion of this disc. In Canada, Warner Records recalled the CD/DVD edition due to the faulty DVD. The final release date for the repaired discs is yet to be known. As such orders are no longer available from the website BandMerch.com, nor is it available in stores. It is still available at some local Wal-Marts, yet the DVD is still faulty.
Clean edition
There were non-Parental Advisory releases of both the regular album and the special edition album. The songs "Given Up", "Bleed It Out", and "Hands Held High" were slightly edited, by the removal of most profanities but not all. In Malaysia, clean edition for the album is available in digipak cover while the explicit edition available for the Tour Edition which features white slipcase cardboard cover and a standard jewel case.
Anniversary covers
After a year of the release of Minutes to Midnight, Linkin Park released a number of different covers that they had considered for the final cover, and making them available for fans to use as the album art on iTunes. There are 10 available.
Sound
In an interview with Chester Bennington, he explained that the new album is a mix of punk, classic rock, and hip-hop standards. "Rick has brought more of a stripped down, classic-rock and hip-hop kind of feel."
In another interview with Chester, he stated "This time around, Mike Shinoda is singing a lot more. It may seem like he's not on the record, but he's doing a lot of the harmonies. He also sings a couple of songs alone. We're presenting ourselves in a different way."
"We were looking back at the things that we had done in the past... and I think we just figured that we had exhausted that sound. It was easy for us to replicate, it was easy for other bands to replicate, and we just needed to move on," said Mike Shinoda.
This is their first album to contain guitar solos (particularly "The Little Things Give You Away" and especially "In Pieces"). Unlike the two previous studio albums, Minutes to Midnight contains profanity and politically-charged lyrics.
Mike Shinoda performs his rapping vocals on only two tracks, "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". This is a significant decrease compared to the amount of rapping on previous albums. The rap vocals on "Hands Held High" are much closer styled to Mike Shinoda's side project Fort Minor than his traditional Linkin Park verses. All the songs that contain rap vocals also contain profanity, unlike their other records. Despite a decrease of Mike Shinoda as rapper, he has two solo lead songs on the record. He raps on "Hands Held High", which features background vocals from the entire band (the "men's choir" singing "Amen" is actually each member of the band) and he sings on "In Between". He also sings solo on the bonus track "No Roads Left" in a much more aggressive rock style than on "In Between" with no backing vocals from Bennington.
All scratching elements by Joe Hahn that existed in the previous two studio albums are largely absent, except on the songs "What I've Done" and "In Pieces". Hahn contributes more with programming, electronica, and other elements to many of the songs.
Guitarist Brad Delson experimented with an E-Bow when the band was piecing together "The Little Things Give You Away". The band decided not to use the effect for the solo in that song and instead ended up creating "No More Sorrow" out of the effect. In "Given Up" you can hear him jingling his keys while Mike Shinoda claps.
The Church organ and military drumbeat on Hands Held High were originally to be used as the backdrop to melodic vocals, but Rubin recommended that the band try the opposite approach according to the album booklet.
Shadow of the Day is the only song to have Chester playing an instrument. At concerts, Mike is generally playing the keyboard for this song and cannot play the rhythm.
Reception
The album has generally received a mixed response from critics. Rolling Stone magazine gave the album 4/5, as well IGN said: "This is definitely a step in the right direction and a stepping stone for things to come." Bill Lamb of About.com considered Minutes to Midnight "an impressive achievement" and went on to say: "Linkin Park handles their explorations of a direction forward with impressive grace here." A review for iTunes stated that the band appeared comfortable "when they deign to rock", citing "Given Up" and "Bleed It Out", as opposed to the "brooding" nature of "In Pieces" and some others. It also suggested that the change was Linkin Park "embracing inevitability".
However, in a two out of five stars review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic described the album's sound as "passé" and summed the band's effort up as "opting to create a muddled, colorless murk." In the UK, NME magazine's Dan Silver awarded it 2/10, 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 in Iraq, as "far and away the funniest thing you will hear all year".
The album received mixed reviews overall on Metacritic, with an average vote of 56/100, below the 62/100 score of their previous album, Meteora.
Many critics have compared the album to U2's style of music, most notably the distinct similarity between "Shadow of the Day" and U2's "With or Without You".
Leak
The album was leaked onto the internet just under two weeks before the actual album release, which Mike Shinoda responded to:
Track listingTour Edition live downloadable tracks
Demo names
- "Wake" - "WAKE Album Intro Idea"
- "Given Up" - "21 Stitches" and "Fire in the City"
- "Leave Out All the Rest" - "Fear" and "When My Time Comes"
- "Bleed It Out" - "Accident" and "Re-F****** write"
- "Shadow of the Day" - "Saint"
- "What I've Done" - "Regrets"
- "Hands Held High" - "Song Q"
- "No More Sorrow" - "EBow Idea"
- "Valentine's Day" - "Love and Sadness"
- "In Between" - "Apologies"
- "In Pieces" - "Pictures"
- "The Little Things Give You Away" - "Drum Song"
- "No Roads Left" - "Patients" and "No Roads Left But One"
Remixes
Mike Shinoda has released two Minutes To Midnight remixes of What I've Done and Leave Out All The Rest.
What I've Done (Distorted Remix)- Appears on the "Bleed It Out" single.
Leave Out All The Rest (M. Shinoda Remix)- Appears on the "Leave Out All The Rest" single.
During their live performances the band has been known for adding extended introductions and outros to different songs. Starting with Projekt Revolution 07, "No More Sorrow" was given two intros. The main intro was a short drum intro that transitioned straight into the song. The 2nd intro was used for shows that opened with "No More Sorrow". It featured a DJ solo for Joe Hahn which led into guitar parts and then the short drum intro. Given Up usually opened with Wake and was given an short extended instrumental outro in 2008. When they started a Summer European Tour in 2008, the first half of "Wake" was remixed and entitled "Wake 2.0." "What I've Done" was also given an extended ambience style intro which was used to open shows and encores in 2008. The ambience style instrumental would begin while guitar parts and the drum samples of "What I've Done" would precede it. When the full song of "Hands Held High" was dropped from the set, Mike would rap the first verse of it over the reanimated intro to "Crawling." "The Little Things Give You Away" was extended starting with PR07 as well and given a short piano piece that led into the song. New keyboard parts were given to that piece starting in 2008. "Valentine's Day" was also given a short extended guitar intro during several shows in 2008. And finally, during Projekt Revolution 08, the Street Drum Corps performed their own little drum intros that would lead into the normal show intros.
Personnel
Album
Linkin Park
Additional musicians
- Violins: Charles Bisharat, Mario DeLeon, Armen Garabedian, Julian Hallmark, Gerry Hilera, Songa Lee-Kitto, Natalie Leggett, Josefina Vergara, Sara Parkins
- Violas: Matt Funes, Andrew Picken
- Celli: Larry Corbett, Suzie Katayama
- Bass: Oscar Hidalgo
Production
- Produced by Rick Rubin and Mike Shinoda
- Engineer: Andrew Scheps, Ethan Mates, and Dana Nielsen
- Assistant engineer: Phillip Broussard, Jr.
- Studio production coordinator: Stephanie Luby
- Album production coordinator: Lindsay Chase
- Recorded at The Mansion at Laurel Canyon
- Additional recording at NRG Studios
- Mixed by Neal Avron
- Assisted by George Gumbs and Nicholas Fournier
- Protools engineer: Erich Talaba
- Mixed at Paramount Studios
- Mastered by Dave Collins at Collins Audio
- Strings on "Shadow of the Day", "The Little Things Give You Away", "Hands Held High", "Leave Out All the Rest" and "No Roads Left" arranged by Dave Campbell, Mike Shinoda, and Brad Delson
- All strings conducted by Dave Campbell
- A&R: Tom Whalley
- A&R coordination: Liza Joseph & Trish Evangelista
- Track 14 (Tour Edition) remixed by Mike Shinoda
- Marketing director: Peter Standish
- Creative direction by Frank Maddocks, Ellen Wakayama, Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn
- Art direction: Frank Maddocks and Nikos Constant
- Design: Frank Maddocks
- Original artwork and photography by Frank Maddocks (pages 9-10, 13-16, 19-20, 23-26)
- Artwork by Ekundayo (pages 7-8), Phil Hale (pages 11-12) and Usugrow (pages 17-18), produced and curated by Nikos Constant for Span of Sunset, Inc.
- Original portraits by Joshua Petker; script writing by Usugrow; collage by Frank Maddocks (pages 21-22)
- "Tape Art" background by Keryn Thompson (pages 13-14)
- Title page photograph by James Minchin III
- Additional photography by James Minchin III (pages 1-2, 27-30)
- Studio photography by Joe Hahn (pages 3-4)
- Studio photoraphy by Mike Shinoda and Ethan Mates (pages 17-18, 31 and front and back endsheets)
- Additional recording photography by Edward Colver (front and back endsheets)
DVD
- Making of Minutes to Midnight:
- Produced by Films Di Bovino
- Directed by Mark Fiore
- Executive producer: Mark McDermott
- "What I've Done" music video:
- Produced by Bill Boyd for @radical.media
- Directed by Mr. Hahn
- Making of "What I've Done" music video:
- Produced by Almost Midnight Productions
- Directed by Michael Perlmutter
- Executive producer: Devin Sarno
- DVD producer: David May
- DVD associate producer: Raena Winscott
- Director of DVD authoring: Spencer Chrislu
- DVD album authoring: Craig Anderson, David Dieckmann and Mark Yannitell for Scribestorm
- DVD graphics: Sean Donnelly
- Worldwide representation: Rob McDermott for Mad Mac Entertainment
- Management team: Ryan DeMarti and Trish Evangelista
- Booking agent: Michael Arfin for Artist Group International
- Legal: Danny Hayes for Davis, Shapiro, Lewit & Hayes
- Business managers: Jonathan Schwartz and Michael Oppenheim for Gudvi, Sussman & Oppenheim
- Worldwide licensing and merchandising: BandMerch
Charts and sales
| Chart | Provider(s) | Peak
position | Certification | Sales/
shipments |
|---|
| Argentinian Albums Chart | CAPIF | 1 | | | | Australian Albums Chart | ARIA | 1 | 2× Platinum | 140,000 | | Austrian Album Chart | Media Control Europe | 1 | 2× Platinum | 40,000 | | Belgium Flanders Album Chart | Ultratop | 2 | Gold | 15,000 | | Belgium Wallonian Album Chart | Ultratop | 2 | Gold | 15,000 | | Brazilian Album Chart | ABPD | — | Gold | 150,000+ | | Canadian Album Chart | Nielsen SoundScan | 1 | Platinum | 195,000+ | | Chile Top 10 | Nielsen SoundScan | 6 | | | | Croatian International Album Chart | HDU | 1 | | | | Czech Album Chart | All Records/IFPI | 1 | | | | Czech Album Chart | IFPI | 1 | Gold | 5,000 | | Danish Album Chart | IFPI/Nielsen Music Control | 2 | | | |
| Ecuadorian Albums Chart | Discos MTM | 1 | | | | Estonian Album Chart | Pedrobeat | 1 | | | | European Top 100 Albums Chart | IFPI | 1 | | | | Finnish Albums Chart | GLF | 1 | Gold | 15,000 | | French Album Chart | SNEP/IFOP | 1 | Platinum | 40,000 | | German Album Chart | IFPI | 1 | 5× Gold | 500,000+ | | Greek Album Chart | IFPI | 1 | Gold | 16,000+ | | Hungarian Top 40 Album Chart | Mahasz | 1 | Gold | | | Indian Album Chart | Outlook Magazine June Edition | 1 | Platinum | 100,000+ | | Indonesian Album Chart | LIMA | 1 | Platinum | 50,000 | | Irish Album Chart | IRMA | 1 | 2× Platinum | 30,000+ | | Israeli Album Chart | MusicaNeto | 5 | | | | Italian Album Chart | FIMI | 1 | 2× Platinum | 180,000 | | Japan Album Chart | Oricon | 1 | Platinum | 377,620 | | Korean International Album Chart | Hanteo | 1 | Gold | 21,000 | | Malaysian Album Chart | RIM | 1 | Gold | 15,000 | | Mexico Top 100 Albums Chart | AMPROFON | 2 | Gold | 50,000 | | Netherlands Albums Chart | NVPI/Mega Charts | 2 | | | | New Zealand Album Charts | RIANZ | 1 | 2× Platinum | 30,000 | | Norwegian Albums Chart | VG Nett | 1 | | | | Polish Album Chart | ZPAV | 2 | Gold | 35,000 | | Portuguese Album Chart | AFP | 3 | Platinum | 20,000 | | Singapore Album Chart | RIAS | 1 | Platinum | 15,000 | | South African Album Chart | RISA | 1 | Platinum | 50,000 | | Spain Album Chart | Promusicae/Media Control | 2 | | | | Swedish Album Chart | Sverigetopplistan | 1 | Gold | 20,000 | | Swiss Album Chart | Media Control Europe | 1 | Platinum | 30,000 | | Taiwan 5-Music Western Chart | Five Music | 1 | Gold | 35,000 | | Taiwan G-Music Western Chart | G-Msic | 1 | | Taiwanese Album Chart | G-Msic/Five Music | 2 | | UK Album Chart | OCC | 1 | 1x Platinum | 500,000+ | | Uruguay Albums Chart | CUD | 12 | | | | Venezuelan Album Chart | AMPROFON | 5 | | | | U.S. Billboard 200 | Billboard | 1 | 2x Platinum | 2,745,136 | | U.S. Comprehensive Albums | 1 | | U.S. Top Digital Albums | 1 | | U.S. Top Internet Albums | 1 | | U.S. Top Rock Albums | 1 | |
Singles
Minutes to Midnight has yielded four successful singles as of March 2008. The album's debut single, "What I've Done", their second single "Bleed It Out", their third single "Shadow of the Day" and their fourth single "Given Up " have charted on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock charts at numbers 1, 2, 2 and 4 respectively. Other tracks from Minutes to Midnight have also been seen on the Billboard charts even though they were not released as singles such as "Given Up", "Leave Out All the Rest" (before their announcing as singles), "Hands Held High" and "No More Sorrow". Mike Shinoda confirmed "Leave Out All the Rest" is the final single from Minutes to Midnight.
Shadow of the Day was also featured in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The music video of the song was nominated for Best Rock Video and Best Direction at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.
The music video for Shadow of the Day won Best Rock Video at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.
Notes: Although "Given Up" and "Leave Out All the Rest" had not been released as singles until early March 2008, "Given Up" had already charted on Billboard's Hot 100 and Pop 100 charts at numbers 99 and 78 respectively in 2007, and "Leave Out All the Rest" had already charted on Billboard's Pop 100 chart at number 98 and Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart at number 17 in 2007. "Hands Held High" and "No More Sorrow" also charted on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart at numbers 23 and 24, respectively in 2007.
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