Minutes to Midnight (album)

Minutes to Midnight
Studio album by Linkin Park
Released	May 14, 2007 May 15, 2007
Recorded	February 2006 – January 2007 at The Mansion
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	43:30
Label	Warner Bros. Records Machine Shop Recordings
Producer	Rick Rubin Mike Shinoda (co-producer)
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Entertainment Weekly C link The Herald Sun link IGN (7.4/10) link Kerrang NME (2/10) link Okayplayer link Rolling Stone link Spin link
Linkin Park chronology
LP Underground 6.0 EP (2006) Minutes to Midnight (2007) LP Underground 7.0 EP (2007)
Alternate cover
Singles from Minutes to Midnight
"What I've Done" Released: April 2, 2007 "Bleed It Out" Released: August 20, 2007[1] "Shadow of the Day" Released: October 16, 2007

Minutes to Midnight is Linkin Park's third studio album that was released, depending on location, between May 9, 2007 and May 18, 2007. It has sold remarkably well in the space of a few months and has also been certified 3x Platinum in the United States as well.^[2][3] It is also their first album with a parental advisory label. The album debuted at #1 in the United States^[4] and in 15 other countries, including the UK and Canada, around the world.^[5] In the U.S. the album had the biggest first week sales of 2007 with 625,000 albums sold, but it was later surpassed by Kanye West's album Graduation. The album was certified Platinum (One million albums sold) in the U.S.^[6] and shipped over 3.3 million albums worldwide in its first four weeks of release.^[7] This album was #25 on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007.^[8] There are two versions of the album cover. Both feature all six members of the band in black clothing. On the slipcase, the band members are looking away from the camera and on some of the standard jewel case covers, most of the band members are looking at the camera. The order of the band (from left to right) is as follows: Chester Bennington, Phoenix, Joe Hahn, Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, and Mike Shinoda. The lead single from the album, "What I've Done", was digitally released on April 3 in the UK and April 2 in the U.S. The CD single was released on April 30.

Contents 1 Track listing 1.1 Bonus Tour Edition tracks 2 Release 2.1 CD/DVD Special Editions 2.2 Clean Editions 3 Sound 4 Demo and working titles 5 Leak 6 Personnel 7 Charts and sales 8 Singles 8.1 Other charting songs 9 References 10 External links

Track listing

All songs were written by Linkin Park.

1. "Wake" – 1:41
2. "Given Up" – 3:09
3. "Leave Out All the Rest" – 3:29
4. "Bleed It Out" – 2:44
5. "Shadow of the Day" – 4:50
6. "What I've Done" – 3:25
7. "Hands Held High" – 3:53
8. "No More Sorrow" – 3:42
9. "Valentine's Day" – 3:17
10. "In Between" – 3:17
11. "In Pieces" – 3:38
12. "The Little Things Give You Away" – 6:22

Bonus Tour Edition tracks

13. "No Roads Left" – 3:50 (Was also available from iTunes with the pre-order of the album only)
14. "What I've Done" (Distorted Remix) – 3:48 (Remixed by Mike Shinoda)
15. "Given Up" (Third Encore Session) – 3:09

Release

Minutes to Midnight was delayed several times before its release. First scheduled for summer 2006, then fall 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, "QWERTY", which was rumored to be on Minutes to Midnight, has 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."^[9] The first single, "What I've Done", was released April 2, 2007, and debuted at number one on the U.S. Modern Rock chart.^[10] "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.^[11] 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. This was the band's first song ever played on a video game It is available in the Xbox Live Marketplace to buy for a certain amount of Microsoft Points so it could be unlocked to play on the game. The song will come available for the Playstation 3 to buy in the Playstation Network some time in December during the same year.

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:^[12]

• 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 Editions

There were non-PA releases of both the regular CD and the special edition CD. The songs "Given Up", "Bleed It Out", and "Hands Held High" were slightly edited, by the removal of profanities all together. In Malaysia, there are only clean editions available. The Clean Edition also has a separate hard cover for the album.

Sound

Overall Minutes to Midnight is Linkin Park's softest studio album, focusing more in layers and textures of the music, thus creating a more melodic, approachable sound. In an interview with Chester Bennington it is explained that the new album is a mix of punk, classic rock, and hip-hop beats. "Rick has brought more of a stripped down, classic-rock and hip-hop kind of feel."^[13] 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."^[14][15] "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.^[16] This is their first album where Mike Shinoda sings lead vocals for a full length track ("In Between"), rather than rapping.^[17] It is also the first to contain guitar solos (particularly on "Shadow Of The Day", "In Pieces" and "The Little Things Give You Away"). Unlike the two previous studio albums, Minutes to Midnight contains profanity and politically-charged lyrics.^[18] Mike Shinoda performs his rapping vocals on only two tracks, "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". This is a significant decrease compared to previous albums. The rap vocals on the album are much closer styled to Mike Shinoda's side project Fort Minor than his traditional Linkin Park verses. 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). 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. Bennington and Shinoda play guitar on "No Roads Left", the iTunes exclusive bonus track.

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", "Valentine's Day", 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 (Brad shakes his finger on the strings of his guitar creating the long reverb effect similar to the sound of an E-Bow). In "Given Up" you can hear him jingling his keys while Mike Shinoda claps.^[19]

Demo and working titles

• "Given Up" - 21 Stitches
• "Leave Out All the Rest" - Fear & When My Time Comes
• "Bleed It Out" - Accident & Re-fucking-write (a reference to the number of lyrical changes that were made)
• "Hands Held High" - Song Q
• "No More Sorrow" - EBow Idea
• "In Pieces" - Pictures
• "The Little Things Give You Away" - The Drum Song
• "No Roads Left" - Patients & No Roads Left But One

Leak

On May 4, 2007, 10 days before its official world release, the real Minutes to Midnight was leaked. The following day, Mike Shinoda posted his response to the leak:^[20]

“

It couldn't be more exciting to give you all new music, especially after all the hard work we put into it. This album was almost a year and a half of experiments, mistakes, inspiration, and careful craftsmanship. We put everything we had into these songs, and want you to hear every second of it. I can't wait for you to absorb all the levels of meaning in the songs, and the layers of music, eventually forming your own ideas about what the songs mean to you. At the same time, a leak leaves out some very important parts of this piece of work. We put months of creative energy into the ART of the record, in the booklet, special edition, and big book … almost as long as it took to record hybrid theory [sic]. The album has amazing photos, lyrics, and notes about how the songs came together — it's the visual half of the record. On the other hand, the super-special-edition book is packed with exclusive images, stories of the making of the songs, gorgeous art, the CD and a DVD that tells the story, showing the actual moments of inspiration caught on camera. For me, it's almost hard to imagine anyone really experiencing this album without that part of it. Even the song sequence alone is very important. It's WAY different to hear the songs in a random order than to listen to this record from beginning to end. At the very least, if you've already downloaded the songs, do us a huge favor and listen to them in the right order … it'll be way more rewarding.

”

Personnel

• Chester Bennington — lead vocals,backing vocals, rhythm guitar (live shows only)
• Rob Bourdon — drums
• Brad Delson — lead guitar, piano (live shows only)
• Dave "Phoenix" Farrell - bass guitar,backing vocals
• Joseph Hahn — turntables, sampling, programming
• Mike Shinoda — rhythm guitar, keyboard ,MC, backing vocals

Other contributors

• Rick Rubin - Music producer/producer

Charts and sales

See also: Linkin Park discography

Chart	Provider(s)	Peak position	Certification	Sales/ shipments
Argentinian Albums Chart[21]	CAPIF	1
Australian Albums Chart[22]	ARIA	1	2x Platinum	140,000
Austrian Album Chart[23]	Media Control Europe	1	Platinum	30,000
Belgium Flanders Album Chart[24]	Ultratop	2	Gold	15,000
Belgium Wallonian Album Chart[25]	Ultratop	2	Gold	15,000
Brazilian Album Chart[26]	ABPD	3	Gold	50,000+
Canadian Album Chart[27]	Nielsen SoundScan	1	Platinum	100,000+
Chile Top 10[28]	Nielsen SoundScan	6
Croatian International Album Chart[29]	HDU	1
Czech Album Chart[30]	All Records/IFPI	1
Czech Album Chart[31]	IFPI	1	Gold	5,000
Danish Album Chart[32]	IFPI/Nielsen Music Control	2
Estonian Album Chart[33]	Pedrobeat	1
European Top 100 Albums Chart[34]	IFPI	1
Finnish Albums Chart[35]	GLF	1	Gold	15,000
French Album Chart[36]	SNEP/IFOP	1	Platinum	40,000
German Album Chart[37]	IFPI	1	3x Gold	300,000+
Greek Album Chart Chart[38]	IFPI	1	Gold	10,000+
Hungarian Top 40 Album Chart[39]	Mahasz	1	Gold
Indian Album Chart	Outlook Magazine June Edition	1
Indonesian Album Chart	LIMA	1	Platinum	50,000
Irish Album Chart[40]	IRMA	1	Gold	7,500
Israeli Album Chart[41]	MusicaNeto	5
Italian Album Chart[42]	FIMI	1	2x Platinum	180,000
Japan Album Chart[43]	Oricon	1	Platinum	331,235
Korean International Album Chart[44]	Hanteo	1	Gold	18,000
Malaysian Album Chart	RIM	1	Gold	15,000
Mexico Top 100 Albums Chart[45]	AMPROFON	2	Gold[46]	50,000
Netherlands Albums Chart[47]	NVPI/Mega Charts	2
New Zealand Album Charts[48]	RIANZ	1	2x Platinum	30,000
Norwegian Albums Chart[49]	VG Nett	1
Philippines Album Chart	Prima	1
Polish Album Chart[50]	ZPAV	2	Gold	35,000
Portuguese Album Chart[51]	AFP	3	Gold	10,000
Singapore Album Chart	RIAS	1	Platinum	15,000
South African Album Chart	RISA	1	Platinum	50,000
Spain Album Chart[52]	Promusicae/Media Control	2
Swedish Album Chart[53]	Sverigetopplistan	1	Gold	20,000
Swiss Album Chart[54]	Media Control Europe	1	Platinum	30,000
Taiwan 5-Music Western Chart[55]	Five Music	1	Gold	35,000
Taiwan G-Music Western Chart[56]	G-Msic	1
Taiwanese Album Chart[57]	G-Msic/Five Music	2
Thailand Albums Chart		1	Gold	20,000
UK Album Chart[58]	OCC	1	Platinum	321,000+
Uruguay Albums Chart[59]	CUD	12
Venezuelan Album Chart[60]	AMPROFON	5
U.S. Billboard 200[61]	Billboard	1	2x Platinum	2,000,000+
U.S. Comprehensive Albums[61]		1
U.S. Top Digital Albums[61]		1
U.S. Top Internet Albums[61]		1
U.S. Top Rock Albums[61]		1
United World Chart (Worldwide Sales)	Media traffic	1		5,112,000+
United World Chart (Worldwide Sales)		1		5,495,000+
United World Chart (Year-End 2007)		3		5,705,000

Singles

"Minutes to Midnight" has yielded three successful singles as of December 2007. Linkin Park's debut single "What I've Done", their second single "Bleed It Out", and their current single "Shadow of the Day" have charted on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts at 1, 2, and 3 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" and "Leave Out All the Rest".

Year	Song	Chart	Peak position
2007	"What I've Done"	Billboard Hot 100	7
2007	"What I've Done"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	1
2007	"What I've Done"	Modern Rock Tracks	1
2007	"What I've Done"	VSPOT top 20 Video Countdown	3
2007	"What I've Done"	Billboard Pop 100	8
2007	"What I've Done"	Hot Digital Songs	4
2007	"What I've Done"	UK Singles Chart	6
2007	"Bleed It Out" 1	Billboard Hot 100	52 [62]
2007	"Bleed It Out"	Modern Rock Tracks	2
2007	"Bleed It Out"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	3
2007	"Bleed It Out"	Billboard Pop 100	56
2007	"Bleed It Out"	Canadian Hot 100	22
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	Polish Singles Chart	10
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	Modern Rock Tracks	3
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	17
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	Canadian Hot 100	28
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	Billboard Pop 100	23
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	Billboard Hot 100	28
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	Australian ARIA Charts	19
2007	"Shadow of the Day"	RockMetal World Summary'07	1

Other charting songs

Year	Song	Chart	Peak position
2007	"Given Up"	Billboard Hot 100	99[63]
2007	"Given Up"	Billboard Pop 100	78
2007	"Leave Out All the Rest"	Billboard Pop 100	98

References

External links

• Linkin Park's official website
• Minutes to Midnight at MetaCritic
• Minutes to Midnight official lyrics page

Preceded by Favourite Worst Nightmare by Arctic Monkeys	UK Albums Chart number one album May 20 – May 27, 2007	Succeeded by It Won't Be Soon Before Long by Maroon 5
Preceded by Call Me Irresponsible by Michael Bublé	Billboard 200 number-one album June 2 – June 9, 2007	Succeeded by It Won't Be Soon Before Long by Maroon 5
Preceded by Treasure by Hayley Westenra	RIANZ number-one album May 21 – June 4, 2007	Succeeded by Long Player by Hollie Smith
Preceded by Call Me Irresponsible by Michael Bublé	Australian ARIA Albums Chart number-one album May 28, 2007	Succeeded by I'm Not Dead by Pink

•  • e Linkin Park
Chester Bennington · Rob Bourdon · Brad Delson · Dave "Phoenix" Farrell · Joe Hahn · Mike Shinoda Kyle Christener · Scott Koziol · Mark Wakefield
Studio albums	Hybrid Theory · Meteora · Minutes to Midnight
Live albums	Live in Texas
Demos and Extended plays	Xero · Hybrid Theory EP · Collision Course
Remix albums	Reanimation
Videos	Frat Party at the Pankake Festival · The Making of Meteora · Live in Texas · Breaking the Habit · Collision Course · Minutes to Midnight
Singles	"One Step Closer" · "Crawling" · "Papercut" · "In the End" · "In the End: Live & Rare" · "Pts.OF.Athrty" · "Enth E Nd / Frgt/10" · "Frgt/10" · "Somewhere I Belong" · "Faint" · "Numb" · "From the Inside" · "Lying from You" · "Breaking the Habit" · "Numb/Encore" · "Dirt off Your Shoulder/Lying from You" · "What I've Done" · "Bleed It Out" · "Shadow of the Day"
Related articles	Discography · Dead By Sunrise · Fort Minor · Grey Daze · Julien-K · Linkin Park Underground · Machine Shop Recordings · Music for Relief · Projekt Revolution · Relative Degree · Styles of Beyond · Tasty Snax · Xero · Videography