Minute to Midnight Album

Minutes to Midnight is the third studio album by American rock band Linkin Park. Released on May 14, 2007, through Warner Bros. Records, the album debuted at number one in the United States and in 15 other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada. The album was produced by Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin. Minutes to Midnight features a shift in the group's musical direction. For the band, the album marks a beginning of deviation from their signature nu metal sound.

Linkin Park started work on their third studio album which begun in 2003. However, while touring to support Meteora in 2004 before the project was resumed later, they postponed work on it. Mike Shinoda formed Fort Minor, while Chester Bennington formed Dead by Sunrise. They returned to working on the record, as they have Rick Rubin produce it with Shinoda. They took on a different musical direction afterward. A few unrevealed-to-the-public mistakes occurred while recording the album, postponing it to several dates. Within mixing the album, some touches were added. After artwork and the rest of it was complete they decided to release "What I've Done" as its lead single by April 2007. It was finally released in North America on May 15, 2007.

In the United States, the album had the biggest first week sales of 2007 at the time, with 625,000 albums sold, going on to be certified double platinum in the United States, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, and Australia and certified platinum in Canada, France, Switzerland and in the UK. Despite its commercial success, Minutes to Midnight received mixed reviews from critics. Rolling Stone magazine named it the twenty-fifth best album of 2007.It was ranked #154 on Billboard's Hot 200 Albums of the Decade.
  
Background

In an interview, lead singer Chester Bennington explained that the album is "a mix of punk, classic rock, and hip-hop standards" and that "Rick has brought more of a stripped down, classic-rock and hip-hop kind of feel."

In another interview, Bennington 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.

Recording and composition 

Guitarist Brad Delson experimented with an EBow 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", he jingles the keys that are heard while several clap sounds are overlayed in the intro of the song (as mentioned in the lyric book). Shinoda and Delson teamed up with David Campbell to add string elements to six songs; "Leave Out All the Rest", "Shadow of the Day", "Hands Held High", "The Little Things Give You Away", as well as the two b-sides "No Roads Left" and "Blackbirds" (which was instead later used in the iPhone game 8-Bit Rebellion!), respectively. All scratching elements by Joe Hahn that existed in the previous two studio albums are largely absent because of the low mixing, except on the songs "What I've Done", "Wake", "The Little Things Give You Away", "Valentine's Day" and "In Pieces". Hahn contributes more with programming, electronica, and other elements to many of the songs. 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. In live performances, Brad Delson plays keyboard on this song (the only song on which he does not play guitar). "Shadow of the Day" is one of two songs (the other being "No Roads Left") to have Bennington playing the guitar. During live performances, Shinoda is generally playing the keyboard for "Shadow of the Day", while Bennington plays rhythm guitar. Shinoda stated in an interview: "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."

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, particularly "fuck". Despite a decrease of Mike Shinoda as rapper, he has three solo lead songs on the record: "Hands Held High", "In Between" and the bonus track "No Roads Left". He also sings lead in "Bleed It Out". "What I've Done", "Shadow of the Day", "No More Sorrow" and "The Little Things Give You Away" features backing vocals from Shinoda at the end. Minutes to Midnight is also Linkin Park's first album to feature guitar solos, particularly in the tracks "In Pieces" and "The Little Things Give You Away". Also, unlike the previous two studio albums, Minutes to Midnight contains profanity and politically-charged lyrics.

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Wake"	1:40
2.	"Given Up"	3:09
3.	"Leave Out All the Rest"	3:31
4.	"Bleed It Out"	2:44
5.	"Shadow of the Day"	4:52
6.	"What I've Done"	3:25
7.	"Hands Held High"	3:53
8.	"No More Sorrow"	3:41
9.	"Valentine's Day"	3:16
10.	"In Between"	3:16
11.	"In Pieces"	3:38
12.	"The Little Things Give You Away"	6:23