Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Formed in 1996, the band rose to international fame with their debut album Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005 and multi-platinum in several other countries.Their following studio album Meteora, continued the band's success, topping the Billboard 200 album chart in 2003, and was followed by extensive touring and charity work around the world.In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth-greatest band of the music video era and the third-best of the new millennium.Billboard ranked Linkin Park No. 19 on the Best Artists of the Decade chart. The band was recently voted as the greatest band of '00s in a the Bracket Madness poll on VH1.

 

Having adapted nu metal and rap metal to a radio-friendly yet densely layered style in Hybrid Theory and Meteora,the band explored other genres in their next studio album Minutes to Midnight (2007).The album topped the Billboard charts and had the third-best debut week of any album that year.The band continued to explore a wider variation of musical types in their fourth album A Thousand Suns (2010), layering their music with more electronic sounds and beats. Their most recent work Living Things (2012) combines musical elements from all of their previous records. The band has collaborated with several other artists, most notably with rapper Jay-Z in their mashup EP Collision Course, and many others on Reanimation. Linkin Park has sold over 60 million albums worldwide and has won two Grammy Awards.

 

Charity

Linkin Park also participated in numerous charitable events, most notably raised money to benefit victims of Hurricane Charley in 2004 and later Hurricane Katrina in 2005.The band donated $75,000 to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation in March 2004.They also helped relief efforts for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami victims by staging several charity concerts and setting up an additional fund called Music for Relief. Most notably, however, the band participated at Live 8, a series of charitable benefit concerts set up to raise global awareness.Alongside Jay-Z, the band performed on Live 8's stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a global audience.The band would later be reunited with Jay-Z at the Grammy Award Ceremony 2006, during which they performed "Numb/Encore", en route to winning a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. They were joined on stage by Paul McCartney who added verses from the song "Yesterday". They would later go on to play at the 2006 Summer Sonic music festival, which was hosted by Metallica in Japan.

 

On January 19, 2010, Linkin Park released a new song entitled "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.

 

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."Burning in the Skies" was released as the third official single of A Thousand Suns on March 21, 2011.

 

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.Music For Relief released Download to Donate: Tsunami Relief Japan, another compilation of songs, in which the proceeds will go to Save the Children.

 

Musical style and influences

Both Hybrid Theory and Meteora combine the alternative metal,nu metal,and rap rock sound with influences and elements from hip hop, alternative rock, and electronica, utilizing programming and synthesizers. William Ruhlmann from Allmusic regarded it as "a Johnny-come-lately to an already overdone musical style," whereas Rolling Stone described their song "Breaking the Habit" as "risky, beautiful art".

 

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.In it, only two of the songs feature rapping, and the majority of the album can be considered alternative rock.NME magazine's Dan Silver criticized the band's approach, 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, as "far and away the funniest thing you will hear all year"

 

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 four singles, both Shinoda and Bennington sing. On most of the record's tracks, the band notably used electronic drumbeats along with outro drumbeats. The album has been regarded as a turning point in the band's musical career by notable critics, some noting the band utilizing the electronic rock genre.James Montgomery, of MTV, compared the record to Radiohead's Kid A, 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.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". One of the record's political elements is its samples of notable speeches by American political figures.

 

Linkin Park's influences include Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, The Roots and Aphex Twin.

 

Linkin Park became the first rock band to achieve more than one billion YouTube hits.

 

Band members

• Rob Bourdon – drums, percussion (1996–present)

• Brad Delson – lead guitar (1996–present)

• Dave Farrell – bass guitar (1996–1998, 2000–present)

• Joe Hahn – turntables, samples, programming (1996–present)

• Mike Shinoda – vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, piano (1996–present)

• Chester Bennington – vocals (1998–present) Former members

• Mark Wakefield – vocals (1996–1998)

• Kyle Christener – bass guitar (1999)

• Scott Koziol – bass guitar (2000–2001)