Living Things (Linkin Park album)

Background and recording

The recording of Living Things started in March 2011 and ended in April 2012. In June 2011, lead singer Chester Bennington revealed to Kerrang! that Linkin Park had begun working on new material for their fifth album. He explained, "We've been working on a new record for the past two months. The music is great and we're well ahead of where we're expecting to be. There aren't a whole lot of noises going on, but there are a lot of good songs."

The band's co-lead vocalist and rapper Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin served as producers for the album. "Typically we'll have a once-a-week meeting to go listen to the songs that they're coming up with and talk about them. For so early in the project, they are much further along than they have been on the last two albums we did. On A Thousand Suns there were still a lot of irons in the fire. We knew, 'OK, we can't do this forever. Let's leave this batch and we'll come back and address it when we start up again'", Rubin said. Bennington explained that Rubin "gives us spaces to just be ourselves and to work on our own...He gives us a clear and concise description of what he likes...He would like us to push ourselves into a more fresh take on that particular sound." He also stated that Shinoda guides the band through the process of each song, and called the team-up of Shinoda and Rubin "our golden ticket."

In July 2011, Bennington told Rolling Stone that Linkin Park aims to produce a new album every eighteen months, and that he would be shocked if a new album did not come out in 2012. The band continues to record and produce new material even while touring. Bennington commented on Linkin Park's schedule, stating, "Touring for two years is excruciating. When we would tour for two years even the most resilient person in the band, at the end of that, was fucking miserable." He further elaborated on their ideas in an interview with MTV saying, "We do have a really great head start. We've got some great music, some good ideas. The creativity has continued to flow for us for the last few years, consistently." He later revealed in another interview in September 2011 that the band was still in the beginning phases of the next album, saying "We just kind of began. We like to keep the creative juices flowing, so we try to keep that going all the time...we like the direction that we're going in." Shinoda told Complex that they spent a year in making the album, as well as elaborating on the album's sound, saying that "It doesn't lose any of the creativity of the newer stuff and it brings in the energy of the older stuff. It's kind of a comprehensive sound. I feel like we've been able to take all the stuff we've learned on the way and put it all together in each song and still keep it fresh and forward-thinking." Shinoda told HitFix that the process of the album "felt like a drug trip...we were looking to redefine everything."

Shinoda spoke to Co.Create about the album's art, saying that it will "blow [the fans] away...the average person is not going to be able to look at it and go, I understand that that's completely new, like not just the image but the way they made the image is totally new. So there's going to be that." The band underwent 360 degree body scans for numerous lyric videos and artwork for the album. On April 9, 2012, the band released a teaser video for the album on Tumblr. The album's art was released on April 16, 2012, along with the album's first single, "Burn It Down".

Composition

In an interview featured in the March 21, 2012 issue of Kerrang! magazine, Bennington stated that the band has returned to more 'familiar' territory on their new record, saying "with this [new] album, we've incorporated a lot of guitar work with big choruses and the heavier electronic stuff to give it that really big wall of sound feeling without getting too metal. This will be more familiar to people than A Thousand Suns was, where we were like 'Fuck it, we're just going to go bonkers." Bennington also said that the new album's lyrics would be personal and avoid being political, adding "We've been writing a lot about relationships." Bennington and Shinoda echoed similar statements during an interview with Spin, with the former commenting that "We now know we have the skills and the tools to take those ideas and make them into what we're actually looking for, as opposed to getting into it and discovering that it just sounds really nü-metal. That's always going to be gross to us, but we can take elements of that and reinvent the vibe, make it new and fresh." The two previewed five songs from the album, as well as announced that they had collaborated with Canadian musician Owen Pallett. The vocalists also stated that they have adopted numerous influences and topics for the album, particularly about people.

Bennington told Live 105 that the band is "embracing everything that [they] have done in the past," taking the "best pieces" of their previous four albums and "smash[ing] them together into this new record." Shinoda explained in an interview with NME that the album would not return to their nu metal sound, however they assured that the record "gets back to our roots and it's captured a feeling that we haven't gone after in many years." He also spoke similar statements to Bennington about combining elements of all four albums, saying, "We've learned so much from all the albums we've done, so we've taken everything we've learned and mixed it all into one." Shinoda stated that the album is more "rap-centric" compared to their previous two albums. Shinoda told Musique Mag that the band wanted the album to be "more energetic [and] song-based", as opposed to their previous album, A Thousand Suns, which was more of a concept record.

The band had numerous influences and inspirations for Living Things. Shinoda told Rolling Stone that "Castle of Glass", "Skin to Bone" and "Roads Untraveled" contained folk music influenced by the works of Bob Dylan, as well as the inspirations of Dylan. In the seventh track "Victimized", which Rolling Stone described as "the band's most aggressive track in years", was influenced by punk rock bands such as Pennywise and Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. Shinoda noted the minimal content of numerous punk rock songs attributed to the short length of "Victimized"; bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrel noted that the song's working title, "Battle Axe", "which to me is..what that song is; it's just this big 'crack' and then you're out." Like the band's first two albums, the penultimate track ("Tinfoil") is an instrumental. Brad Delson, the band's guitarist, has vocals in the tenth track "Until It Breaks", which was Delson's idea. The album explores the genres alternative rock, electronic rock and rap rock.

Release and promotion

The band toured with Incubus and Mutemath on the 2012 Honda Civic Tour. The band's concert at the Admiralspalast Theatre in Berlin, Germany was recorded and was shown in theaters on June 25, 2012 for one night only. The band performed a private concert at the 2012 X Games in Los Angeles. On July 23, 2012, Linkin Park announced they would be touring South Africa for the first time, performing in Johannesburg and Cape Town in November 2012.

On March 28, 2012, Shinoda confirmed that the album's first single is "Burn It Down". On April 11, 2012, it was confirmed that it would be sent for radio airplay and released to iTunes digital download on April 16, 2012. Shinoda also confirmed they were filming a music video for the song, with the band's turntablist Joe Hahn directing the video. The band teamed up with the Lotus F1 team to create a musical racing iPad app titled Linkin Park GP, where players drive a Lotus E20 and interact with an environment that allows the player to create a remix of "Burn It Down", as well as zooming into individual sections of the song. The music video for "Burn It Down" premiered on MTV on May 24, 2012.

On April 15, 2012, Mike Shinoda posted a blog update confirming that the new album title is Living Things and that the album would be available for pre-order through their website, starting April 16. Living Things was released on June 26, 2012. Pre-orders for the album began in April 17, 2012; upon purchase, fans were subscribed to Living Things Remixed, remixed songs from the album. In celebration of the release of Living Things, the band teamed up with music streaming website Spotify to release live compilations of each album era.

On May 9, 2012, a worldwide interactive scavenger hunt commenced. Shinoda proclaimed the near-end of the scavenger hunt in May 23, 2012, stating he would call BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe the next day to premiere a new song from Living Things, the end result of the hunt. The song that premiered on BBC Radio 1 on May 24, 2012 was the album's fourth track, "Lies Greed Misery".

On June 4, 2012, the official lyric video of "Lies Greed Misery" premiered. On the same day, "Lies Greed Misery" was featured in a trailer for the video game Medal of Honor: Warfighter, that was revealed by Electronic Arts at E3 2012. "Castle of Glass" was also confirmed to be featured in Medal of Honor: Warfighter. "Powerless", the twelfth and closing track of the album, is featured in the closing credits to the film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. A performance music video of "Powerless" featuring scenes from the film was released on Yahoo!. The music video was directed by Timur Bekmambetov, director of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The official lyric video for "Lost in the Echo" was released via Linkin Park's official YouTube page on June 29, 2012. and the official music video was released on September 4, 2012. On October 5, 2012, "Lost in the Echo" was released as the album's second single. On October 10, 2012, Linkin Park released the music video for "Castle of Glass". On October 31, 2012, "Powerless" was released as an iTunes-only single in Japan, although there has been neither an official statement about "Powerless" being a single nor any promotion around the release date. "I'll Be Gone" was released to alternative radio as a promotional single on December 5, 2012, while "Castle of Glass" was released as the album's third single on February 1, 2013 and impacted US radio on January 5, 2013.

Commercial

Living Things debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 223,000 copies, beating out Maroon 5's Overexposed by 1,000 sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and fell to number 5 on its second week on chart selling 64,000 copies. The album has reached the top spot in seventeen countries becoming their best charting album so far and has been certified Gold in Australia for shipments of at least 35,000 copies, and also attained Gold certification in Switzerland. It also debuted at number one in UK Albums Chart, selling 41,000 copies beating out Maroon 5's album once again. In Canada, the album also debuted at number one selling at least 20,000 copies. As of June 2014, the album has sold 681,000 copies in the United States, which is lower than "A Thousand Suns" despite the fact that "Burn it Down" was more successful than any single from "A Thousand Suns". In India the album was pre-released at the request of the fans to IMI and was only distributed to the fans, and so it started with the tenth position in the charts and managed to reach second position till July. In mid July the album was dropped from the charts and in August the album peaked the charts at the top position, preceding Cocktail by Pritam and was succeeded by Barfi! by Pritam again. The album then dropped till the ninth position and again topped the charts, preceding Student of the Year. The album was then never dropped from the charts and as of 2014 the album holds the position of 89 in the charts. The album is certified as twice Platinum by IMI.

Critical reception

Upon its release, the album was met with mixed reviews from critics. According to the aggregate review website Metacritic, Living Things holds a score of 60 out of 100 based on 15 collected reviews, indicating "mixed to average reviews."

Chad Childers of Loudwire stated that "the album as a whole continues to expand their world-view writing like what listeners got with A Thousand Suns, but it also adds more of the anger that was prevalent in their earliest work, Hybrid Theory." Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic declared that "there is definition to their structure, some of the choruses catch hold without too much effort -- but this album remains one of sustained mood, not individual moments" and concludes that the album is "a fitting soundtrack for aging rap-rockers who are comfortable in their skin but restless at heart". The Guardian writer Dave Simpson observed that "Living Things is more personal than A Thousand Suns, with underlying themes of recovery from traumatic experiences. The exception, Burn It Down, delivers an antiwar sentiment via Depeche Mode-y electro-bounce, while the similarly standout Roads Untraveled is an eerie confessional ballad", and concluded that "Living Things would have benefited from more of such adventure, but they still sound like a band enjoying an unexpected second life". Johan Wippsson of Melodic wrote that the album is "too little too pop-oriented and made for the charts than before. The synthesizers are a bit too intent to Coldplay mode, but assume that the band felt it was time to conquer the charts again." PopMatters' Jordan Blum concluded that “Living Things is a very good entry that’s simply not as special as its precursor." Phil Mongredien from The Observer comments on their refusal to play it safe and praises their boldness.

Tim Grierson at About.com stated that Living Things is "a straightforward collection that plays to their rap-rock strengths, and while it’s often musically engaging, these 12 songs don’t have enough cumulative impact. As a result, the record ends up being a diverting experience rather than an arresting one." At The A.V. Club, Evan Rytlewski commented that the band "can dial down (or turn back up) the heaviness all it wants, recruit the most Grammy-proven producers, and keep current with the latest electronic textures, but those moves can only take Linkin Park so far when its songs have all the emotional range of an MMA bout". Another mixed review from Hamish MacBain at NME stated that "...their foray into said genre here is restricted to the three minutes of ‘Castle of Glass’. The rest is… well, to be fair, they’ve obviously been listening to a bit of Skrillex, and thus the heavy guitar thud of yore has been replaced by a new, heavy electronic thud, but that aside it’s largely the usual semi-hilarious histrionica to which we’ve become accustomed." MacBain also added that, in the sub-description of the review, the album is "A predictable earache".

Track listing

All lyrics written by Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington; all music composed by Linkin Park.

Living Things (Acapellas and Instrumentals)

Living Things (Acapellas and Instrumentals) is the first instrumental and a capella tracks album performed by American rock band Linkin Park, taken from their fifth studio album Living Things. The album was released on iTunes, and was released through Warner Bros. and Machine Shop on June 25, 2012, it was produced by Rick Rubin and Mike Shinoda. This album was released before the release of Living Things on June 26, 2012. The album was released by Linkin Park after Shinoda heard all the remixes of their songs by other producers, and it was confirmed on their official website.

Personnel

Source: AllMusic and Living Things booklet.