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In November, the LP Underground will be celebrating its 15th birthday, and it's a great opportunity to take a look back on the history of the LPU albums.

The LPU CDs had great releases from the get-go with the great LPU 1.0 "Hybrid Theory EP" reissue, that let fans have an option to purchase this 1999 limited release which was originally limited to just 1,000 copies.

From there, LPU 2.0 for the first time mixed three demos/b-sides (My December, Dedicated, and A.06), one "leftover" from Reanimation (the Crystal Method remix of Points Of Authority), and two live songs (With You and High Voltage, which hardcore fans seem to even enjoy more than the studio versions). The performance of High Voltage is regarded amongst the fans as the best performance of the song, ever. A.06 was shortened down from its longer demo form on Meteora in a seemingly exclusive move just for the LPU. Linkin Park even performed it at least three times live on the Meteora touring cycle, twice as a request in the UK by their hardcore LPU fans. Dedicated was a 1999 hip hop demo written 100% by Mike.

Moving on to LPU 4.0, the band released a mostly live CD, but with select rarer songs they had added to their live repertoire that year. The fan-proclaimed Hip Hop Medley (Step Up/Nobody's Listening/It's Goin' Down) from the MTV Mashups show with Jay-Z, Wish (Nine Inch Nails cover), One Step Closer (Reanimated, with Jonathan Davis), and Breaking The Habit (from Rock am Ring 2004, referred to as one of the best Linkin Park shows of all time) all made the cut. With the studio tracks that year, Standing In The Middle (Mike with Kutmasta Kurt and Motion Man) was a track that was likely written for the Kutmasta/Motion Man 2002 album with Mike and didn't make the final cut. And Sold My Soul To Yo Mama is of course another solid remix/instrumental release by Linkin Park.

With LPU 6.0, Linkin Park's Japan 2006 trip came to the CD and fans heard live versions of a brand new song QWERTY along with a newly-changed version of Breaking The Habit, the live debut of Reading My Eyes as Linkin Park (with Chester, too), and a stripped-down piano-only version of Pushing Me Away. A reworked studio version of QWERTY, inspired by Rick Rubin, was added, and another instrumental entitled Announcement Service Public made the cut.

Moving on to 2009, the LPU CDs got their current format - about 10 demos/b-sides for each CD! I'll review just the highlights: The first one was LPU 9 with the epic Across The Line (the release ALMOST had Pictureboard but it was dropped at the last minute), FOUR so-different-than-the-final-track demos of Figure.09, Faint, Drum Song (The Little Things Give You Away demo) sung only by Mike, and Mike's version of Leave Out All The Rest named Fear, and a few other cool demos. A-Six, the long version of A.06, was released in instrumental form with the vocals edited out.

LPUX had What We Don't Know (MTM b-side), I Have Not Begun (Mike's hip hop demo), Pretend To Be (another MTM b-side), the 5 minute long instrumental Pale, and even a Xero instrumental - Coal. Too many highlights for one CD! LPU 11 caught us off guard with two Hybrid Theory (the band) unheard demos - Slip and Blue (a small part of Blue become Crawling later on). LPU 12 added another Hybrid Theory song to our collection - So Far Away, sung by Mike. Also... two Minutes To Midnight demos, Asbestos and Debris, were on the CD.

LPU 13 brought us the magnificent Primo which is an earlier version of I'll Be Gone, recorded back in the A Thousand Suns sessions. Additionally we got three demos (Apaches, Foot Patrol and Three Band Terror) that later were combined with another unreleased demo by Chester into one song - Until It Breaks. LPU 14 took the heavy environment of The Hunting Party and used it to release 5 "heavier" instrumental demos from the earlier A Thousand Suns sessions before the band changed their direction to the A Thousand Suns as we know it, and of course the unique version of Breaking The Habit sung by Mike.

14 years are behind us, full of great demos, amazing live performances, and even a few b-sides (and SO many instrumentals). The band has certainly gone above and beyond in what they have given their fans, as most bands don't release ANY extra songs, and we are very appreciative of it. Linkin Park continually releases demos and more to their fanclub, who is their most loyal part of the fanbase.

Over the years we've collected a lot of information about stuff that WASN'T released yet. Some of the tracks have been asked bout a lot of times during LPU chats and some of them aren't even known for most fans. Here's a short list...

- Reanimation demos: There are a lot of remix versions from that era, we know that Prince Paul, Ryu, Tricky and Z-Trip remixed the band's songs for Reanimation, as well as the most requested song at this time - the Team Sleep remix of My December. Only two other remix versions were officially released from this era: Pts.Of.Athrty (Crystal Method Remix) in the LPU2 CD, and Buy Myself (Marilyn Manson Remix) in the Japanese version of Reanimation, both in 2002.

- Meteora b-sides: One of the band's mysteries for their fanclub, not even one b-side (with vocals) has surfaced. These are widely speculated by fans to be in the "holy grail" by the band's label (aka...future release one day). In one of the "studio reports" back in 2002 Mike mentioned, "anyway, back to work. chester and i are working on our 11th song today (out of 15). there will be 12 tracks on the album. and i want them all to be great.". Since then, not any of the special versions of Meteora got any of the b-sides, while on the LPU CDs only had instrumantal demos or earlier versions of songs that were released on the album. One of Meteora song boards even has a few unknown titles like, Cuidado, Nocturnal, Nursery (or possibly Hearsay), Plaster II, Resolution, Serpent (or possibly Quotient), Shifter and The Wizard Song. "

" is another famous one for fans, which appeared on one of the first LPTV episodes, and back in 2003 Rob confirmed that what we know as the "

" demo was basically the vocal for what we got on LPU 2 and LPU 9 as A.06/A-Six.

- A Thousand Suns b-sides: While we have I Have Not Begun and Blackbirds (which is dated back to MTM sessions), we don't have any demo with vocals from this era, but we know about plenty (about 20) of working titles from ATS sessions like Chicken Basket, Iridescent (the original track which is a totally different song), Sakura or Left Right.

- Mirrored versions: Except LPU 9 (Fear) and LPU 14 (Breaking The Habit), the band hasn't released any demos (that include Mike singing a song that was sung by Chester on the album version and vice verca) of released songs. We know about a few tracks, like In Between and No Roads Left that have a "Chester Version" as well as Final Masquerade, sung completely by Mike, or Guilty All The Same, with Mike's verse instead Rakim.

- Random songs: There are a few random songs that fans have continued talking about for years, like the "Be Yourself" live demo from 2001 (played a few times), the "Machine Shop Mixtape song", a missing
remix from the Recharged era, and of course...the fan-described *holy grail* called "Pictureboard".

In conclusion, we are extremely grateful for what Linkin Park has released to their fanclub over the years. Their devotion to the LPU, regardless of their success as a band, is essentially unprecedented for a modern rock band.

While we don't know the band's reasoning for releasing certain songs, we thought we'd make this thread to discuss possibilities for the LPU 15 album, for the fifteenth year of the fanclub. The tenth anniversary CD was fantastic, and we think LPU 15 has a chance to even be better than LPU X. We've discussed songs for the LPU CDs at lengths (even a "working titles" thread and a "known other demos" thread), and have compiled quite a few "LPU wishlist threads" from 2013, 2014, and 2015 for the albums.

LPU 15 is due out sometime this November!
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Great post! I don't know if they'll ever decide to release Pictureboard but it'd be cool JUST so it gets out and people stop hyping it up so much....there's zero way it lives up to expectations, haha. I think that My December remix would be cool, or a b-side or two.

 

LPU X had two full b-sides with What We Don't Know and Pretend To Be. If LPU 15 can rival that with two other quality ones, plus of course some unreleased instrumentals/demos, I'll be more than satisfied. I don't think that's even too crazy of a request. But I also don't know if LP continued to make these full b-side songs after the MTM era....I'm not sure if ATS/LT/THP even had another full, completed song like MTM had (MTM had 5!).

 

Mike picks the CDs, I believe.

 

- Mirrored versions: Except LPU 9 (Fear) and LPU 14 (Breaking The Habit), the band hasn't released any demos (that include both Mike and Chester) of released songs.

 

1.Fear and BTH demo don't include both Mike and Chester.

2.LPU released a plenty of demo songs that include both of them

 

Except for that the post was really great

1.Fear and BTH demo don't include both Mike and Chester.

2.LPU released a plenty of demo songs that include both of them

I meant that the studio version of BTH by Chester while the demo by Mike, same for LOATR. Hence the "mirrored versions" title.

But for sure I wasn't clear enough, fixed. :)

Has so many things that they could put in the LPU 15. Interesting is that any of the tracks from LPU XIV were already known in any form or info, so they could release the LPU CD this time with requests from the fans, songs that we already know that exists and we want to hear in full :D

This is basically a way more in depth version of the wishlist from the other thread, I like the little history on everything.

 

Maybe there will be something special like how Eminem had Shady XV which was the 15th release on his label. Although that one wasn't all Eminem.

Who's that pokemon?

 

IS GEKI!!

 

RAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWR

What the fuck does this even mean

 

Back to the conversation, really hoping Mike/Lorenzo see this so they can get some ideas. It's been awhile (LPU X) since we've gotten a fantastic release. LPU XIII came close.

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