Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) | Out April 7, 2023

[IWillWalkAway]

14 hours ago, bloodbath said:

Maybe the Don't Stay and Nobody's Listening weren't included because they were almost identical to the final versions, a different working name doesn't have to mean a drastically different song

Nobody’s Listening might be but Don’t Stay had an interesting demo that’s different from the final. It had like a latin-sounding guitar in it originally or something.  Thatd be something worth hearing.

 

6 hours ago, Stranger said:

 

Well, the new thing added: FREE LPU MEMBERSHIP for A YEAR! that's good enough since LPU revamp this year.

 

 

 

thanks for the info! That’s that special QR code Mike mentioned right? I got a feeling they’re planning some new stuff for LPU this year for the first time in a while 🤔

[martinez]

1 hour ago, IWillWalkAway said:

 I got a feeling they’re planning some new stuff for LPU this year for the first time in a while 🤔

 

Yes, they are currently working on it, which is an option to streaming all LPU albums in HQ (if not Hi-Res).

[gorast]

I think I'm probably going to hold onto the LPU redemption until the end of the year unless something big comes up in the meantime. Pretty cool bonus to have, though.

[IWillWalkAway]

For the guitar players like me, I gotta say Lost is not played in drop C. The powerchords are

 

Drop D  Root Fifth

F   Root Fifth

C  Bottom Fifth

G   Root Fifth

G   Root Fifth (again, second time)

 

It’s likely the same C# tuning as Numb, Faint, etc. Or possibly a half step up, if Brad did tune specially for Lost, which I would doubt because I’m pretty sure he tries to change tunings as little as possible for convenience (especially live), though might not be the case in the studio, where I know he did tune A LOT.

 

And also, not that this is a big deal at all really, a rather pointless argument to say the least but I don’t know if anyone else noticed that subtle detail.

Edited May 8, 2023 by IWillWalkAway

[NJPLP]

Is it just me, or am I seeing another coincidence with "Fighting Myself" and "Papercut"?

 

We all know that the working title of "Figure.09" ("Plaster 2"/"Plaster II") is a reference to the "One Step Closer" demo name of "Plaster", which is also referring to the intro riff in the song. And because of that, I can basically be said that "Figure.09" is the sequel to "One Step Closer". We also know that "Fighting Myself" is, basically said, the sequel to "Papercut".

 

But I realized something else that's interesting concerning "Papercut" and "Fighting Myself". The working titles. While they aren't exactly the same, they look very similar to each other. Papercut's working title is "Papercut", while Fighting Myself's working title is "Shortcut". Both working titles are 8 letter words, and they both end with the word "cut".

 

This was just something interesting that I realized as another very interesting coincidence between the two songs.

Edited May 17, 2023 by NJPLP

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

1 hour ago, NJPLP said:

Is it just me, or am I seeing another coincidence with "Fighting Myself" and "Papercut"?

 

We all know that the working title of "Figure.09" ("Plaster 2"/"Plaster II") is a reference to the "One Step Closer" demo name of "Plaster", which is also referring to the intro riff in the song. And because of that, I can basically be said that "Figure.09" is the sequel to "One Step Closer". We also know that "Fighting Myself" is, basically said, the equal to "Papercut".

 

But I realized something else that's interesting concerning "Papercut" and "Fighting Myself". The working titles. While they aren't exactly the same, they look very similar to each other. Papercut's working title is "Papercut", while Fighting Myself's working title is "Shortcut". Both working titles are 8 letter words, and they both end with the word "cut".

 

This was just something interesting that I realized as another very interesting coincidence between the two songs.

 

You might be right.

I love Rob's drums on this track I love the delay effect that he does, isnt that unique in the LP world?

[IntensityJS]

2 hours ago, NJPLP said:

Is it just me, or am I seeing another coincidence with "Fighting Myself" and "Papercut"?

 

We all know that the working title of "Figure.09" ("Plaster 2"/"Plaster II") is a reference to the "One Step Closer" demo name of "Plaster", which is also referring to the intro riff in the song. And because of that, I can basically be said that "Figure.09" is the sequel to "One Step Closer". We also know that "Fighting Myself" is, basically said, the sequel to "Papercut".

 

But I realized something else that's interesting concerning "Papercut" and "Fighting Myself". The working titles. While they aren't exactly the same, they look very similar to each other. Papercut's working title is "Papercut", while Fighting Myself's working title is "Shortcut". Both working titles are 8 letter words, and they both end with the word "cut".

 

This was just something interesting that I realized as another very interesting coincidence between the two songs.

I feel like people get very tinfoil hat like with their conspiracies on what went into writing each album but honestly sounds plausible.

 

personally I’ve noticed a connection between Massive and Session, particularly the breakbeat drums. Perhaps Massive was gutted of its vocals and guitars and Session is what became of it after Mike experimented with the beats. You could also say they’re two seven letter words with a double S. Hell even Wesside is 7 letters with a double S.

 

Considering they joked about how hybrid theory did so well that they were going to do everything the same (at least as far as the tours go) and then that tentative album got trashed before they came up with the majority of Meteora, perhaps they almost made a hybrid theory 2 but felt like it didnt do enough to push the boundaries of the band as a second album should? Makes a lot of sense

Edited May 17, 2023 by IntensityJS

[SardonicallyParanoid]

23 hours ago, IntensityJS said:

Considering they joked about how hybrid theory did so well that they were going to do everything the same (at least as far as the tours go) and then that tentative album got trashed before they came up with the majority of Meteora, perhaps they almost made a hybrid theory 2 but felt like it didnt do enough to push the boundaries of the band as a second album should? Makes a lot of sense

I could definitely see this. Knowing Linkin Park, that's probably why a lot of songs were scrapped or reworked pretty heavily. They started more like Hybrid but wanted to push the envelope more than that. I don't know about anyone else, but Meteora has always sounded far more different than Hybrid. I can't see any Meteora tracks being added tp Hybrid and it sounding the same, and vice versa. Perhaps some earlier versions of some of these tracks were a little closer to that sound. I'd have to give this stuff a re-listen with that in mind, but hey, always possible.

[Robert]

On 1/26/2023 at 7:01 PM, Wilderness said:

Meteora, Linkin Park's ground-breaking second album, was released in March 2003 and included the global hit singles "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb",

"Breaking The Habit" and "From The Inside." It has sold over 8 million copies in the US and has been certified

multi-platinum, platinum, or gold in 15 countries.

 

 

To mark the 20th anniversary of this landmark release, it is being re-issued in multiple formats: Limited Edition Super Deluxe Box Set, 4 LP Deluxe Vinyl Box, 3-disc

Deluxe CD and digital: all containing a wealth of previously unreleased or rare tracks. Among the unreleased tracks are several gems unknown to Linkin Park fans, including "Lost" - a fully realized track from the 2002 album recording sessions featuring stunning vocals from Chester Bennington.

 

 

At this current point, Warner Music have four different bundles on their website for purchase:
LINKS HAVE BEEN REMOVED FOR NOW

Meteora 20th Anniversary Deluxe CD

Meteora 20th Anniversary Digital Download

Meteora 20th Anniversary Deluxe Vinyl

Meteora 20th Anniversary Limited Super Deluxe Edition

 

Tracklisting for Limited Super Deluxe Edition is in the first comment.

 

THE HYPE IS REAL!

 

 

Edit 27/01/2023: linkinpark.com has been updated.

What are we looking for from Minutes to midnight ?

How many unreleased mtm song we know?

Are we will surprised by mtm 20 unknown things like M20?

I wish they would release at least one of them now.

[IWillWalkAway]

Almost 2 months into the release, I still find it so amazing how much stuff was uncovered for this anniversary.

 

We got some new stuff for HT20, mostly the new DVD for that anniversary was what I thought was the coolest, as well as getting Pictureboard and a few other awesome unheard demos.

But THIS anniversary man. We knew so little about Meteora before this year as far as a lot of the unreleased tracks and even stuff about the album tracks. 14 completely new  demos to us, 3 of which were full songs recorded for the album (15 new tracks counting both mixes of Lost) which is crazy, and not only that but more stories of the writing and the working titles and stories about each demo. Not to mention, the new DVD is also incredibly dope.

 

2022 me expected a small rerelease MAYBE featuring some new unheard demos like “Thoughts That Take Away My Pride” (and we got the finished version we didn’t know existed as the damn leading single) or The rob drum track instrumental (and it had freaking vocals) and also definitely some new merch. But man we got so much more stuff, most of which we’ve never heard or heard about until now. I mean we even got the goddamn Wizard Song instrumental, which I thought would never see the light of day, and as the turns out, plot twist it was an early demo for Lost all along. So much crazy stuff revealed.

 

It’s been a crazy cool year so far with all this stuff we thought we might never hear, but we did. And it’s all Amazing.

Edited May 24, 2023 by IWillWalkAway

[martinez]

On 5/4/2023 at 7:52 PM, IWillWalkAway said:

Fighting Myself and More The Victim never got mixed back in the day, but I imagine the original rough mixes wouldn’t sound too different than the ones today. Just judging on Lost, which kept its vibe in the new mix.

 

Indeed they were, Mike use the word "we clean the mix" for all of them, which means they were mixed at some point but the band didn't liked them that much so decided to clean them up. Also, all 3 songs (Lost, Fighting Myself, More The Victim) are the only ones mixed in 2022, the rest of the songs from Lost Demos has the original mix done by Mike back then in 2002, the only new thing is that they were mastered. Mike said that so it's all confirmed.

 

On 5/5/2023 at 12:14 AM, IWillWalkAway said:

true. That one too.

 

Also Shortcut, the Fighting Myself demo was used in the Work in Progress DVD at some point. I remember hearing it.

 

We know that there were two different versions, one found by bands management and one found by Mike, so the instrumantal used on the DVD is one of them.

[LPLStaff]

6 hours ago, martinez said:

 

Indeed they were, Mike use the word "we clean the mix" for all of them, which means they were mixed at some point but the band didn't liked them that much so decided to clean them up. Also, all 3 songs (Lost, Fighting Myself, More The Victim) are the only ones mixed in 2022, the rest of the songs from Lost Demos has the original mix done by Mike back then in 2002, the only new thing is that they were mastered. Mike said that so it's all confirmed.

 

 

We know that there were two different versions, one found by bands management and one found by Mike, so the instrumantal used on the DVD is one of them.

 

This is all correct, except Fighting Myself wasn't even finished in 2002. It didn't have the Chester vocals in the song itself, but they were in the session / multitracks. So when you say Mike said "we cleaned the mix", you are correct because he mixed it fresh in 2022 - that's right. But that song wasn't done enough at the time to mix properly by 2002 standards, if it didn't have Chester on it.

You could argue that it's a "new mix" from how Mike had it set up in ProTools or whatever at the time, sure haha

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

2 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

 

This is all correct, except Fighting Myself wasn't even finished in 2002. It didn't have the Chester vocals in the song itself, but they were in the session / multitracks. So when you say Mike said "we cleaned the mix", you are correct because he mixed it fresh in 2022 - that's right. But that song wasn't done enough at the time to mix properly by 2002 standards, if it didn't have Chester on it.

You could argue that it's a "new mix" from how Mike had it set up in ProTools or whatever at the time, sure haha

 

Mixed in 2023 but with the mindset of making it sound like they were mixed in 2002.

[martinez]

10 hours ago, JZLP-NaughtyNottingham said:

 

Mixed in 2023 but with the mindset of making it sound like they were mixed in 2002.

2022

 

13 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

 

This is all correct, except Fighting Myself wasn't even finished in 2002. It didn't have the Chester vocals in the song itself, but they were in the session / multitracks. So when you say Mike said "we cleaned the mix", you are correct because he mixed it fresh in 2022 - that's right. But that song wasn't done enough at the time to mix properly by 2002 standards, if it didn't have Chester on it.

You could argue that it's a "new mix" from how Mike had it set up in ProTools or whatever at the time, sure haha

 

Still, that doesn't mean that the version that Mike found or the session / multitracks found by management were unmixed. Then you add the layers from one to another and do the mixing properly as you want.

[IWillWalkAway]

FM and MTV and even 2023 mix of Lost sound fine just how they are. The only thing that makes them a little less Meteora sounding imo is the mixing on the drums, notably the really loud kicks, which wasn’t really in their sound back then, but it fits well with Meteora other than that.

 

Lost 2023 mix has some other mixing choices that make it sound less Meteora-like though, like less powerful guitars. It’s still a beautiful mix in my opinion.

 

2023 mix is more emotional

2002 mix is more nostalgic

Edited May 26, 2023 by IWillWalkAway

[IWillWalkAway]

There is a clip in an LPTV of Brad playing something on piano, and Phoenix mentions it held the working title “Knuckles”. This makes me wonder if Knuckles might be Numb’s demo title or something (the tune sounds not much like Numb but who knows). 99% sure it’s not, probably a totally different Meteora-era demo. But again who knows.

[NJPLP]

1 hour ago, IWillWalkAway said:

There is a clip in an LPTV of Brad playing something on piano, and Phoenix mentions it held the working title “Knuckles”. This makes me wonder if Knuckles might be Numb’s demo title or something (the tune sounds not much like Numb but who knows). 99% sure it’s not, probably a totally different Meteora-era demo. But again who knows.

I have a feeling you might be thinking a little too much into this one, lol. To me, it sounds like something Brad did as a joke, just like how Mike played a guitar joke song of sorts that's shown in the footage of the Making of Meteora. 

 

Then again, who knows. We got "Resolution", which shares it's instrumental with "The Wizard Song", which is a joke song itself.

 

 

Also, I wonder if this is an actual song, or just something Mike played. 

 

It's seen in the Making of Meteora, as well as in one of the Meteora LPTV episodes. I might just be thinking too much into this as well, so, you might not be the only one who's looking too much into this kind of stuff, lol.

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by NJPLP

[IWillWalkAway]

On 5/25/2023 at 1:45 PM, martinez said:

 

Indeed they were, Mike use the word "we clean the mix" for all of them, which means they were mixed at some point but the band didn't liked them that much so decided to clean them up. Also, all 3 songs (Lost, Fighting Myself, More The Victim) are the only ones mixed in 2022, the rest of the songs from Lost Demos has the original mix done by Mike back then in 2002, the only new thing is that they were mastered. Mike said that so it's all confirmed.

Unlike Lost, Fighting Myself and More the Victim never got technically finished back in 2002, but had the most finished versions we hear today. There probably is a rough/unfinished mix of the two songs but they never got fully mixed by Andy like Lost did. As far as non-album tracks go, Lost was the only 100% finished and mixed Meteora song. FM and MTV though were like 95% there, so I personally still consider them full songs and not demos.

 

Mike also has stated FM and MTV never got mixed back in the day so he took the multis and gave them a proper mix.

Edited May 28, 2023 by IWillWalkAway

[martinez]

You can call it a rough mix, yeah no problem, like the rest of the demos besides first 3 were mixed in 2002 so those are probably rough mixes + they are all unfinished.

 

So you can continue to agree with me with another 5+ more posts if you want

 

I never was saying they were fully finished songs nor i said anything about Andy, you are the one who just bring those two things.

 

The mix can be done at some point where the song is not finished yet or the already done mix can be improved/changed in the later time, you can check Mike's live stream channel and see how many times he changed the mixes for his most famous jam songs.

[IWillWalkAway]

On 5/28/2023 at 6:48 AM, martinez said:

You can call it a rough mix, yeah no problem, like the rest of the demos besides first 3 were mixed in 2002 so those are probably rough mixes + they are all unfinished.

 

So you can continue to agree with me with another 5+ more posts if you want

 

I never was saying they were fully finished songs nor i said anything about Andy, you are the one who just bring those two things.

 

The mix can be done at some point where the song is not finished yet or the already done mix can be improved/changed in the later time, you can check Mike's live stream channel and see how many times he changed the mixes for his most famous jam songs.

let me rephrase my first post about this. the songs never got a finished mix back in the day, which is what Mike said. How’s that?

Edited May 29, 2023 by IWillWalkAway

[IWillWalkAway]

the Linkinpedia page says Lost 2002 mix has a shorter intro? Why? Both mixes have the same intro length?

 

I’m gonna post one more time the full Meteora board of songs and the demo titles each song goes to cause why not. Just to show again the 18 total demos LP had in the final process of making Meteora.

 

1. Cumulus - a demo from LPU13, which ended up receiving a basically finished version with full vocals but left off the album, “More the Victim”. Ended up sounding a bit too far from the rest of the songs for the bands liking for being on the album at the time.

 

2. Interrogation - the working title to the album track “Easier to Run”, unknown until Meteora 20 release.

 

3. Cuidado - the demo for “Lying from You” on the album. Confirmed in a Mike Shinoda live in April 2021.

 

4. (BLANK SPACE) - likely the “Healing Foot” demo. The original clip of Rob recording drums for this song in the Making of Meteora DVD, and the only finished track done being drums, almost guarantees this was that demo, and it didn’t make it as far as the others.

 

5. Pretty Birdie - demo version of album track and single “Somewhere I Belong” originally released in LPU13. Title seemed to have slightly changed from “Pretty Birdy”, maybe because Phoenix plays golf, though that’s just a wild guess.

 

6. Shifter - one of two titles shown in a 2003 spin magazine about recording Meteora. It turned out to be the working title for the album track and single “From the Inside”. The instrumental demo was heard in Making of Meteora and LPTV 1 Episode 1.

 

7. (originally thought to be Serpent/Quotient) Shortcut - demo title for a 90% completed song not on the album, “Fighting Myself”. Demo version was heard in a short 4 second clip in the LPTV 1 episode 1.

 

8. Nocturnal - the second title shown in the same 2003 spin magazine about recording Meteora. Confirmed at Meteora 20 Working title for “Nobody’s Listening”, which made the album.

 

9. Session - Session.

 

10. Resolution - demo title for “Lost”, the “Thoughts That Take Away My Pride” song shown in making of Meteora DVD. Song was completed with the 12 album tracks, and got mixed by Andy, but was removed when the tracklist took shape in mastering. Early demo version on Meteora 20 was used for the joke “Wizard Song” in the same DVD.

 

11. Faint - Song on the album and popular single always kept its working title.

 

12. Sick - demo title for “Don’t Stay”, on the album. A demo we’ve known about, that originally had a reggae-style vibe. Demo is not unearthed yet.

 

13. Plaster II - A demo of the album song Figure.09. This version might have had singing verses while recording at NRG studios. Another (likely earlier) version of this demo was heard in LPTV 1 Episode 4, with Brad ripping a guitar solo then pretending to be frozen.

 

14. (originally thought to be Nursery/Hearsay) Husky - working title for the album track “Hit the Floor”. Unknown until Meteora 20.

 

15. Drawing - demo title for the album track and single “Breaking the Habit”, that originally appeared on LPU9.

 

16. Figure.09 - Merged with Plaster II to become the final version of the song.

 

 

tracks not on the board 

 

17. Numb - final song on the album, and most popular single came together “quickly and almost effortlessly” at NRG studios, which might explain it not being up on the board, it got finished, at least instrumentally, earlier that the other songs. The official working title is unknown still, but it’s also possible it never had one or was always “Numb”, if that lyric was written early on.

 

18. A.06 - we know the short instrumental was recorded at NRG studios, though its intent was likely just to serve as an album promo, as it was released while the album was being recorded. Maybe the track was gonna serve as an intro at one point. Nevertheless, it was a demo that got shortened from a full song demo to a short instrumental in the final process.

Edited June 26, 2023 by IWillWalkAway

[Soeffingnaive92]

The underappreciation for More the Victim is crazy.... 12 million streams on Spotify in 3 months... will struggle to ever get to 30.... it's weird

[IWillWalkAway]

I wonder if were gonna get a new LPU CD this year. It's been a long damn time since we got one and I feel like with Meteora 20 and everything, a new LPU CD would make for another awesome thing from the band, cause it seems like LPU is really starting up again. Even if its just some unearthed live audios or instrumental demos, it'd be great.

[IWillWalkAway]

Shoutweb: So, there are 13 tracks, right?

Rob: One of them is more like an instrumental interlude song. It's not really an interlude though. It really kind of shows the electronic element of what we do. There is a lot of drum editing and a lot of different editing on that. It's a really, really cool song.

Shoutweb: Is that "Forward"?

Rob: No, that is actually just a little intro. The song I am talking about is called "Session".

Shoutweb: So that actually makes only 12 songs on the record.

Rob: It was almost 13. You know what? We had so many songs. We actually went into the studio with 18 songs that we recorded drums on. We really tried to concentrate on the record as a whole, besides just the songs. It's hard to cut songs out because we had songs that we're just so attached to and I think are really great songs but we really tried to pick the amount of songs that fit the record to make the record a whole piece of work. Not just a bunch of different songs thrown on an album. We really wanted to take you on a journey so you can listen to something from beginning to end. We want something that is going to grab your attention the whole time and you've gone on this musical journey that is just under 37 minutes this time.

 

This is interesting. Rob said, "It was ALMOST 13." It's possible he was recollecting "Lost", almost making the album.

[Soeffingnaive92]

3 hours ago, IWillWalkAway said:

Shoutweb: So, there are 13 tracks, right?

Rob: One of them is more like an instrumental interlude song. It's not really an interlude though. It really kind of shows the electronic element of what we do. There is a lot of drum editing and a lot of different editing on that. It's a really, really cool song.

Shoutweb: Is that "Forward"?

Rob: No, that is actually just a little intro. The song I am talking about is called "Session".

Shoutweb: So that actually makes only 12 songs on the record.

Rob: It was almost 13. You know what? We had so many songs. We actually went into the studio with 18 songs that we recorded drums on. We really tried to concentrate on the record as a whole, besides just the songs. It's hard to cut songs out because we had songs that we're just so attached to and I think are really great songs but we really tried to pick the amount of songs that fit the record to make the record a whole piece of work. Not just a bunch of different songs thrown on an album. We really wanted to take you on a journey so you can listen to something from beginning to end. We want something that is going to grab your attention the whole time and you've gone on this musical journey that is just under 37 minutes this time.

 

This is interesting. Rob said, "It was ALMOST 13." It's possible he was recollecting "Lost", almost making the album.

Based on what Mike said about Lost, I think Rob is definitely talking about that song