Petition: Bring Back the Spirit of the Linkin Park Underground (LPU)

[BeardyWilderness]

8 hours ago, michalangelo said:

THIS! Agree with what you said.

 

26 signatures so far, either this is not trending yet or people simply don't give a shit anymore

It’s slowly climbing, but I think the reality is we’ll be lucky to get over 100 overall. This topic has a couple hundred views, if we had even half the viewers sign it would be meaningful.

 

The likelihood of us making a change with this amount of signatures is low, but if it still catches the attention of Adam and Lorenzo who may pass the sentiments onto the band, it may just cause a small shift for future instalments of LPU.

 

High hopes, low expectations! I don’t think LPLive will share to socials due to their relationship with the LP staff, but it would be a blessing if they did. A big forward push.

 

I did try posting on Reddit but swiftly deleted it as I hate Reddit with a passion. If someone wants to post it there on my behalf, it would be appreciated.

[Rasputin 93]

22 minutes ago, BeardyWilderness said:

If someone wants to post it there on my behalf, it would be appreciated.

Done
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinkinPark/s/asRPH6BmwO

[BeardyWilderness]

Thank you so much! The greatest love machine 

[michalangelo]

58 minutes ago, BeardyWilderness said:

It’s slowly climbing, but I think the reality is we’ll be lucky to get over 100 overall. This topic has a couple hundred views, if we had even half the viewers sign it would be meaningful.

 

The likelihood of us making a change with this amount of signatures is low, but if it still catches the attention of Adam and Lorenzo who may pass the sentiments onto the band, it may just cause a small shift for future instalments of LPU.

 

High hopes, low expectations! I don’t think LPLive will share to socials due to their relationship with the LP staff, but it would be a blessing if they did. A big forward push.

 

I did try posting on Reddit but swiftly deleted it as I hate Reddit with a passion. If someone wants to post it there on my behalf, it would be appreciated.

The problem today is that you sure can agree with many things we post here, you just can't talk about it or share your thoughts widely. You just comply and move along. End of the day it's your salary on the line (or in this case copyright strikes)  Free speech ends when it's your ass on the line..

 

Idiocracy movie slowly changing from dumb comedy to documentary  

 

Also, I really would like to know who's behind the stuff in the new LPU. Not throwing rocks or anything, just curious how is the COLLECTABLE PEN or CONTOURED EYE MASK connected to music, LP and fan club in general. IMHO it's something you could produce to hand out for free if you're starting a business. You know, the things you give out as a promotion. Some will say we should be happy we get anything in general and I don't blame them. It is true on the other hand..

 

I have checked other bands. This is not looking good I'd say.  Here's a wrap up with all the info, I asked gpt for help too: "Major bands have largely abandoned traditional, recurring physical welcome kits in favor of free or low-cost digital-first subscriptions that focus on ticket pre-sales, community chat apps, and digital content. Instead of automatic annual mailings, physical merchandise is now almost exclusively sold as optional, premium webstore add-ons or bundled into high-end VIP concert experiences purchased alongside tour tickets."

Edited September 7 by michalangelo

[ScottiePippo]

I think that artists nowadays have little to no reason to release music just for a small group of fans. Everything has to be made available for streaming on all digital streaming platform. That Is why people consider lpu demos as "unreleased" media when in fact it has obviously been released, sometimes both in physical and digital format. I can't see them releasing the emptiness machine demo and not add it to Spotify. Considering the way in which the music business is structured nowadays, any kind of new linkin park music is too valuable to keep it hidden in the LPU. I could see them making those demos available to everyone on streaming but only giving LPU members the chance to buy it on a CD or digitally. But even then the exclusivity of the old fan club is kinda lost

 

With the release of HT20 and Meteora20 they made previously LPU esclusive music available to everyone. They basically diminished the value of the LPU vault. Hopefully of we get MTM20 next year this trend will keep going until almost all the LPU music is free. 

[Chris]

 

4 hours ago, michalangelo said:

I have checked other bands. This is not looking good I'd say.  Here's a wrap up with all the info, I asked gpt for help too: "Major bands have largely abandoned traditional, recurring physical welcome kits in favor of free or low-cost digital-first subscriptions that focus on ticket pre-sales, community chat apps, and digital content. Instead of automatic annual mailings, physical merchandise is now almost exclusively sold as optional, premium webstore add-ons or bundled into high-end VIP concert experiences purchased alongside tour tickets."

Yes, because either the overhead is lower or the margins high enough to justify the overhead. Pay-to-access VIP stores and VIP experiences. Like I mentioned earlier, this has been in motion for years, largely over the time the band was inactive. My profession gives me a lot of insight into these things and that's why I would say unless you can actually win over a sizeable contingent of the fanbase there will likely be no changes.

 

Which I doubt would happen because none of the major influencing players on social media want to push back at all.

[rav0k]

Signed, as quickly as I could!

[BeardyWilderness]

First milestone reached with 50 signatures!

 

appreciate you all for signing!

[Capacity]

I agree with a lot of what has been said here. To me, offering fans an eye mask and a collectible pen while meaningful musical content, unreleased footage, and so on is missing from the package feels incredibly tone-deaf. What brings us together is the music. It's the reason we care about this band enough to join a community, discuss their work, follow their shows, and take an interest in how their songs were made. Putting an LP logo on just any accessory doesn't make it meaningful, nor does it represent LPU or what the band stands for.

 

I understand why revisiting recordings with Chester might be impossible due to 20th anniversaries, and I respect the band’s right to decide what they are comfortable releasing. But that can't explain the lack of material from the current chapter forever. It's been two years since the comeback. The early versions and snippets people are discussing from Unshatter are exactly the sort of thing fans would love to hear, even in demo version.

Nobody is asking them to empty the vault or use up their strongest unreleased songs. Keep those for future albums or special releases if that is the plan. But come on, demos of songs we already have would mean so much for the fans (Primo is an example). A different vocal take, an early arrangement, discarded lyrics, a melody before it became the version we know. A recording doesn't need to be a lost hit single to be worth sharing (I don't buy what people say about Mike being too much of a perfectionist when it comes to the demos he's released to the world).

[BeardyWilderness]

7 minutes ago, Capacity said:

I agree with a lot of what has been said here. To me, offering fans an eye mask and a collectible pen while meaningful musical content, unreleased footage, and so on is missing from the package feels incredibly tone-deaf. What brings us together is the music. It's the reason we care about this band enough to join a community, discuss their work, follow their shows, and take an interest in how their songs were made. Putting an LP logo on just any accessory doesn't make it meaningful, nor does it represent LPU or what the band stands for.

 

I understand why revisiting recordings with Chester might be impossible due to 20th anniversaries, and I respect the band’s right to decide what they are comfortable releasing. But that can't explain the lack of material from the current chapter forever. It's been two years since the comeback. The early versions and snippets people are discussing from Unshatter are exactly the sort of thing fans would love to hear, even in demo version.

Nobody is asking them to empty the vault or use up their strongest unreleased songs. Keep those for future albums or special releases if that is the plan. But come on, demos of songs we already have would mean so much for the fans (Primo is an example). A different vocal take, an early arrangement, discarded lyrics, a melody before it became the version we know. A recording doesn't need to be a lost hit single to be worth sharing (I don't buy what people say about Mike being too much of a perfectionist when it comes to the demos he's released to the world).

Absolute poetry!

[RentEznor]

I don't know if this would do that much but like someone said, maybe Adam, Lorenzo or whoever is truly managing the LPU now doesn't get it how it used to be notices this and does communicate the band about it.

 

I went into a nostalgic path today here and read a bunch of old LPU9-16 threads, and of course, people complained about not having exactly what they wanted. Sigh, we don't even get that anymore, just overpriced bundles.

 

 

[TheInterframe]

Been a minute! Just got around to taking a look at the LPU offering's this year as my membership auto-renewed and I am definitely a little disappointed. While I'm not as involved as I used to be with the band, getting stuff like demos, and exclusive LPU goodies was always fun because it really made you feel connected with the band. I got in on LPU on the tail-end of that era, so I def didn't experience it as long as some of you had (joined around 2014-15), but it was one of the things that really made LPU special. 

 

10 hours ago, Chris said:

 

Yes, because either the overhead is lower or the margins high enough to justify the overhead. Pay-to-access VIP stores and VIP experiences. Like I mentioned earlier, this has been in motion for years, largely over the time the band was inactive.

 

On 9/6/2026 at 2:10 PM, Chris said:

I agree with this, and have additional thoughts:

 

The band is not out of line by today's standards of fan clubs. However, LPU historically was always a cut above, which is why I think this feels off to longtime fans and younger fans think less of it. This LPU version seems very intentionally structured from a business standpoint[...]

 

Unfortunately @Chris hit's the nail on the head here. The overhead for manufacturing additional goodies for a fan club isn't something most labels or bands are willing to do. Demos are also tricky because a large portion of people now rely on streaming, there's probably a bit of calculus there (dropping demos in a future anniversary box, open to the general public which could go on streaming later vs a small subset of the community).

 

Still super grateful that the LPU is a thing, love that I can early access to tickets and stuff, but I do wish some of the newer fans could experience how much more it used to mean. Just my 2-cents!

[YRQRM0]

8 hours ago, Capacity said:

I understand why revisiting recordings with Chester might be impossible due to 20th anniversaries, and I respect the band’s right to decide what they are comfortable releasing. But that can't explain the lack of material from the current chapter forever. It's been two years since the comeback. The early versions and snippets people are discussing from Unshatter are exactly the sort of thing fans would love to hear, even in demo version.

Nobody is asking them to empty the vault or use up their strongest unreleased songs. Keep those for future albums or special releases if that is the plan. But come on, demos of songs we already have would mean so much for the fans (Primo is an example). A different vocal take, an early arrangement, discarded lyrics, a melody before it became the version we know. A recording doesn't need to be a lost hit single to be worth sharing (I don't buy what people say about Mike being too much of a perfectionist when it comes to the demos he's released to the world).

 

I agree w this in spirit, but think about the financials. The number of people with CD players is smaller than ever, any release exclusive to LPU would be leaked immediately...so what are LPU members paying for? 90% of people are not hardcore fans and will just wait for the leak, and regardless of the spirit, the very people in this thread will have an unavoidable feeling of "well, I could've just not paid and listened to these demos quite easily"

 

The band has proven itself with anniversary releases, and I'd argue those are actually higher-quality releases than anything from LPU. The 20th HT boxset is something I want more in my collection than 10 more standalone LPU CDs (about the same cost), and the fact that it has demos that had never come out before it is a delight. 

 

If it's about the exclusivity, unfortunately that just doesn't exist anymore. Any band member can do live chats on a whim via tiktok, they do dozens more video interviews than in the 2000s, Mike has done more twitch streams than any marketing team could manage to do in 5 years through LPU

 

I gotta say that I also miss the LPU feeling the same way I miss something like watching cartoon network as a kid, but I recognize it just doesn't make sense anymore

[Trumtram]

5 hours ago, YRQRM0 said:

I agree w this in spirit, but think about the financials. The number of people with CD players is smaller than ever, any release exclusive to LPU would be leaked immediately...so what are LPU members paying for? 90% of people are not hardcore fans and will just wait for the leak, and regardless of the spirit, the very people in this thread will have an unavoidable feeling of "well, I could've just not paid and listened to these demos quite easily"

That is true, but it's still an item worth having because of its content. I haven't listened to any CD on my boxsets, but it's still something I would buy to have these songs in my collection.

Also: They are selling TAPES... TAPES! Who has a tape player nowadays? That is the stupidiest trend anyways...

 

The whole point is that the band (as far as I can tell) COULD easily do exclusive stuff at a very low cost, but they just don't. Like you said, it would be easy to do a live chat, but it's not happening. Mike streamed during COVID, he could do that again for the LPU, but he doesn't. He could point a camera at his screen and talk about how a FZ song came together, but nope.

 

And you know what? Pretty much any band member could be like: "I take a couple thousand out of my bank account that contains millions after millions and help produce a nice CD for LPU members to have". Not that I would ever ask for that, but when you got fuck all money, even that would be possible.

[BeardyWilderness]

It doesn’t even need to be a CD. It could be added to the digital vault, or WAV and FLAC files.

[Rasputin 93]

Yeah, by all means Metallica are the kings in terms of fan service coupled with media output. They still have DSPs too.

[Stranger]

6 minutes ago, Rasputin 93 said:

Yeah, by all means Metallica are the kings in terms of fan service coupled with media output. They still have DSPs too.

 

Metallica done it right! they're absolutely beast! i mean, after 3 decades, they finally managed it perfectly. eventhough some of their fans still whining about "oh no, release the "AND JUSTICE FOR ALL WITH DA BASSSSS", "DIZ IZ NOT METALLICA" kinda shit". kudos to Metallica! 

[thigolpbr]

The LP has more than enough material to do what Metallica does.
It’s just that they simply don’t want to, lol.

Maybe one day we’ll have a digital store where we can buy unreleased demos, proshot concert and audio Concert too.

They could just give it a try and see what happens.

Edited September 8 by thigolpbr

[Rasputin 93]

They should make their own label instead of staying at Warner.

[Stranger]

25 minutes ago, Rasputin 93 said:

They should make their own label instead of staying at Warner.

 

creating "Blackened Recording" is the right decision for Metallica as they gain 100% control over their master recordings and secure complete artistic and creative independence.

but that was in 2012, after 28 years of contract with Warner/Vertigo at that period of time. maybe LP will take a brave move in few years more. 

[michalangelo]

5 hours ago, Trumtram said:

That is true, but it's still an item worth having because of its content. I haven't listened to any CD on my boxsets, but it's still something I would buy to have these songs in my collection.

Also: They are selling TAPES... TAPES! Who has a tape player nowadays? That is the stupidiest trend anyways...

 

The whole point is that the band (as far as I can tell) COULD easily do exclusive stuff at a very low cost, but they just don't. Like you said, it would be easy to do a live chat, but it's not happening. Mike streamed during COVID, he could do that again for the LPU, but he doesn't. He could point a camera at his screen and talk about how a FZ song came together, but nope.

 

And you know what? Pretty much any band member could be like: "I take a couple thousand out of my bank account that contains millions after millions and help produce a nice CD for LPU members to have". Not that I would ever ask for that, but when you got fuck all money, even that would be possible.

 

4 hours ago, BeardyWilderness said:

It doesn’t even need to be a CD. It could be added to the digital vault, or WAV and FLAC files.

Dudes, first of all leave tapes alone! These are for the older fans who know what a pencil has to do with tapes, ok?

Also, I said this before and I'll say it now again, either it's all about the money (it always is today! d'oh) or there's lack of imagination in the management? Just the other day LPL posted "From Zero to $250 Million" they sure have the funding. End of the day fans will have to pay for the package. 

 

What happened to riddles, puzzles, scavenger hunt? What happened to kickass promotion? There are so many different options to make the fan club items cool -> CDs, mini cds, usb sticks, fold out digipacks etc. The quality of each item has decreased through years dramatically. There's no t-shirt, there's no CD. The backdrop pouch will not give the package any justice whatsoever imho. Fans do not need a pen or eye mask  Why not bring couple of people who actually have been here (the LP community) for over 15-20 years together to work on something? Why not collaborate with fan sites on some items? (item #1 designed with the help of LPL, item #2 designed by lpcatalog, #3 LPBR, #4LPA and so on). Why not? Maybe because they don't need such things in the first place? Legal stuff? Dude, please.. WHY?

[BeardyWilderness]

25 minutes ago, michalangelo said:

What happened to riddles, puzzles, scavenger hunt? What happened to kickass promotion? 

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[Masterli]

Signed! For me LPU is dead since 2017. What's the point to be in LPU right now. No shirt, no cd's, no music, no meet&greet's.

Edited September 8 by Masterli

[Trumtram]

34 minutes ago, BeardyWilderness said:

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Yeah, never forget the anti climax of that one

[BeardyWilderness]

We are nearing 100 signatures now.

 

Whilst progress has been slower than what we realistically would need to make a real impact, I’m super happy we’re nearing triple digits.

 

For me, the momentum is climbing - not diminishing. The further we move along, the more I want this to be a success. I want to be putting more time and effort into this so we can bring the greatness of the LPU back to the community.

 

I’m thinking of what we could do to give this a really big push in the right direction, to start multiplying the amounts of signatures and ultimately get the attention of the band, staff, fansites, and followers.

 

I’m going to propose here putting together a small team in the near future. The idea would be initially a Teams call to brainstorm ideas, come up with some clever ideas on how to push this to the farthest reaches, and close any gaps/missed opportunities within the campaign itself. Following that, we assign roles/areas of focus and revisit a short while later to check in on progress and refine. I’m also interested in documenting everything, perhaps recording the meetings and keeping a log of activity - not for scrutiny, but in the small chance we’re successful. It’ll be nice to show how it worked. 

 

If you are interested and can commit, reach out in whatever way is most comfortable for you. We will push aside any differences and historic grievances (yes, I’ve had many run-ins with people on here in the past) - all I ask is that you only consider joining the team if you are 100% certain you can commit to it.