LPLStaff

I think it's pretty telling, based on Mike's comments that he didn't really want to do a greatest hits and this, that the band isn't in love with this release. I'm sure releasing Friendly Fire was cool for them but they haven't ever seemed like the band to want to do a greatest hits release. They are always looking forward, not backward.

The original mix of Lost is so strange compared to what the band released last year. Not sure how BIG it would have been on Meteora originally, but it definitely is a strong enough song to be on the original release.

Would strongly argue Blackbirds being released in early 2010 (finished in 2009) is MTM-era, since the song was one of 6 they recorded strings for with MTM and it made it really far in the process. Someone else could easily disagree and say since the ATS sessions were going so strong then, they finished it while working with ATS. Wild how things could be classified so many different ways across their discography haha.

QWERTY wasn't ever finished, it's still in demo form. It didn't make it through the process. His changes aren't great compared to the live version, of course, but we don't know what a finished QWERTY would even sound like if it got to the same point in the process Given Up or something did.

What would be really cool is a QWERTY release with a new video by Mark with studio footage from the MTM era. Imagine if they have even just a few clips of the band recording that one. And the band rehearsing it, there is definitely footage from Tokyo Zepp 2006 of that as Mark is backstage filming also pre-show there. The long version of LPTV has that clip. Mark has a tremendous talent with the video editing - I'd love to see what he could do with QWERTY. Take the opportunity and put the live version out with it and put the Summer Sonic video on YouTube with that. Why not? By the way - the band has that full Tokyo 2006 show as evidenced by the QWERTY, OSC, PMA, etc footage in that LPTV... we need that show so badly. Could be one of the best releases they've ever done if they put it out one day.

Up to 7 vinyls now. That's not a good look when the band their entire career has been so meticulous about every single merch item and thing they put out. OML had what, 3? A normal and 2 others? Looks very cash grabby to do something like that when you have the press and fans running wild about "unreleased song featuring Chester Bennington vocals" combined with the fact the band and label are both VERY aware the LP fans collect every single item with the band's name on it. The attention to detail here the band usually has on physical releases, including HT20 and M20, is just not there for this. You need some degree of sensitivity when something with Chester comes out, for a billion reasons. There are good aspects of this, of course - the Friendly Fire music video is fantastic. But who was really pushing/itching to do a release here? It sure doesn't look like the band, especially coming after Mike's comments about greatest hits collections. There are some personal notes from the band in this - you have to do SOME sort of press or statement when your name is on a release. But for something that comes out with their band's name on it, the attention to detail/care for this doesn't look even remotely comparable to anything the band has ever released previously. Even RECHARGED was significantly better.

It would be really wild if they had some more MTM studio footage of recording QWERTY and the like (hanging out at Lauren Canyon) and used that.

That's a lot of vinyl variants.

Friendly Fire is just included so hardcore fans buy this and they can also market it with an "unheard Chester Bennington song." It makes much more sense to include Given Up in that spot, or literally any of those earlier mentioned songs. GATS.

It doesn't matter if people like THP much or not. There are songs on it that are solid, but there are songs on it with a lot of streams. 126 million for Final Masquerade isn't exactly a small number. It may be compared to other LP songs but that's a legit amount of streams. What does matter is choosing to exclude one of the main studio albums on a "Singles Collection" (they intentionally are not calling it a Greatest Hits). There are only seven main studio albums. There is plenty of room to include 1 THP song (a single) somewhere, somehow, especially when there is time left over on the CD for more music. Again, this is coming not even from a place of thinking THP is epic - it's coming from "excluding an entire album on a Singles Collection is a very weird move."

The point is that this is 68 (?) minutes with FF and QWERTY, right? And CDs are 79~ minutes. So, there is room to toss GATS and Catalyst, or Final Masq and Given Up, or whatever combo of songs you want on there. At the end of the day, if it has the band's name on it, they are responsible for what comes out with their name on it. The label obviously didn't put this entire thing together themselves with no input from the band because if that were the case, they wouldn't have put QWERTY on it.

It's hard to put WAYW on anything when Mike says the song is incomplete - it's like saying QWERTY should go on MTM; they never finished QWERTY and the studio version is pretty much a demo. Friendly Fire is not very good and may not be better than anything that made the album. Promises I Can't Keep would be a good Living Things song and is better than some of the stuff on that album, as it's the same "style" as those tracks. Make It Up As I Go would spice up OML for sure.

Hmm. Zero THP while putting 2 OML songs on, when there is room left in the tracklisting is a pretty odd move, especially if you are including QWERTY. Mike's comments before were that he wasn't interested in Greatest Hits, so it will be interesting to hear what the band says in the press about this release. They should have at least included one THP song. Could definitely understand zero THP and zero OML, but 2 OML and zero THP is odd. What is the strangest omission for this? Catalyst was #1 globally in many charts, Shadow is huge, Given Up is pretty high on streams, Iridescent is big.

It seems weird the band themselves would omit an album entirely. They are picking LOATR, OML, Friendly Fire, and QWERTY over Catalyst, something from THP, Given Up which almost everyone knows belongs to LP, etc. The choices are a little odd. Of course they need a song to push sales so they chose Friendly Fire, but they probably should have done more songs for this or at least put one THP song in.

Doesn't track 14 have to be on this list somewhere? https://linkinpedia.com/?title=List_Of_Unreleased_Songs Looking for an Answer, Out of Reach, or something never heard of, right? What else even is there?

Could they accomplish that with a recent studio recording of Looking for an Answer?

It's not a hit. Isn't the point of a Greatest Hits to release hits? No Given Up and Shadow of the Day is surprising. Or anything from THP. Friendly Fire isn't a hit and isn't good enough to make OML, but they need a song to push the sales of this (hence why every band does this on Greatest Hits releases) so here we are.

Wonder if the track 14 is something from A Thousand Suns, Living Things, or Hunting Party.

This is VERY unlikely. The MS & Friends title is just a wish list of a promoter of Blue Ridge Rock Fest, and that festival likely isn't even ever happening again. That guy is a big LP fan is all. He made that "name" up as far as we know.

Pretty odd no Shadow of the Day, if they are indeed done teasing the songs.

Again I ask - did Jeff specifically confirm the exact And One live version has a studio recording? Or did he simply say they recorded And One during the Hybrid Theory sessions? Are we just assuming the live version was recorded? But Fighting Myself wasn't finished, even Mike said they abandoned it. But yes, they are for sure counting it in the 15 when they talk about 15 songs - Lost, Fighting Myself, and More the Victim. Healing Foot as far as we know had no final drums by Rob (unless they just didn't release it on Meteora 20) - why is it not even on the song board at NRG?

What if it's over 19 songs and 14 is something else?

This would be a great LPU CD release one day, since it's a Mike demo without the full band at this point but there is a studio version that exists. Would love to hear it. Just title it "Looking for an Answer (Demo)" and put it out.

It's pretty publicly known Ryan and Amir have been trying for many years to get this stuff released and have hit road blocks every step of the way, even with this release. When the demos leaked Ryan said he was trying to push a demos/vault release through and was getting some opposition about it. If there was no label involvement they'd probably release every single thing they had. They are good acoustically. When/where did Chester say that? We can add it to the wiki. We need some good DBS interviews/quotes to add to the DBS pages. They've tried. This is a label hold-up at this point. They couldn't even put the DBS set on the Julien-K box set from the 2011 show. The Stars of the Season show. They sound absolutely amazing on the two Julien-K songs in that set, what a great idea it was to play Palm Springs Reset, I'll Try Not to Destroy You and The Messenger in that. We need that full show badly.

This is great, wow. The band sounds fantastic at this show and I listen to that Morning After quite a bit. Happy for Ryan and Amir because they have been trying hard since 2017 to get more Dead By Sunrise out there and they've encountered roadblock after roadblock with it. The label just doesn't want to do it is what it sounds like. Talinda getting this over the hump for them is great, and I am positive no one is happier about this release than Ryan and Amir. Finally some DBS progress is being made.