gorast

The Linkinpedia dates reference the dates listed on whatever CD the demos come from, so it's possible (likely, even) that the demo was made in 1999, and was the "canonical" one that they put on all their internal demo CDs. I don't think we really have perspective on how many versions of a given song were recorded, so there could be earlier versions that just didn't make it onto any of the internal CDs we got our hands on. I suppose there's no way to say with any certainty in either direction. About Rhinestone, though, I'm pretty confident it's going to be a Mark version, given that it's labeled as a Xero demo, and the other three are all Mark demos. It would be a weird break from what that label implies if it's a Chester demo.

The thought process there is that there is almost certainly only one version of any professionally-recorded song with Mark, and a version of Rhinestone that matches this criteria was found on the Zomba New Music Sampler 1999 in January of this year. The track times are almost the same (3:44 on the sampler vs. 3:40 on HT20), so it should be the same version. I think the LPU12 version is the earliest known version with Chester, and it's the only Chester demo of the song we have besides the Studio Finals version.

My philosophy with things like doubles is that if it doesn't have much value to you (monetary or sentimental), then flip the original you had and keep what came in the box set. That way you keep the complete set but don't have to deal with, for instance, two Reanimation records, or two Hybrid Theory records (HT is dependent on the pressing though, given that some of them are pretty valuable). I've already thrown my copy of Reanimation on Discogs. Nothing else in the box is a double for me, though, so it's easier to unload what I've got than it may be for some other people on here.

Linkinpedia's most likely waiting for the official release to acknowledge the leak at all so as not to piss off Warner. Notice that there hasn't been a separate thread about the leak, either. HT20 is a huge deal and it's very important to tread carefully so that the site's position isn't jeopardized. I'm sure once the box has been out for a bit we'll see more acknowledgment of the leak.

I think they've said about that that they didn't get to the point of Chester adding vocals, but I'm not certain about that. There very well might not be anything to unearth.

I'm kind of astounded that Warner's never pulled the trigger on a Greatest Hits collection. 2005 might have been too early given there were only two albums plus Reanimation, but 2011 might have been a good time for it (decade after Hybrid Theory plus another year since ATS was in 2010). I think that really speaks to the level of respect the label has for LP and the good relationship they share now. An LP Greatest Hits is basically a license to print money and it's pretty impressive that they haven't done it.

Noticed this a couple days ago: the link to A Thousand Suns+ on the front page is incorrect, as it has (Live from Madrid) at the end of the link when the actual page is just A Thousand Suns+. I thought this page didn't exist for a long time because of this. It seems to be linked correctly elsewhere.

MTM could be another one where the vault opens and a mountain of shit we don't have the slightest clue about falls out. Cartoonish amount of stuff could be on an MTM box set. I also wonder if future hypothetical box sets would bundle in the live albums, like how HT20 includes Reanimation. You could throw in Live in Texas, maybe re-sequence the CD to include the LPU 3 tracks, and do the same for MTM and Road to Revolution. I wonder if the Meteora box would stretch as far as including Collision Course stuff - that might be too far removed from the era proper, though.

Finally got through this run-down, it was a great watch/listen. You gotta do an unboxing video for sure. Maybe even like, a live reaction type thing where it's literally the first time you open it. That could be pretty cool.

Meteora vocal demos are my personal holy grail. Despite all the instrumentals we've gotten from that era, it still feels like an absolute black hole. I know that a lot of that is probably down to the deadlines they were running up against, and how long it took to finish just the songs that made the album, but there's gotta be something, right? If the HT20 box does well, and the band wants to do another one for Meteora, I think we could see some wild stuff for that one. I think a big anniversary could be likely, given that the album went platinum in two weeks and it was a gigantic era. Maybe those mythical Meteora remixes...?

The split vinyl stuff is absolutely a Warner tactic. I'm not going to bother with the vinyl box just for OSC Rock Mix on vinyl, lol. The Super Deluxe box is the one for me.

No way to know until we see another one drop. I don't really think anything else will come out before release, though.

Coal is track 12 on LPU Rarities. If I remember right, the Pods were a Mike college project and not actually LP tracks, so I'm not surprised they're not there. No Part of Me is pretty disappointing considering the post-HTEP demo is different from the album version and absolutely fucking rips.

I think there could be, at most, a few seconds of the static before the hidden track starts. 29 minutes on one side without speeding up the tracks themselves would sound awful, I think. That, or they cut the hidden track entirely, which feels like the worst option, lol. Actually, has it been confirmed that HTEP is one-sided? I know I saw that somewhere, that the other side is etched, but it's not on the anniversary website. If it's 2 sides then there's no problem.

Huge waste of wax. I've never ever understood why they did that, either with the original release or the reissue. Either way, any reissues would go with the original format, so 2LP was never in the cards for this one.

Hybrid Theory's only 39 minutes, there's no reason to spread it across two records unless you speed up the RPM to 45.

They're on the B-Sides Rarities disc, about halfway down the tracklist. That album is basically a collection of all the side tracks from the HT singles.

Rock am Ring 2001, The Fillmore 2001, and a Projekt Revolution 2002 show (no date specified), all full shows. Frat Party documentary, and a "sequel" documentary to it.

No BS, one of the versions of Esaul would be a great hype track for pre-orders. Same energy as the final song since the instrumental is mostly the same, but you get new "content" since Mike's verses are different in every version of the song. Regardless of whether or not it's a version we already have (be it from LPU or the 9-track demo), for marketing purposes it seems like a good pick. That or an In the End demo, lol.

https://investingforfreedom.co/andrew-lanoie-the-new-american-dream/ , around the 37:00 mark.

I think the wiki tends to be a little too definitive at times, but I also don't know what behind-the-curtain sources LPL has/uses for that info, and I'm not particularly into asking on that front. It's a conclusion that's being drawn based on circumstantial evidence - why would this guy upload a song we've never heard, when he's some finance bigwig with no ties to this community whatsoever, and just quietly leave it up, weirdly tagged, if he wasn't part of the recording process? If he had an agenda, he'd probably upload a track from the demo tape to make his claim. But he came out with real receipts and stated that he was involved for a couple weeks. If he did one or two tracks, it's not like it couldn't be Pictureboard. It's mythic in the community just because it was one of the earliest mentions of an unreleased demo, and turned basically into a meme because the band was so secretive about it, probably because they didn't really care to talk about what they thought was a shitty demo. Basically, I agree with the idea that this isn't a definitive lock to be true, but the evidence around it supports the idea that this guy came in, threw down a bass track on Pictureboard, got a copy of it, and let it sit on a hard drive for a couple decades before throwing it on his Soundcloud with some other random shit he recorded with other bands, oblivious to the thought that it would cause our fandom to explode if it got found out. Makes me wonder if he got a call from Warner today, lol. I wonder if he'd even pick up the phone. No idea how guys like that operate.

They cite a podcast episode the guy did last week, where he said he recorded a little bit and played with LP for a bit, in 1998 it seems like. The podcast itself is about as dry as can be, but he starts talking about it around 37:00. Just straight up says it was Linkin Park. This feels like another ridiculous bombshell. Big bands like this tend to rewrite their origins a little bit, and the early roster shuffles get lost to time as they get bigger and bigger, but I can absolutely buy that this guy floated in and out of the band for couple weeks in 1998 or whenever. Even bands like Rush and Green Day have had randos cycle in and out when they were just getting started. What a wild day.

If pre-order links are what's going live tomorrow (that's not guaranteed based on the ambiguity of the update today), they might use a demo as an immediate pre-order incentive. Like a lead single, except it's a demo instead of new shit. I'd imagine it would be a track we already have, maybe one of the LPU tracks, or maybe an alt of Esaul or something that's never been released through official channels. They'll almost certainly hold all the real new shit for either the release itself or closer to the release.

I know this has been covered in this thread already, but it makes me wonder how much they'd be willing to open the doors on Mark's stuff, what the determining factor would be. Would it be weird for them, given Chester's situation? Do they think, even with the upgraded quality, it would all just sound too amateur given that Mark is...not a professional singer? All of it would be of great interest to the kind of person who's going to buy the big boy special edition (whatever form that takes), so I don't think it'd really be about what the fans are interested in. I'm personally most interested in re-recorded Xero songs with Chester, but if there's Mark content on there - ESPECIALLY stuff we've never heard before, notwithstanding recent discoveries - I'd still be mega hype. And I'm going to buy the big boy special edition no matter what.

It would be interesting if, aside from these demos we've seen thus far, the original Xero tape itself was included. I wouldn't expect a miracle in terms of audio quality, but it surely would be a huge upgrade over anything we've had before, right? I guess it depends on what the band's source is, if the master tape is available/what the level of quality it was, given that it was an amateur release. I figured the pre-order announcement was coming this Friday - maybe it'll be moved up because of the leak from yesterday. It seems like a lot of work was put into the website, though, and I'd imagine they wouldn't want to just throw that out the window, so they'll stick with the original timeline.