Justin

That's what I'm saying. The date wouldn't have been 3/20 specifically because this isn't a memorial release for Chester. It's the 20 year anniversary of LP's debut (and most successful) album. It'll be dedicated to him probably, but there was no way the 20th anniversary of HT would have ever just passed by without a release of some kind, regardless of the circumstances. My question now is: Do we think the rest of their albums will have a 20th anniversary release of some kind as they start coming around in the future? Or is this only a thing because it's Hybrid Theory?

For She Couldn't, they might just pay to get it cleared to keep the song in tact. It would sound weird without the "Won't be long 'til everybody knows" part, and She Couldn't is so well known by now among hardcore fans that they may pay to get it cleared, knowing they'll more than make up for that with sales lol

No, I don’t think the release date was ever going to be 3/20, even though obviously I know what you were getting at. I think the release was always planned to be in late 2020, because HT was released in October of 2000. Maybe I’ll be in the minority on this, but moving it up to March to match Chester’s birthday is one of those things that would have felt weird to me. Would have been a nice sentiment I guess, but it also would have been blatantly using Chester’s birthday as a marketing tactic to sell more albums, and they don’t need to do that. HT will sell on its own merits, without LP being like “Celebrate Chester’s birthday with us by buying this package!” Lol

Just as a side note, 2005 wasn’t a good year for Eminem either. He released Curtain Call that year, and named it that because he didn’t know if he was going to ever do another album, and he didn’t release another album for almost 5 years... A lot of personal issues going on for him too. So if 2005 was when LP/Mike might have reached out, the timing was bad for everyone for sure.

Isn't Ostrich the guy who was charging one price, but then abruptly raised it by like a few hundred percent when he realized there was real interest in the footage?

A proper documentary that covers, in-depth, from the origins of the band all the way to HT being released and being the massive success that it was would be amazing.

With something as big as HT, I doubt WB would intentionally limit themselves to 1,000 sales. Once this release is properly announced, I expect a promo campaign the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. HT is a diamond certified album. This release will be bought by hardcore fans, casual fans, and even lapsed fans who checked out after Meteora. This is going to be huge.

There's something about the way that song comes together in the second and final choruses that I really love. I think it's Mike second best LP vocal performance after No Roads Left. For the record, I could have advanced BITS instead but the result would have been the same. Iridescent would have won with this bracket.

That would be amazing. It would be awesome if they did a hardcover book with some unreleased photos/artwork and details about the writing and production of each track. The Beatles did that a few years ago for 3 of their albums as the 50th anniversary of each one came around. If they had unreleased photos and details for albums from 50 years ago, I'm sure LP does for Hybrid Theory lol.

I did mine in paint too and it looks really similar LOL! Writing Iridescent all those times was irritating. My bracket

It's all subjective lol. In my bracket, Sorry For Now went on a streak and beat Shadow of the Day, The Messenger, Burning in the Skies, and With You. Iridescent took the win in the final round, though.

I understand that the law is the law, but morally it feels fucked up that artists get can copyright strikes against them for using their own songs in a video because they don’t have the rights to them anymore. So they would need to ask permission from a corporation if it would be alright for them to use their own song in their own video... so the decision lies not with the songwriter who may have a strong personal and/or emotional attachment to the material, but with a group of people who sees the material not as art, but as numbers. As in dollars and cents. Again I know it’s a business thing, and they signed a contract, but it still just doesn’t feel right.

1. Live in Texas. DVD should have been a full show (not 2 shows edited together), and ideally they would have held off on a DVD until it was a show they headlined. Also I've always been irritated by Live in Texas having multiple songs removed from it, RTR having 3 songs locked as bonus content, and CC's full DVD performance not including the first songs of the set. They seem to have this weird habit of not just presenting a full, uncut show. 2. Not making an original song with Jay-Z. We know that the issue wouldn't have been that there was no interest from Jay. He produced TRT and performed a few times with LP in the years following CC. An original song with Jay-Z would have been way bigger than a Busta Rhymes collaboration. 3. Going through that period of time where they shortened a bunch of songs to fit everything in. It detracted from the overall quality of those shows. It just wasn't needed. 4. Not playing one show for the entire year of 2016, for multiple reasons and not all of them related to music. 5. The choice to bring in outside songwriters for OML. I understand wanting to experiment with their songwriting, but overall I would have to say the experiment that was OML, while not a bad album, was a miss. It was short and it wasn't particularly strong lyrically or musically. There's also the issue of certain songs, like Heavy, being obvious attempts by LP to keep up with the times and make poppier music. It felt forced, and the Kiiara feature felt like it happened because she's a current pop artist who revealed herself to be an LP fan. The strongest songs on OML are the ones either written by the least amount of writers (SFN) or the ones that were the most inspired and personal (the title track).

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Fort Minor was indeed going to come back before Chester died. I.O.U. and Lift Off were recorded for a Fort Minor project originally, and there probably would have been a Fort Minor album/tour sometime after the OML tour ended. The format itself probably would have been very similar to what we got on the PT tour. Of course after 7/20 everything changed. Mike recorded/released PT and toured under his real name instead of Fort Minor because the subject matter was a lot more personal.

Just for the record, when I said it "doesn't sound like LP stuff", I meant that when I read Mike's quote it didn't seem to me that he was referring to music he had made with LP in mind. I wasn't commenting on the literal sound of the music he may have made in 2019 lol. The quote came off to me like he was making music alone in 2019, however it sounded, and realized that he had no vision for what he wanted to do with it. PT was a solo album made as a way for Mike to process the roller coaster of emotions he went through after Chester passed. The question Mike had to answer after that album cycle ended was whether he wanted to make more solo music, or begin working with the members of LP as they became ready to work on music again. His decision to take a step back in 2019 (after what sounds like almost a musical existential crisis), combined with Phoenix confirming that the band was writing together before the coronavirus pandemic, seems to indicate that Mike came to a decision to put his focus back into a new chapter for Linkin Park. I agree about LP's sound always being mainly Mike's. We saw the demo he made a while back in "HT style", and the "melodic metal" one he made today. We literally have seen LPTV episodes where Mike plays Rob drum parts that he programmed in order for Rob to learn them and record them. Even as far back as 2000, we know Mike chopped up and rearranged the guitar parts for POA to the point that Brad had to learn the song from Mike playing it back to him. So there's definitely no question that LP has always been driven primarily by Mike's vision, despite every member having a voice in the creative process. I also agree for sure about the LP name. I don't think there will ever be another vocalist officially added into Linkin Park, and I wouldn't feel good about that even if it was the most amazing singer they could possibly find. It's not my decision obviously, but I just don't think it would be right. I can definitely see songs being credited to Linkin Park with another vocalist's name being separated though.

That doesn't sound like LP stuff. Sounds like after PT he kept making solo music and eventually had a lot of songs, but never felt he had a cohesive album. So he would have had to just throw a bunch of songs together and call it an album, which I don't think is something he would want to do. With PT he had a bunch of songs that fit a theme and flowed naturally with the way he sequenced the songs.

I mean I've heard them out and I can see the logic they're using in order to blame Mike for everything, I just don't agree with it. Like the 2007 stuff, where they said Mike was "too busy on a world tour" to help with their label dispute. That was said in like a sarcastic, snarky way, but really what was he supposed to do? Fly home and put LP on hold in the middle of the MTM cycle until SOB's situation was resolved? Mike got their foot in the door, the rest was always going to be up to them as unfortunate as it was. LP and WB haven't exactly always been on the same page themselves. The Welcome situation, I do think Mike should have told Ryu his verse wasn't going on the album version. If it really went down that way, with Ryu recording a verse and being there for the video shoot, I can see him being upset about that all getting cut without his knowledge. As far as being mad about not going out on tour in 2015, though, and saying things like "Wow, I guess Fort Minor is just one guy now".... Yeah. Fort Minor has always been one guy. That's why all the songs SOB were on are credited as features. The platinum plaque situation for RTN is just ridiculously petty. As if Mike could make it all happen with one phone call, but he has so many platinum plaques he can't be bothered to do it. Like it would be the most prized possession for Ryu, but for Mike it's just another day, and he has so little empathy for any of his collaborators on that song that he doesn't care at all. Lmao. Give me a break.

Every time I plug my phone in, it's About You! So yeah the intro of that song got really old really fast.

It seems like since the beginning the association of Mike with SOB has resulted in nothing but miscommunications, misinterpretations, and straight up bad luck. It’s a pretty classic example of business messing up a personal friendship. Side note: Didn’t Tak also go off on you and curse you out and stuff? I don’t remember the context or when it happened, but I remember something like that happening some point.

I really wish you would stop trashing LP as a way to prove your point. It's extremely hypocritical to get defensive when someone criticizes GD if you're going to turn around and say something like that.

I hate that he keeps intentionally missing the point. Nobody is saying that Chester wasn't excited about Grey Daze. I'm also getting tired of people acting like he isn't obviously implying negative things by saying "no one knew his thoughts on LP" or "if you knew half the shit that Warner Brothers did to Chester and GD". If Sean has something to say, then he needs to say it. He needs to be direct and stop beating around the bush, or HE needs to be the one to shut the fuck up.

I mean between the stems that leaked and the rips from Mike's old equipment, we got the equivalent of a whole lot of unauthorized sample packs lol. I'm with you, though. I would pay for an officially released one.

“Is there sunshine where you are? The way there was when you were here?” These two lines made me more emotional than anything from Post Traumatic. That line caught me super off guard, and Mike sounded so vulnerable.

Part of me agrees with this. The clips we saw had the song getting more and more elaborate, and at some point they all probably realized that the raw emotion of the performance would get lost in a studio recording. I would have liked it to be recorded and released as a full band song, but I can't help but agree with Mike's conclusion that LFAA was meant to stay in that moment at the Hollywood Bowl.

Now THAT would be something amazing to include with a HT 20th anniversary release. Chester's audition tape, which led to him being in the band which led to HT even happening.