Meteora

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Template:Infobox album Meteora is American rock band Linkin Park's second studio album, released on March 25, 2003 through Warner Bros. Records. Five official singles were released from Meteora, including "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb", "From The Inside", and "Breaking The Habit". "Lying From You" was released as a promotional single in 2004. The official DVD for the album is titled The Making Of Meteora.

Background

Meteora is the band's second album. Many view it as a "sequel" to Hybrid Theory, in that the same nu-metal sound is carried on from the previous album. Between the end of the Hybrid Theory touring cycle and the release of Meteora, the band took time to prepare and release their first remix album, Reanimation.

There was admittedly some pressure to follow up to the band's incredible product with Hybrid Theory. Chester said, "Well there's pressure, how could there not be? Because 'Hybrid Theory' was our first album some people were very skeptical about whether could do it again and that's okay. But we were very confident that we would not release an album unless it was as good as 'Hybrid Theory'. We've had a lot more time to mess around with melodies and arrangements, and I'm confident that we've made a very different record, but a lot better record then 'Hybrid Theory'."[1]

Brad said, "We really learned the meaning of pressure. But it wasn't pressure from outside people. It was artistic pressure from ourselves. You can't control the commercial success of a record, so there's no point in investing energy in that. But the quality of your record is entirely up to you, and you can't blame anyone else if you write crappy songs. Before we did Meteora, I listened to Hybrid Theory and Reanimation, and I was like, 'Dude, I'm really proud of these records. I don't remember how we did it, and I don't know how we're gonna do it again. We're kind of screwed.' Then, fortunately, we were able to invest ourselves fully in the process for 18 months, and that helped us make a really great record."[2]

The name Meteora was derived from a rock formation in Greece, which has a monastery perched on top of it. Mike explained: "'Meteora' was a word that caught my attention because it sounded huge... In the same way Linkin Park doesn't mean the park, but the band, Meteora doesn't mean the rock formation, it means what this album sounds like." Chester continued his statement, "It's got this otherworldly vibe about it, it had this really great energy, and I wanted to have a record that lived up to that energy."

Mike Shinoda, Joe Hahn, Boris Tellegen, Frank Maddocks and James Minchin III working on the ‪Meteora‬ wall.[3]

About how the artwork on the album came together, Mike said, "Just to be clear about what I kind of do as far as the artwork goes, usually on the albums, I work with another designer because it's a lot of work putting together an album artwork. I know our album had a really lengthy booklet with it. We'll usually just kinda throw some ideas together and get things started. For Meteora, we had a whole art day where Joe and I and Frank, who was our art director, then we invited out a graffiti artist named Delta, he's actually from Europe. It was a pretty big deal to get him out and get him to work with us. We had a lot of fun and we did a whole day where we just spraypainted and painted these gigantic walls. Things like that are really out of the ordinary and they're really special when we can make them happen. We're hoping to do some more things like that in the future."[4] Boris Tellegen (aka Delta) is also the person on cover of the album.[5]

Frank Maddocks explained how the wall with portraits of the band members came together: "Here’s a photo of one of the large walls we all painted for the album packaging. Original portraits by James Minchin Xeroxed and wheat pasted to wall. Then photographed again."[6] The picture was also used as the cover for the "From The Inside" single.

Writing and Recording

Meteora was recorded from April 2002 to December 2002 at NRG Studios in North Hollywood, California. The writing process for the album began in the Summer of 2001 during the Ozzfest Tour, where the band worked in the back of their tour bus. The band mainly recorded samples and guitar from their bus. One of the songs worked on in the bus was "Somewhere I Belong". The intro was Chester performing a chord progression on an acoustic guitar. Mike thought it sounded too "folky", so he and Joe reversed the sample, effected it, and cut it into parts to maintain the chord progression. In the band's first LPTV Episode from Meteora, titled "The Writing Process"[7], Mike and Dave said that a lot of bad songs were written in the back of their tour bus in 2001, but that they walked away with a lot of good samples and guitar parts to create songs. They described the beginning of the process as "getting a lot of junk out of our system" before they were able to really focus and write good material.

Rob Bourdon said, "When we write songs, we aren't really a jam band. We won't sit there and jam on our instruments and say, "Hey that sounded cool, play it again, and we'll try and write stuff together." I think we'd kill each other if we tried to do that." He added, "Someone will come up with a guitar riff, then it can get passed on to the next person where they can take it and put on their computer and write something to it." Rob had a rehearsal space set up in a storage room, which he kept through at least the "Minutes To Midnight" era as it is shown on that album's DVD as well. When showing off the space for LPTV, he said, "Back here, I've got a ProTools rig. I'm able to record all of my drum parts to my hard disc on my computer. That's something that's really different for this album. When I did all of the drums for Hybrid Theory, I had a four-track in a room that I taped to the ceiling. This time I was able to use the computer to come up with drum parts." Don said that Rob put in an unbelievable amount of preparation for Meteora and was a much better drummer than he was on Hybrid Theory.

This was also Dave's first true Linkin Park writing session for a main studio album. He said, "As I was going in the studio, I would basic things down and I would have a basic skeleton of what I wanted to do. Working with a producer who was really there and who was involved, Don Gilmore was a good person to be able to help me try out some new ideas and to fit those in to what was going on musically." Don and Dave both joked that since Don was a former bass layer, there was a lot of knowledge in the studio at the time of the bass tracks being recorded.

Joe said that when working with Linkin Park on the two albums, it was the first time Don had worked with a DJ in a band. He would tell Joe if certain things were too distracting musically or if they fit the song well. Joe explained that for the most part, he and Mike worked together on beats, samples, and other sounds for the songs.

Linkin Park working on ‪Meteora‬ at NRG Recording Studios with Don Gilmore.[8]

Pre-production began in early 2002, after Projekt Revolution 2002. During this period, the band tried to get each song they wanted to work on as polished as possible before heading to the studio. They worked from Mike's home studio, starting work on songs including "From The Inside" and "Figure.09". Right after putting the finishing touches on Reanimation, the band headed to the studio with producer Don Gilmore. Before the band was in the studio, they had demos recorded for most of the songs, so they had general work frames set out for the new songs.

Rob said, "Right before I went into the studio, I was spending probably eight to ten hours a day practicing, almost seven days a week. I had dreams about drums, I had dreams about drum fills that I practiced the day before that I couldn't quite get right and it was just constant drum-craziness."

The band tracked each part separately, in a specific order: first, Rob recorded drums, then, Brad recorded guitar, then Phoenix recorded bass, then Joe did his scratches, then vocals recorded by Mike and Chester. By October 2002, all the drum parts had been recorded and guitar tracking began. Brad took risks with his guitar tones, rather than focussing on a specific tone like he did in Hybrid Theory. By the end of October, bass recording had begun. One month before the deadline, in November 2002, scratching, additional instrument, and vocal tracking began. During this point, the strings for "Breaking The Habit" were recorded. Mike, talking about the song, said, "This is a song I've been wanting to write for five or six years." After hearing Mike perform the strings on the keyboard, Don Gilmore suggested a live orchestra, which ultimately made the final cut. Chester returned to the studio at the end of the month.

During this process, "The Making Of Meteora" DVD and LPTV both show that the band went through a lot of hard feedback from Don Gilmore about the songs. Don said, "For me as a producer working with artists like Linkin Park that really want their music to be as good as it can possibly be, we'll rip a song to shreds and build it back up and then rip it back down if that's what it takes."

In December 2002, then band began mixing in New York City, and tragedy struck: Chester became sick and could not sing while vocals still needed to be recorded. This resulted in Chester having to finish recording vocals in New York City while the band was mixing the album, so that they could meet their deadlines. Had they not recorded then, the album would have been delayed several months, or songs would have been scrapped. Mixing was done by Andy Wallace.

The band had an art day in Los Angeles, where the album art was created. The band brought out street artist Boris "Delta" Tellegen to create many spraypaint pieces. Mike described his work as "interesting, cubist satellites". The art was a depiction of where the album was at on that particular day. Each member kept painting over other works, and it at all became a cohesive work of art riddled with sketches and random words everywhere. The album cover is a picture taken by photographer James Minchin of Delta working with spraypaint. The band had a photoshoot on October 29, 2002 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, CA, where a majority of the band pictures for the album were taken. Phoenix claimed, "The photoshoot... was really eerie. There's just this tension because this place is just... nasty." He continued, "Gradually as we were there, you hear more and more stories that 'such-and-such was assassinated and they pulled the body into this kitchen you're taking pictures in."

While recording the album, Linkin Park whittled down 80 songs to 13. "It's funny because with 'Meteora,' we probably wrote 80 different songs in the process of doing that record. We wrote maybe 40 and trashed all of it with the exception of a couple small ideas that we still liked and we moved on from there," Phoenix said.[9] Rob said, "We had so many songs. We actually went into the studio with 18 songs that we recorded drums on."[10] According to a studio report from Mike, in total, the band worked on 15 full songs for the album, with 12 of them making the final cut.[11] Other recorded tracks include "A.06" (and the longer version entitled "A-Six"), Pepper, Cumulus, Ominous, Halo, Unfortunate, and Rhinocerous.

Composition

The album was largely a continuation of the nu-metal style found in the previous album, Hybrid Theory, but did present several new, more experimental elements. "Breaking The Habit" and "Faint" both feature prominent string sections, and "Nobody's Listening" is largely driven by a shakuhachi, a Japanese flute made of bamboo. The continuation of samples and a variety of sounds in the music is continued on Meteora. Mike said, "What we really wanted to do was just push ourselves and push each other to really find new ways to be creative," Shinoda said. "We wanted each sample that was in each song to be something that might perk your ear — something that you might not have ever heard before."[12]

As the first song on the album, "Don't Stay" features a hip-hop driven beat with bludgeoning guitars to give it its rock sound.

When talking about the album, Mike said "We wanted to experiment and step outside of the box; so we brought in and used some live strings, piano. We used a traditional Japanese flute, which is called shakuhachi. We played with time signatures. There's a song in 6/8 – we've never done a song in 6/8 before, different tempos. Obviously, songs like "Breaking the Habit" and "Faint" are faster than any songs we've ever written and "Easier to Run" is much slower."[13]

Chester told the LPU, "I think the idea of blending songs came from Reanimation we really loved the way the album flowed together by blending interludes. We really want to make albums that flow from beginning to end so we wanted to introduce that to our records."[14]

Chester said, "On the first album, once we eventually found the formula, the songs came one right after the other. This time, I think we found a way to do some things we've always wanted to do: a pure hip-hop track, a pure electronically driven track with no guitars...things I don't think we could have pulled off for Hybrid Theory."[15]

Releases

Linkin Park announced the name of the album via a television commercial. LPA reports on November 30, 2002, "Be on the lookout on MTV for the commercial for Linkin Park's as of yet untiled album. The commercial features a girl standing in front of a white board with a spray paint can in her hand, sporting a gas mask and a LP beanie. It has some music playing that could very possibly be from the new album. Although the clip only played for a few seconds the music was noticeably heavier. At the end of the commercial the words "LP 2003" were displayed and on the screen appeared all of Linkin Park's current albums and DVD's. This is definitely worth looking out for."[16] The commercial was aired at the end of November and was then posted on Linkin Park's website December 3, 2002, announcing the title as "Meteora" for a March 2003 release date.

Several press reports surfaced in early 2003 about the extreme lengths the record label was taking to prevent the album from leaking. One such report claimed that Hybrid Theory was downloaded illegally over 4.5 million times. As such, music journalists reviewing the album before its release were subject to intense searches and patdowns to prevent a pirated copy leaking out.

Physical

When released, the album came in two main formats worldwide - the CD with the digipack (enhanced CD content), and the CD/DVD with The Making Of Meteora.

The enhanced CD content with Meteora included "The Art Of Meteora" documentary, a website toolkit, the "Somewhere I Belong" music video, and a Linkin Park themed-screensaver and four buddy icons. This special edition CD was announced on February 9, 2003 by Warner Bros.

Meteora was issued on aqua blue vinyl for the Black Friday version of Record Store Day on November 27, 2020. It was limited to 3000 copies.[17]

Digital

  • Meteora // {cat. 093624928928}
  • Meteora (Bonus Tracks Version) // {+ LFY live, FTI live, ETR live, cat. 093624320821}
  • Meteora (Bonus Tracks Version) // {+ LFY live, FTI live, ETR live, 1 Music Video, cat. 0093624449362}
  • Meteora Collection (Digital Video Compilation) // {6 Music Videos, cat. 075993870060}
  • Meteora (Live Around The World) // {cat. 093624949725}
  • Meteora (Songbook)

Track Listing

Standard Edition

No. Title Writer(s) Length
1 Foreword Linkin Park 0:13
2 Don't Stay 3:08
3 Somewhere I Belong 3:34
4 Lying From You 2:55
5 Hit The Floor 2:44
6 Easier To Run 3:24
7 Faint 2:42
8 Figure.09 3:17
9 Breaking The Habit 3:16
10 From The Inside 2:55
11 Nobody's Listening 2:59
12 Session 2:24
13 Numb 3:07

Digital

No. Title Writer(s) Length
14 Lying From You (Live From LP Underground Tour, 2003) Linkin Park 3:06
15 From The Inside (Live From LP Underground Tour, 2003) 2:55
16 Easier To Run (Live From LP Underground Tour, 2003) 3:22

Tour Edition Cassette

No. Title Writer(s) Length
14 Lying From You (Live) Linkin Park 3:06
15 One Step Closer (Reanimated Live) Bennington Chester Charles, Bourdon Robert G, Delson Brad, Hahn Joseph, Shinoda Mike 3:43
16 Easier To Run (Live) Linkin Park 3:22

Tour Edition Bonus VCD

No. Title Writer(s) Length
1 Somewhere I Belong Linkin Park
2 Faint
3 Numb
4 Breaking The Habit

2013 iTunes Deluxe Edition

No. Title Writer(s) Length
14 Step Up (Live) Shinoda, Hahn, Delson 4:14
15 Somewhere I Belong (Live at Milton Keynes) Linkin Park 3:41

Meteora - Live Around The World

No. Title Writer(s) Length
1 Don't Stay (Live in Shanghai, 2007) Linkin Park 3:16
2 Somewhere I Belong (Live in Köln, 2008) 4:09
3 Lying From You (Live in New York, 2008) 2:57
4 Faint (Live in Hamburg, 2011) 3:41
5 Breaking The Habit (Live in Hamburg, 2011) 4:15
6 From The Inside (Live in Sydney, 2010) 3:28
7 Numb (Live in New York, 2008) 3:41

Personnel

Production

  • Produced by Linkin Park and Don Gilmore
  • Recorded by Don Gilmore
  • Engineer: John Ewing, Jr.
  • Assistant engineer: Fox Phelps
  • Recorded at NRG Studios, North Hollywood, CA
  • Mixed by Andy Wallace
  • Mixed at Soundtrack Studios, New York City, NY
  • Assisted by Steve Sisco
  • Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering
  • Digital editing: Brian "Big Bass" Gardner

Linkin Park is:

  • Chester Bennington: vocals
  • Rob Bourdon: drums
  • Brad Delson: guitar
  • Joseph Hahn: records, sampling
  • Phoenix: bass
  • Mike Shinoda, emcee, vocals, sampling

Additional Instruments

  • Backing Vocals by Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, Joseph Hahn, and Phoenix
  • Strings on "Breaking The Habit" and "Faint" Arranged by Mike Shinoda and Dave Campbell
  • Violins: Joel Derouin, Charlie Bisharat, Alyssa Park, Sara Parkins, Michelle Richards, Mark Robertson
  • Violas: Evan Wilson, Bob Becker
  • Celli: Larry Corbett, Dan Smith
  • Shakuachi flute on "Nobody's Listening": David Zasloff

Management

  • A&R: Tom Whalley & Jeff Blue
  • A&R coordination: Marny Cameron
  • Marketing directors: Peter Standish & Kevin Sakoda
  • Worldwide representation: Rob McDermott for The Firm with additional servitude by Ryan Saullo, Ryan DeMarti, and Noah Edelman
  • Booking agent: Michael Arfin for Artist Group Int'l
  • Legal: Danny Hayes for Favis, Shapiro, Lwit, Montone, & Hayes
  • Business managers: Michael Oppenheim & Jonathon Schwartz for Gudvi, Sussman, & Oppenheim
  • Worldwide licensing and merchandising: Bandmerch

Artwork

  • Creative direction: Mike Shinoda & The Flem
  • Art direction & design: The Flem
  • Installation artists: Delta, Mike Shinoda, Joseph Hahn, & The Flem
  • Photography: James R. Minchin III
  • Spray paint can close-up photos: Nick Spanos

Live Performances

Songs Played Live

  • Foreword
  • Don't Stay
  • Somewhere I Belong
  • Lying From You
  • Hit The Floor
  • Easier To Run
  • Faint
  • Figure.09
  • Breaking The Habit
  • Nobody's Listening
  • Session
  • Numb

Tours

  • LP Underground Tour
  • Projekt Revolution 2003
  • Meteora European Tour (Cancelled)
  • Summer Sanitarium Tour
  • Meteora European Tour
  • Meteora Australia and Asia Tour
  • Meteora UK November Tour
  • U.S. Holiday Radio Shows
  • Meteora North American Tour
  • Meteora International Tour
  • Projekt Revolution 2004

Promotion

Reception

Critical Reception

Awards

Gallery

Trivia

  • Evanescence's debut album, Fallen, was being recorded at the same studio Linkin Park was recording Meteora. Wind-Up Records wanted Evanescence to sound like Linkin Park and wanted them to ask Mike Shinoda to be on their first single, "Bring Me To Life". After he turned it down, Chester advised Amy Lee to "be herself and tell the label to put it where the sun doesn't shine,"[18] but the label refused to release the song unless she agreed to make it a duet, claiming nobody wanted to listen to "a girl singing in a rock band."[19] They ended up getting Paul McCoy from 12 Stones (another band signed to Wind-Up at the time) to do the vocals. Mike first denied this story, saying, "I was never asked to be on any Evanescence music. Even if Chester said it, this part isn’t true (we all make mistakes)!"[20] However, 10 years later he confirmed it to be true, saying, "I turned it down without having even known anything about the band. [...] I just knew that, like, I did my thing in my band, and I didn't want to do my thing in another band."[21] A version without any male vocals was included in the "Bring Me To Life" single labeled as "Bliss Mix".
  • Rene Mata, the vocalist of Reach 454, was good friends with Chester Bennington and they made plans to record in the same studio all summer 2002.[22][23] While in pre-production with Jay Baumgardner, Mike Shinoda was announced to produce a few tracks for them and Joseph Hahn would be handling the programming of the entire album.[24][25] Reach 454's Lava/Atlantic debut album came out in 2003 but Mike and Joe weren't credited. It's likely the collaboration never happened.

External Links

Music Videos

Live Videos

References

  1. LPAssociation.com: Chester Interview With Kerrang, February 14, 2003
  2. MTV: Linkin Park - Inconspicuously Huge, 2003
  3. LINKIN PARK | METEORA — Frank Maddocks Design
  4. LinkinPark.ru - Всё о Linkin Park по-русски! | linkinparkru.com, May 12, 2008
  5. “Meteora” Artist DELTA’s New Work (Amsterdam) « Mike Shinoda's Blog, July 06, 2011
  6. Frank Maddocks on Instagram: “METEORA 15 years. 🤟🏼 Here’s a photo of one of the large walls we all painted for the album packaging. Original portraits by @jamesminchin…”, March 25, 2018
  7. YouTube: LPTV Episode 1: The Writing Process (2003), February 10, 2022
  8. Pro Techniques from NRG Studios, November 2003
  9. liveDaily Interview: Linkin Park's Dave 'Phoenix' Farrell >> Tour dates and concert ticket info >> LiveDaily, February 04, 2004
  10. Shoutweb.com - Interviews - Linkin Park: Meteora, March 2003
  11. Studio report > 10.10.2002: recording vocals, October 10, 2002
  12. MTV: Linkin Park Feature, 2003
  13. NYRock, May 2003
  14. LPU Chat, April 2003
  15. LPAssociation.com - Request Magazine Interview with Chester, February 15, 2003
  16. LPAssociation: Linkin Park TV Commercial Coming Soon, November 30, 2002
  17. SpecialRelease | RECORD STORE DAY
  18. Korn, Linkin Park Singers Offer Advice To New Bands: 'Find Your Own Style' - Blabbermouth.net, July 22, 2004
  19. Female rock stars not wanted in the UK. Apparently | Music | The Guardian, November 22, 2007
  20. wikipedia « Mike Shinoda's Blog, October 03, 2008
  21. Sirius XM Turbo - Mike Shinoda almost rapped for Evanescence, July 23, 2018
  22. Rene Erwin Mata on Instagram: “#TBT It was the summer 2002 I had just gotten signed to @lavarecordsofficial @chesterbe & me made a plan to record in the same studio all…”, July 21, 2017
  23. Rene Erwin Mata on Instagram: “Mad love to my #brothers in @linkinpark Damn we were young.. circa summer of #2002 @nrgrecording”, July 22, 2017
  24. Shoutweb.com - Artist News, June 20, 2002
  25. MusicMight :: Artists :: LINKIN PARK, 2009