The Emptiness Machine

"The Emptiness Machine"
Single by Linkin Park
from the album From Zero
Released:	September 5, 2024 (Digital)
Format:	Digital
Length:	3:10
Live debut:	September 5, 2024
Writer:	Linkin Park
Producer:	Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Colin Brittain
Label:	Warner Records
Linkin Park singles chronology QWERTY (2024) The Emptiness Machine (2024) Heavy Is The Crown (2024)
From Zero tracklist
From Zero (Intro) The Emptiness Machine Cut The Bridge Heavy Is The Crown Over Each Other Casualty Overflow Two Faced Stained IGYEIH Good Things Go

"The Emptiness Machine" is the second track from Linkin Park's eighth studio album, From Zero. It was released on September 5, 2024 at the start of From Zero Livestream event at the same time it was being performed. It is the first brand new music from Linkin Park since 2017's One More Light and Chester Bennington's passing. It is also the first song released to feature new vocalist Emily Armstrong (of Dead Sara) and drummer/co-producer Colin Brittain.

Background

On April 30, 2024, Billboard reported that Linkin Park (namely, Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, and Dave Farrell) were considering reuniting Linkin Park after Chester Bennington's passing in 2017, apparently searching for a female vocalist through booking agency WME. This came after weeks of online speculation following comments made by Jay Gordon of Orgy on an interview with KCAL 89.7's Mike Z. on his "Wired in the Empire" radio show on April 1, 2024, where he stated, "Very, very cool guys and obviously a great band. They've been around a long time and they're still going for it... It’s going to be tough without Chester, but we'll see. I hear they got a girl singer now. That's what I heard.”

The swirl of rumors that stirred thereafter prompted multiple female vocalists to take to social media and interviews to explain that they were, in fact, not the new singer of Linkin Park, including Evanescence's Amy Lee and Halestorm's Lzzy Hale. In a previous co-headlining tour in 2022, Evanescence was joined by Hale during their set to sing a cover of "Heavy." Bonnie Fraser, the singer of Australian rock outfit Stand Atlantic who was featured in Mike Shinoda's Already Over Sessions, also stirred the pot on social media, jokingly posting a candid photo with her bandmate with the caption, "WHEN THEY HAVE NO IDEA I'M DITCHING THEM FOR L**K*N P*RK :)" She later addressed this in an apology video, clarifying that she was not involved in any potential reunion.

Amidst all these rumors was the release of Papercuts, a greatest-hits collection spanning Chester's time with the band. These rumors were not addressed by the band in any manner, either on social media or in interviews involving the new release, and died down following the release of "QWERTY" as a single, the world premiere of "Friendly Fire," and the release of the hits collection on April 12, 2024. Part of the campaign for this release included upgrading their previous music videos to 4K quality through the use of AI upscaling technology. While most of the music videos from songs received their upgrades with due time, the infamously poor quality upload of "Bleed It Out" was skipped. This changed in August, when the band began a week-long campaign involving various clips from both the music video shoot and live rehearsals and performances of "Bleed It Out." While this short run of social media posts were only meant to promote the video upgrade, the activity reignited the online discussion about the band reunion, with fans even suggesting that the new singer would be debuted at the end of the week with a reworking of the song.

While that did not culminate, on August 24, 2024, the band started a livestream on their website and YouTube channel counting down from 100 hours, the title of the stream being simply "ø" and no further details. The countdown reached 0:00 on August 28, where the visual glitched out and began counting upwards again. The numbers glitched once again at the 9:05 mark and the 9:05:00 mark. Once the counter reached 100 hours again on September 2, a purple image (a still from the upcoming music video) was flashed and a synth swell sound was heard. An image, posted by Linkin Park and its members on social media, depicting a partial Linkin Park logo submerged in water, with the text "Be part of something. Tune in September 5 3PM PST" was then shown on stream. LPUnderground members received an email inviting anyone who could be in Los Angeles to attend an event on September 5, tickets limited only to 500 fanclub members.

Details about the event were kept tight-lipped, besides vague instructions to LPU members on procedures on the day and to stay hydrated through the extreme heat present in Western California at the time. On September 5, LPU members with tickets met at a parking lot in Universal Studios and were taken by bus and police escort to a different location - a studio on the Warner Bros. campus. A circular lanyard was handed out, the words "From Zero" emblazoned on it and a new version of the Linkin Park logo. Attendees entered to a small, round stage in the middle of a warehouse, complete with an LED ceiling and a band setup, including a drum kit with the new logo stylization on it. The event was livestreamed from the same channels as the countdown for fans who couldn't make it to Los Angeles and the otherwise curious, as well as on the screens at Times Square in New York City and in Shoreditch High Street Station in London. The stream changed to a new background (an image that would soon be revealed as the album art for the band's new album) about 45 minutes before the event began, followed by the noise of the crowd entering before the visual of the stage finally appeared.

The event began at 3:00PM PST, with "The Emptiness Machine" being the first song the band performed together as a new unit. New drummer Colin Brittain and Brad Delson stand-in Alex Feder walked onstage with Mike Shinoda, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Joe Hahn after a mashup intro to the show and burst into the song live, Emily Armstrong joining the rest of the band at the end of the first chorus. This was the world premiere of the song, though the band dropped multiple announcements at the same time as the stream started. "The Emptiness Machine" went live on streaming platforms at 3:00PM PST globally, being announced as the first single from their new album, From Zero. The From Zero World Tour was also announced at the start of the stream, featuring stops across the world in September and November, including a show less than a week after the event (September 11 at the Kia Forum, slated to be the band's first full arena show since 2017). The music video for "The Emptiness Machine" premiered right after the stream concluded, confirming that the image flashed on the countdown was a shot of Mike in the video.

Dave Farrell said that "The Emptiness Machine" is one of his favorite songs on the album, saying, "'The Emptiness Machine' started pretty early on, maybe even couple of years ago. It's gone through bunch of different forms but in the process it kind of started raising its hand like, 'This could be an interesting or cool first song for people to hear.'"

The song was about 80-90% complete in 2022 before Emily joined the process, according to Mike, who was showing it to management and other people around the time (with his vocals on it) and getting positive yet middling reactions. Talking about it in retrospect, he said "I actually played a demo of that with my voice on it and the music was almost the same (I think the drums might've been a plug in and not live drums), but I remember playing it for them and they went, 'that's good, it's good,' and the reaction was not 'Holy crap, this is going to be one of the biggest songs of your career!' And there were smart people who pick hits in the room, and because of that I was realizing once we decided to put Emily on it, we reconfigured it so that the second verse happens and she is introduced, and that's a moment. And we shaped the song to make the best of that. Decisions like that can make such a big difference." When discussing the song, Mike said the song's meaning is ambiguous, but to him the lyrics came from the idea of "an abusive relationship with something that is sucking the life out of you. I don't want to take about it too much because I like people having their own [meaning]." When they realized the song could potentially be a first single, they rearranged the song into its present structure. Once people heard that version, they knew that was the "real" song.

Tracklist

Digital Single

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	The Emptiness Machine	Linkin Park	3:10

CD Single

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	The Emptiness Machine	Linkin Park	3:12
2	The Emptiness Machine (Instrumental)	Linkin Park	3:12

Music Video

The music video for "The Emptiness Machine" was released at 4:00PM PST, approximately when the From Zero livestream event ended. The video was teased at the end of the countdown teaser, when a still depicting Mike Shinoda breaking into purple dust was flashed on screen for a frame. The video sees the band all working and doing "normal" jobs and activities (Brad Delson as a package deliveryman, Phoenix working a desk job, Emily Armstrong cleaning hotel rooms, Joe Hahn serving food at a fast food restaurant, Colin Brittain using a virtual reality headset, and Mike Shinoda painting) before getting glitched out into a different dimension where they are falling apart into distorted cubes while performing the song.

To prevent information about the song from leaking, the band didn’t place an open casting call for the video. Instead, Machine Shop and LP Underground personnel acted as extras in the video, namely Adam Ruehmer, Lorenzo Errico and Jess Guerinot.

Video Credits

Director: Joe Hahn
Producer: W.L. Boyd
Production Company: Swartz/Boyd Productions
Production Supervisor: Danny Gomez
1st AD: Julian Metter, Chris Gonzales
2nd AD: Chris Gonzales, John Evangelista
DP: Adam Evans
Cam Op B Unit: Eduardo Capriles
Cam Op B Unit: Pat Notaro
AC: Blake Collins, Maya Hernandez
Gaffer: Zacharia Dalton
Key Grip: Carlton Hudson, Chris Bond
Swing: Nick Lombardo, Josh Gordon, Chris Waldorf
Production Designer: Robert Fox
Props: Armando Nunez
Art Asst: Jeff Myron
Playback: Tim Hays, Ryan Canestro
Wardrobe Stylist: Mark Holmes
Asst. Wardrobe: Ray Avalos
Asst. Wardrobe: Meesh Daranyi
Hair/MU (Emily): Carolina Ballesteros
Hair/MU (Band): Dusty Starks, Emily Zempel
PA: Alexis Espadas, William Jacobus, Danielle Rivera

Editor: Igor Kovalik
Asst. Editor: Gabriel Ordonez

Post FX:
Lead VFX and Design by cntrl.studio
Jeff Lichtfuss - Project Creative Director / VFX Supervisor
Michaela McKee - Executive Producer
Max Drenckpohl - Colorist
Theo Tagholm - Motion Designer
Benny Vargas - CG Character Rigger / 3D Modeler
Fernando Fasano - Assoc. VFX Producer
Particle FX CGI by Bleed VFX
CGI Executive Producer: Lisa Maffi
CGI Director: Paolo Cavalieri
CGI Producers: Belen Cisneros, Virginia Palacios
CGI Supervisor & TD: Nicolas Zabala
CGI Artists: Marcos Montane, Martin Peralta
Dario Saquetti, Nicolas Zabala, Paolo Cavalieri

Markerless Motion Capture and Animation done using Wonder Studio
by Wonder Dynamics (an Autodesk Company)
Nikola Todorovic

Nebojsa Nesic - Pipeline TD
Maksim Ljubenkovic - VFX TD
Katarina Stojkovic - VFX Production Manager
Nikoleta Nikolic - Machine Learning Pipeline Engineer
Evgenije Markovic - Animator
Ivana Jevtic - Animator
Ana Bogdanovic - Animator
Nikola Milinkovic - Animator
Ines Vujkovac – Machine Learning Engineer
Mark Sturley – Witness Camera Operator
Nikki Flores – Production Asst.

Video Commissioner: Devin Sarno / Warner Records

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
The Emptiness Machine	The Emptiness Machine From Zero	3:10		September 5, 2024
The Emptiness Machine (Instrumental)	The Emptiness Machine	3:12		September 5, 2024	Official instrumental version.

Live

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
The Emptiness Machine (Live)	From Zero (Expanded Edition)	3:16	September 5, 2024	November 15, 2024	Recorded in Burbank, CA, Sept. 5, 2024.

Live

"The Emptiness Machine" received its world premiere and live debut at the From Zero livestream event on September 5, 2024 in Los Angeles. It was the first full song performed with the band's new lineup, preceded by a mashup intro featuring elements of "The Requiem," "Castle Of Glass," "In The End," "Somewhere I Belong," and "Numb." The band entered with just Shinoda, Hahn, Farrell, Brittain, and Feder before Armstrong took the stage after the first chorus. For the following shows of the tour, "The Emptiness Machine" was moved down to the end of Act 1 of the set. During the band's first night in Sao Paulo, their gear cut out in the middle of "The Emptiness Machine". The band played the song all the way through even with the malfunction, and then the show was paused for several minutes. After the break, the band played through "The Emptiness Machine" in full for a second time.

Personnel

Linkin Park is

• Mike Shinoda
• Brad Delson
• Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
• Joseph Hahn
• Emily Armstrong
• Colin Brittain

Production

• Written by Linkin Park
• Produced by Mike Shinoda
• Co-Produced by Brad Delson, Colin Brittain
• Recording Engineering by Mike Shinoda, Ethan Mates
• Vocals by Mike Shinoda, Emily Armstrong
• Guitar by Brad Delson
• Bass by Dave "Phoenix" Farrell
• Programming by Joseph Hahn
• Drums by Colin Brittain
• Mixed by Neal Avron
• Assistant Engineering by Scott Skrzynski
• Mastered by Emerson Mancini

Lyrics

Album Version

Your blades are sharpened with precision
Flashing your favorite point of view
I know you're waiting in the distance
Just like you always do, just like you always do

Already pulling me in
Already under my skin
And I know exactly how this ends

I let you cut me open just to watch me bleed
Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be
Don't know why I'm hopin' for what I won't receive
Fallin' for the promise of the emptiness machine
The emptiness machine

Goin' around like a revolver
It's been decided how we lose
'Cause there's a fire under the altar
I keep on lyin' to, I keep on lyin' to

Already pulling me in
Already under my skin
And I know exactly how this ends

I let you cut me open just to watch me bleed
Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be
Don't know why I'm hopin' for what I won't receive
Fallin' for the promise of the emptiness machine

I only wanted to be part of something
I only wanted to be part of, part of
I only wanted to be part of something
I only wanted to be part of, part of
I only wanted to be part of something
I only wanted to be part

I let you cut me open just to watch me bleed
Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be
Don't know why I'm hopin', so fuckin' naive
Fallin' for the promise of the emptiness machine
The emptiness machine

(I only wanted to be part of something)
The emptiness machine, oh
(I only wanted to be part of)
The emptiness machine