One More Light

Template:Infobox album One More Light is the seventh studio album by Linkin Park. It marks a departure from the heavy sound of The Hunting Party, the first time the band has written songs starting from the vocals, and the first Linkin Park album to be titled after a song. It was also the final album released with Chester Bennington.

Background

[Extensive One More Light background/process]

Linkin Park started to tour in support of The Hunting Party in May 2014 in Europe. This was followed by the Carnivores Tour in August and September, the Circuito Banco do Brasil shows in October, and the European leg of The Hunting Party Tour in November. Their show in Berlin on November 9 was recorded for a live DVD which remains unreleased.

Due to Chester Bennington breaking his ankle in January 2015, the band was forced to cancel the rest of the United States leg of The Hunting Tour after only three shows. During Chester's recovery, the band met at the studio to go through a few new demos they had already written, like "Spirals", "All Our Days", "Hands Itch", and "Last Straw"; and Chester worked with Stone Temple Pilots on new music. Linkin Park also released an acoustic version of "Final Masquerade" through their website to thank the fans for their support. By the end of March, Chester was fully recovered and went on a tour with Stone Temple Pilots, coming back to Linkin Park in May to play a few festivals around North America.

Fort Minor, Mike Shinoda's side project, officially made its comeback in June, after an almost 10-year hiatus. Mike released a new single, "Welcome", and performed a couple of one man shows as Fort Minor.

The Hunting Party Tour was resumed in July in China. Right before the first show of the tour, the band held a press conference in Shanghai, where Mike played a piece of new music he had been working on during their flight. The band went back to Europe in August for the final leg of the tour. Between the Linkin Park shows in Europe, Mike also performed a few Fort Minor shows. After the tour, Mike had sessions in London with an undisclosed artist. Mike said, "We got off tour around a year and a half ago, and I’d already been writing a bunch of demos and playing things for the guys. I decided to stop in London, because I had been interested in potentially writing with some people outside of the band. Justin Parker is one of them, and I’d seen his name on some credits including stuff by Lana Del Rey, and I also sat with Eg White who’d written with Florence + the Machine and Adele." Meanwhile, Chester went back to Stone Temple Pilots for what proved to be the band's last tour with him, as Chester left his position on the band in November. Chester, however, would do a one-off reunion show with the band in March 2016.

In early October, Linkin Park did a mentoring session with Zayed Hassan, the grand prize winner of the Stagelight Monthly Music Contest, at Red Bull Studios in Los Angeles, resulting in the song "Sailing Through The Clouds". After that, the band went back to their studio to work on new material and recorded a collaborative track, "Waiting For Tomorrow", with Martin Garrix in early November. That same month, the band would play their last shows of 2015 before returning once again to the studio.

While recording the album, the band also collaborated with many artists on non-Linkin Park music: "Like Riding A Bike", a Hot Karl song produced and featuring Mike was premiered in May a few days after Mike teased the song on his Snapchat account; a collaborative song recorded with The Lonely Island called "Things In My Jeep" was released on June 3; Mike did additional production in the One Ok Rock song "One Way Ticket" in August; and Brad Delson collaborated with his brother Greg in a song called "Willing To Try".

Before the release of One More Light, Linkin Park parted ways with Jonathan Schwartz, the band's business manager since Hybrid Theory, after he admitted embezzling $4.8 million from singer Alanis Morissette and $1.7 million from two other clients.

Writing and Recording

The band had been writing and recording mostly in Los Angeles but also had a few sessions in London and Canada. In Los Angeles, they started working at the Larrabee Studios, but got a new studio headquarters at Sphere Studios because they wanted more space. The studio is located in a low-key area on the northeast side of Los Angeles, in The Valley. According to Mike Shinoda, the vocals and foundational songwriting was coming together in the main room, along with his beats and Brad's guitar. There used to be a lounge next to the main room which Joe turned into a second studio, so they were multi-tasking. Joe also brought a lot of his sonic toys and keyboards to the hangout room.

Left to right: George Hundleby, Josh Newell, Paul Suarez, Brad Delson, Andy Wallace, Mike Shinoda, Ethan Mates, and Alejandro Baima.

Starting on January 15, 2016 the band decided, for the first time, to open up their process to fans through social media by doing live streams, posting pictures and videos of their day by day in the studio, and sending studio updates to their mailing list.

Speaking to LPAssociation in early December 2015, Mike said he felt this was going to be an important album for the band, being something completely different from what they had done in the past, and saying the band doesn't really care about trends in music because their recording process takes too long to really grow on a song, and they simply don't care. They were trying a new approach to their recording process, working on words and melodies first before deciding the style of the songs, and they were looking at a late 2016 release for the album, with a 6 month hit-or-miss. According to him, the band goes to the record label not for what they think about the album, but for them to help get it out to the people. In a Q&A with LPU members, Rob Bourdon said the fans were the reason the band was motivated to create something new, but they didn't try to guess if the fans would like the new songs because it could obscure their process. They also didn't want to rush the process of the new album, regardless of delaying its release, because they wanted it to be as perfect as possible. In the end, their original goal of having new music out by the end of 2016 wasn't met because they slowed the process down to spend more time on the album and write a few extra new songs.

The idea of writing the melodies and lyrics first was something producer Rick Rubin had always told them to do years past and they never listened because they always started track first. While working with Justin Parker in London, Mike also learned a different approach to songwriting: to write without any sound in mind and, instead, write with meaning in mind. Instead of writing tracks piece by piece, the band wouldn't leave a session without having a song. It would all start as a conversation, and out of those the songs would build progressively from a chord progression to lyrics. Mike said they didn't know where the songs would end up since they change shapes over and over during the writing process, but they wanted completely flesh out the words and vocal melodies ideas before working out the music. Some songs were just one piano, keyboard, or guitar, and a vocal, and they were going to continue on this path until they felt like they've got more than enough material to begin the "sound" phase. Some of Chester's vocals (and all of Mike's vocals) were demoed in Mike's home studio, which he described saying, "It’s one room and I’ve got basically a small drum kit, a ton of keyboards, a few guitars and basses and a microphone."

Mike said, "The one thing that I am super excited about, I really wanna like make the riskiest songs now, because I feel like we're at the point where it's like, “okay, we've handled so many things” and risky could be a lot of different kinds of risky. Risky could mean the most weirdest, the weirdest thing, weirdest chord progressions or whatever, or could be the poppiest thing that comes to mind. That we just got like we made that work like it sounds like us, it doesn't sound weird, it sounds like very cool, and I wanna make some songs where you go like “holy shit” That's where we gotta find that."

Very early in the process, Brad said there were very strong consistent themes in what they were writing. The band have spoken about how they wanted an album that was honest and raw and that genre didn't really matter, with Chester saying how personal and important this album was to him. Mike mentioned he wrote a song specifically for his kids for the first time and also assured fans that the album isn't political. Mike said, "the very first thing we'd do each day is we'd get into the studio and say, "What's on my mind? What do I want to sing about and write about" and that defined a whole different kind of writing." Mike took it upon himself to write down all the stuff they'd talk about as friends on a piece of paper (something he learned while working with Wyatt Durrette) and sometimes, just right in the middle of conversations about how they are dealing with (sometimes sad) things in life, he would start playing piano and ideas for verse, chorus, and bridge melodies and words would flow freely. They were able to record vocal ideas and lyrics the exact day the song was made, so it made the songs more emotional since Chester already knew the lyrics and meaning before he even came into the studio to lay down a track by reading it off a piece of paper. Chester added, "There are songs that don’t specifically talk about situations – they talk about a frame of thinking. This is shit that’s gone on inside my head, or this is something I’m dealing with. To me it tells a story but it’s also revealing as well in a different way – and that feels honest to me." The band pointed out that the songs aren't exclusively about Mike and Chester. They could be about them, the band, or whoever they were working with. Mike also said, "I think also it wasn't about one person's thing. It was usually about everyone." Along with the problems Chester was going through, the other band members in Linkin Park have had tough times in life recently and that served as inspiration for the album. According to Mike, what makes this album personal is the fact that the lyrics are more specific and puts the listener in a time and place. "We all have kids and stuff, and a lot of the stuff from the album was inspired by a lot of things that happened in our family."

While working on the album, Chester went through depression and alcoholic problems, one of his close friends died and his stepfather had cancer. He suffered a three-day relapse and went through an outpatient treatment program. "I started reaching out and talking about my feelings. The next thing I know, I wasn't alone in the conversation in my head. I was inviting people into the conversation and getting feedback and working through this stuff. At the end of the process, I was surprised I was ever in this place. I was like, 'Wow, I can't see myself getting in that place again because I have such good friends'. I have a beautiful wife, great kids, awesome job."

The band started narrowing down to some of their favorite songs and recording "some keeper vocals" in mid-February. According to Joe Hahn, "The difference on this album is that a lot of it was created electronically. Which was good, because we were able to focus on creating new ideas quickly and writing the lyrics. This generated a good flow and despite the desire to write the lyrics, the album reflects the harmony between the electronic base and the form of Linkin Park's songs." With a lot of material to choose from, they clearly had an album in there and decided to get votes from all six of the members to see which songs would make it. Mike made large documents in his computer with all of the notes/comments by band members on each song. After getting the vocals right, keyboards/samples and drums were high on the list. Mike said, "As we go, you're gonna hear them start to have a lot of layers, and maybe too many."

Mike explained the impact their new process had on Chester's vocals in the album, "I really enjoyed exploring the songwriting process and flipping that around on the last few records. It’s been really fun to approach songs almost backwards in terms of the chronological process and how you should start and finish a song. We tried different ways of doing that. It’s not responsible for the way the album sounds, but it is responsible for the ease in which Chester sings. To my ear, he sounds so great on this album and I know exactly what we did to make that happen for him. It requires spending time on trying the song in different keys and at different tempos so that it sounds great in whichever way he chooses to sing it. Finishing the lyrics and melody early and letting Chester live with them for a while also really helped, it enabled him to emote more on the record."

Mike believed that the album is totally different from all their previous releases and wanted to use more live drums instead of programed beats during the recording process. In June, he said the band had "narrowed it down recently to like under 20 hopefully." While he said guitars hadn't really been worked on yet in the recording process, the band wanted this to be their best album yet and was taking a lot of time crafting the songs. According to him, the foundations of the songs were there and he wanted to "get into experimentation mode" and record more live instruments. Brad said, "I wound up putting a lot of guitar on this album. There’s a lot of layers and a lot of different guitars. The guitar work is nuanced and complementary to all of the other elements that we have put in there. I find guitar to be a dominant ingredient in any soup. The minute I put loud heavy guitars into an arrangement, I feel like it is a heavy colour. One of the goals of the production of this album was to do away with any notion of genre. We were looking at ways to juxtapose influences that we have in ways that you haven’t heard before. Building the guitar work into that was a fun challenge. I love the guitar work and tones that our engineer Ethan helped create with me and Mike [Shinoda] throughout this album. Even though you don’t hear guitar in the foreground in a heavy-handed way, there really is a ton of guitar on this album, and I’m really proud of it." By December 16, the recording was done and the band were moving out of the studio.

The mixing stage started that same month, with Chester saying they would be mixing for a long time because they had "a ton of songs." He listened to all the tracks together for the first time on January 29 and said that this was his favorite Linkin Park record to date and he couldn't wait to share it with fans.

Justin Parker and Jon Green in the studio with Linkin Park.

The band worked with a wide variety of artists throughout the making of the album, which Chester explained by saying they were curious about how others work and wanted to expand on their education. Mike also said Linkin Park is more than capable of writing their own songs, but they wanted to change it up and write with others this time. They met with 30-40 songwriters, one at a time. According to Phoenix, anyone who they've enjoyed the work of in the past or who is interested in seeing what they're doing and how they work, they've invited them in and hung out in the studio, whether it meant hanging out and eating lunch in the studio or doing some music and writing together. Among the people who were seen with the band but didn't contribute to the album are Zane Lowe, Quincy Jones, and Kyle Lambert.

While most of the collaborators on the album were songwriters, the band also brought in vocal producers because they wanted a different perspective on how to approach the vocals. Among the collaborators are Justin Parker, Conner Youngblood, Jon Green, Blackbear, Andrew Goldstein, Eg White, Emily Wright, Andrew Bolooki, Andrew Dawson, RAC, Corin Roddick, Ross Golan, Wyatt Durrette, Michael Keenan Leary, Brian Howes and Alexander Spit. American singer Kiiara also had a 7 hour session with Linkin Park to record vocals for a song written with Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, and rappers Stormzy and Pusha T contributed to the album with original verses. The Chainsmokers (American DJ duo) revealed they were also asked to work with Linkin Park, but Mike Shinoda said the collaboration never happened.

In the past the band had a different approach to collaborations as explained by Mike, "Usually it means we’ve finished the song but we’ll ask somebody to add something to the top of it," but this time they have embraced full creative partnerships. In contrast to someone like Rick Rubin, who "was more of a mentor," he thought of these songwriters and producers more as a supporting cast. "Generally, here's how it would work: we'd get in the room with someone, and start on something from scratch with them. We worked mostly in the same way we always write songs, but with extra firepower in the room."

During the sessions, Chester Bennington approached Billy Howerdel to contribute a song to the album. He had a halfway finished demo of a song called "Eat The Elephant" to which he could see Chester contributing. The song didn't make the album, but when Chester passed away, he saw that as a hint to finish the track. He said it was a kind of therapy. The chords, drums and lyrics were completely reworked and the new version was included on A Perfect Circle's 2018 album Eat The Elephant (titled after the song).

After wrapping up the album, Chester started working with a vocal coach for the first time in his life in preparation for stripped down performances and the One More Light Tour. Thanks to him, Chester said his range was expanded significantly. Chester would spend 40 minutes with his vocal coach before every show of the tour.

Composition

All the songs featured in the album were started with vocals first — which was a new concept for Linkin Park. They worked on the story first, hook second, then music. The band sampled their kids and put them in the demos, but they distracted from the songs so they removed them. For the first time in a Linkin Park album, the final song titles were there from the start because all titles are words in the songs. While touring in promotion of The Hunting Party the band worked on some music in their traditional "music first" method but those were eventually disregarded. A couple of early instrumental demos from those sessions, "Dark Crystal" and "Air Force One", were released in the LP Underground Sixteen album in November 2016.

Brad Delson with a song board.

A picture posted by Ethan Mates on Facebook in April revealed a folder titled "LP ALBUM 7 MAIN" containing 64 items, the visible ones dating from November 9, 2015 to April 7, 2016. All those files contained demos and ideas for songs being written for the album, but at that point the band was already narrowing them down to their favorites since February. Chester said focusing on the melodies and vocals first made this album process a lot more productive and fluid. They wrote over 150 demos. Around 50 songs in this process got lyrics and melodies and Chester said he could pick 10 of any of those 50 and be happy with the songs, but when the rest of the band looks at the songs, it becomes pretty obvious as a group which songs are the strongest once they vote on them. By May, they already had chosen around 20 songs. Engineer Josh Newell explained this process, "Vocals get cut, demo parts get replaced with keeper parts, structures change, and so on. Sometimes a song everyone liked would end up going off in a direction that people didn’t like so we’d walk it back to see what changes didn’t work. As that happened, the list of songs starts getting shorter and shorter as the stronger material becomes obvious, and then the band picked the top 15 or so for the album and finished those. It was a very meticulous process, to say the least. The album definitely wasn’t just thrown together." Mike said he would try to get demos and studio content that didn't make the album out to fans because there is some cool stuff. Brad Delson added, "There's definitely a few gems that we've got in our back pocket. But I would say the vast majority of those songs fortunately will never see the light of day. They were just a part of the journey; the ones that were the most satisfying and exciting were the ones we ultimately focused on and finished and make up the album." Some of the songs that didn't make the album are "Can We Go Back", "Can We Go Back II: The Future", "District 108", "Fire Escape", "Friendly Fire", "Hands & Knees", "Keep Saying I'm Sorry", "Locked Outside", "My Horizon", "Out Of Reach", "Painted Me Wrong", "Ricochet", "Rival I Can't Outrun", "Sleepwalking", "Spiderweb", "Staring Back", "This Sin Is My Home", "Tidal Wave", "Till The Walls Come Down" and "What Are You Worth".

The original demos for "Place To Start" and "Make It Up As I Go" from Mike Shinoda's Post Traumatic album were created during the One More Light sessions. About the former, he said, "That track actually started during the [2017 album] One More Light sessions. I had brought it in as a demo and never developed it all the way to the finish. There was a time when I thought that should be the intro to the One More Light album, actually." According to him, "Rob did brushes and crashes on it back then." As for the latter, "“Make It Up As We Go” was a song we started at the very end of the One More Light sessions with me, K. Flay and Brad [Delson]. All it was was a chorus and the rest of this demo track was terrible." The song was originally a ballad but Shinoda tweaked the tempo; the chorus remained the same as it originally was. The original beat for "Running From My Shadow" also originated from a demo written with Ross Golan and Brad Delson for One More Light. "It was one of the demos that we screwed around with a little bit during One More Light that just sucked, it just wasn't a song."

The band made a conscious decision of not having transitions between the songs because they wanted to ensure that each song was its own statement. The album opener, "Nobody Can Save Me", is considered by the band one of the foundational songs of the album, starting an emotional arc.

Mike Shinoda mentioned there were several hip hop oriented tracks in consideration for the album — as well as some ideas and seeds for future Fort Minor songs, but he would be focusing on the Linkin Park album first. The final product, however, doesn't have much rap, Mike did more singing instead. He said the rap verses he recorded would "show up at some point" and expressed his desire to remix some songs from the album.

Mike is the lead vocalist on "Invisible" and "Sorry For Now" with Chester doing the higher harmonies. He originally sang lead vocals on "One More Light" until the band went with Chester’s version right before the album was completed. Mike raps heavily on "Good Goodbye" and Chester raps on "Sorry For Now". Chester's vocals on the latter have been described by Mike as "singing rapping."

Artists who influenced the sound of the album include Jack Garratt, Flume, Blackbear, Sohn, Louis The Child, Kid Cudi, D.R.A.M., Bon Iver, Raury, Troye Sivan, Banks, Jon Bellion, Run The Jewels, Anna Of The North, and ASTR. According to Brad, "We will always be a heavy band. What happens is that we do not fit into a single genre, as we have many different influences. We ended up surviving by being able to insert several 'trendy' styles in our sound, but still being who we are. The first thing you need to know before listening to the new album is that it is very, very different from the influences we had at the beginning of our career. Knowing this, you are ready to hear it." Chester explained, “On One More Light, we ended up writing about really intense things that were going on in our personal lives, so it became very emotionally charged, but not charged with big, loud sounds and drums.” He added that “one of the interesting things about being in Linkin Park -- it’s like being a new band each time that we make a record. If I was making a record that sounded like what I was making 20 years ago, it would be kind of forced and funky right now. It would kind of suck.”

The sonic choices made on the album were intended to best support the song and create the best soundscape to get the idea across. Mike said, "In terms of the style of the record, it's one of the most diverse stylistically, there's more genres mashed into this album than anything we've ever put out. You don't hear a lot of super heavy guitars. There isn't any screaming on the record." There are, however, many guitars on the record, but they do not sound like guitars. As an example, Mike mentioned one of Brad's pedals which allows him to play the violin with his guitar, and in the background it sounds pretty electronic. He explained how the guitars were produced, "in many cases we double-track a guitar part and pan out the two tracks hard left and hard right. There are a couple moments on this album where slightly different parts are being played on left and right, which only works on a case-by-case basis. But for a little extra enhancement, the PS22 Stereo Maker and S1 Stereo Imager were definitely two staples of mine." He adds, "To some extent it is a very polished record. Stylistically we wanted to blend all of the sound and genres together in a way you can’t tell them apart."

As to why they chose "Heavy" to present the album to the world, he told Billboard, "One of the reasons why we chose "Heavy" as the first single is because it is really the core sound of the album. This wasn't a scenario where the whole album sounds one way and the single sounds different. This is how the album sounds. So we wanted to go out with a song like that, where everybody can get a sense of the direction of this body of work." According to him, a lot of songs on the album can make the listener think of old songs by The Cure or Tears For Fears.

Despite Mike's statement of "Heavy" being the core sound of the album, the band chose "One More Light" as the title track, which he explained, "The song One More Light is a stripped down track, inspired by the passing away of a friend. It's the heart of the album in a way, maybe because of its minimalism, maybe because of the subject and execution. It's about loss, connection, and the myriad complex emotions that come along with this type of story.​"

Describing his guitar work on the album, Brad said, "I love the acoustic work on Sharp Edges. I really like all of the layering of guitars on Invisible as well. There’s also a really unique presentation of the guitar in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever done on a song called Sorry For Now. That was one of the things that we were really excited about - it is wildly different to anything else that we have been doing." He also said the songs on the album are "easier to share and play, whereas on other albums that translation process from what we did in the studio to the stage took some thinking and some work" and added they fit in with other songs from Linkin Park's catalog as well. Mike explained that in the album the listener can't tell what is sampled and what is not, but "When you’re in the live show you can tell the difference, though. I feel like the tracks are really kicked up a notch when you see them live. They’re more energetic."

Mike Shinoda created a playlist to show fans the connections between the sound of the album and other songs in Linkin Park's catalogue. The songs were "Waiting For The End", "Burn It Down", "Numb/Encore", "Leave Out All The Rest", "In The End", "Breaking The Habit", "Roads Untraveled", "Shadow Of The Day", "Castle Of Glass", "My<Dsmbr", "Iridescent", "Skin To Bone", "A Light That Never Comes" and "Final Masquerade".

There are features and plenty of collaborations with songwriters in the album. Californian singer and songwriter Ilsey Juber lent her vocals for the two songs she wrote with the band, "Sharp Edges" and "Talking To Myself". The latter also features guitars and additional production by Andrew Jackson. "Heavy" features vocals by pop singer Kiiara, "Good Goodbye" features verses by rappers Stormzy and Pusha T, and "Halfway Right" features backing vocals by Ross Golan (who helped writing the song). English musician Jon Green, who helped writing two songs on the album, also recorded guitar, bass and vocals and did addtional production for the opening track "Nobody Can Save Me". Jesse Shatkin, who helped writing "Good Goodbye", also provided additional keyboards and additional programming on "Invisible". Finally, Portuguese DJ RAC, who had previously worked on a remix of "Burn It Down" for Recharged, did additional production on "Invisible" and "Sharp Edges".

Artwork

The album's cover art is a picture taken by Frank Maddocks (who has worked with the band on every studio album) at Venice Beach, a beachside neighbourhood in western Los Angeles, depicting Frank's son and his friends. Mike said, "Frank showed us this photo months ago, and it seems to continually raise its hand as an important photo with regards to the tone of the album. We kept coming back to it, which made it clear to us it would be the one that would end up on the cover. We're all family guys. The image reminds me of what it looks like when all of our families meet and our kids are together. For that reason there's a very personal connection between this artwork and the place the music came from. It reminds me of home."

Releases

Physical

One More Light bundles.

The album was available on Linkin Park's official website in 5 different "One More Light Packages": CD + LPU Membership, Vinyl + LPU Membership, CD Bundle, Vinyl Bundle, and The “Just Give Me Everything” Box Set. All offers were accompanied by an LPU Digital Membership.

Both the CD Bundle and Vinyl Bundle included an One More Light t-shirt and a silver Linkin Park logo enamel pin.

The Box Set was bound inside a special One More Light Super Deluxe box with a 48-page hardcover book featuring all the best photos from the album package and all the lyrics, an unique 2.4" x 1.8” instant photo of the band (limited to 1000), and an gold enamel pin set featuring a Linkin Park pin, a LP Hex Logo pin, and a "OML" Logo pin. It also included both the CD and vinyl versions of the album as well as the One More Light t-shirt.

A limited pressing vinyl of One More Light was available at Urban Outfitters with an exclusive green cover. It was limited to 2,500 copies. An exclusive forest green vinyl was also sold by f.y.e.

A limited number of fans who pre-ordered the album from the Japanese stores Tower Records, Tsutaya, HMV, WonderGOO, Amazon, and Warner Music Direct received an exclusive LP Hex Logo sticker. Each one of the 6 stores offered the sticker in a different color.

Digital

One More Light was released on all big digital plataforms such as iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify. No bonus tracks were included in any edition, making it the first ever Linkin Park studio album not to have any digital or downloadable bonus tracks whatsoever.

To coincide with the release of the album, the band put together on Groove Music, Microsoft's music subscription service, a curated playlist with songs that have inspired the creation of One More Light.

Track Listing

Standard Edition

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	Nobody Can Save Me	Delson Bradford Philip, Green Jonathan Ian, Shinoda Michael Kenji	3:45
2	Good Goodbye (feat. Pusha T & Stormzy)	Delson, Shatkin Jesse, Omari Michael, Shinoda, Thornton Terrance	3:31
3	Talking To Myself	Delson, Juber Ilsey Anna, Rotem Jonathan Reuven, Shinoda	3:51
4	Battle Symphony	Delson, Green, Shinoda	3:36
5	Invisible	Parker Justin, Shinoda	3:34
6	Heavy (feat. Kiiara)	Bennington Chester Charles, Cavazos Carin Julia, Delson, Shinoda, Tranter Drew Justin	2:49
7	Sorry For Now	Shinoda	3:23
8	Halfway Right	Bennington, Delson, Golan Ross Jacob, Leary Michael Keenan, Shinoda	3:37
9	One More Light	Shinoda, White Anthony Francis	4:15
10	Sharp Edges	Delson, Juber, Shinoda	2:58

Personnel

Production

• Produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson
• "Talking To Myself" co-produced by JR Rotem
• "Invisible" co-produced by Jesse Shatkin
• "Sorry For Now" co-produced by Blackbear for Beartrap LLC and Andrew "Goldstein" Goldstein for Mod Squad Music Inc.
• Addtional production on "Nobody Can Save Me" by Jon Green
• Additional production on "Good Goodbye" by Jesse Shatkin
• Additional production on "Talking To Myself" by Andrew Jackson
• Additional production on "Invisible" by Andrew Dawson and RAC
• Additional production on "Sorry For Now" by Michael Keenan
• Additional production on "Halfway Right" by Michael Keenan and Alexander Spit
• Additional production on "Sharp Edges" by RAC
• Vocal production by Andrew Bolooki on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 & 8
• Vocal production by Jesse Shatkin on track 2
• Vocal production by Emily Wright on tracks 5, 6, 9 & 10
• Music performed by Linkin Park
• Vocals by Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda
• Chester's vocals recorded at The Pool Recording Studio, London, UK
• Mike's vocals recorded at The Warehouse Studio, Vancouver, CA
• Music recorded at Larrabee Studios, North Hollywood, CA and Sphere Studios, North Hollywood, CA
• Engineered by Ethan Mates, Mike Shinoda and Josh Newell
• Assistant engineer: Alejandro Baima
• Studio B assistant engineer: Warren Willis
• Studio drum tech: Jerry Johnson
• Tracks 1, 5, 6 & 7 mixed by Serban Ghenea at Mixstar Studios, Virginia Beach, VA
• Engineered for mix by John Hanes
• Tracks 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 & 10 mixed by Manny Marroquin at Larrabee Studios, North Hollywood, CA
• Mix engineer: Chris Galland assisted by Jeff Jackson and Robin Florent
• Mastered by Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound, Edgewater, NJ

Linkin Park is:

• Chester Bennington - Vocals
• Rob Bourdon - Drums, Background Vocals (tracks 1, 2, 3, 8 & 10)
• Brad Delson - Guitar, Background Vocals (tracks 1, 2, 3, 8 & 10)
• Joe Hahn - Programming, Background Vocals (tracks 1, 2, 3, 8 & 10)
• Phoenix - Bass, Background Vocals (tracks 1, 2, 3, 8 & 10)
• Mike Shinoda - Keyboards, Programming, Vocals

Additional Musicians

• Kiiara's vocals on "Heavy" recorded at Sphere Studios, North Hollywood, CA
• Kiiara appears courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.
• Pusha T's vocals on "Good Goodbye" recorded at No Name Studios, North Hollywood, CA by Tom Kahre
• Stormzy's vocals on "Good Goodbye" recorded at Matrix Studios, London, UK by Fraser T. Smith
• Pusha T appears courtesy of Def Jam Recordings. A division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
• Stormzy appears courtesy of #Merky Records
• Background vocals on "Talking To Myself" and "Sharp Edges" by Ilsey Juber
• Background vocals on "Halfway Right" by Ross Golan
• Guitar and piano on "One More Light" by Eg White
• Additional guitar, background vocals and bass on "Nobody Can Save Me" by Jon Green
• Additional keyboards and programming on "Invisible" by Jesse Shatkin
• Additional guitar on "Talking To Myself" by Andrew Jackson

Management

• Worldwide representation: Machine Shop Entertainment - Bill Silva, Jessica Sklar, Ryan DeMarti and Trish Evangelista
• Booking agents: Dennis Arfa and Michael Arfin of Artist Group International
• Europe booking agent: Scott Thomas of X-Ray Touring
• Legal for Linkin Park: David Lande, David Byrnes, Mitch Tenzer and Irina Volodarsky for Ziffren Brittenham LLP
• Business affairs for Warner Bros. Records: Charles Hamilton
• Business managers: Todd Gelfand, Jeff Gillman, Gloria Balanay and Sheila Surmani for Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, LLP
• Publicity: Kymm Britton
• UK publicity: Lauren Hales
• Videography: Mark Fiore
• Machine Shop: Whitney Showler, Lorenzo Errico, Michael Seversky, Christian Tachiera and Dominic West
• Machine Shop consultants: Jason Hobbs and Josh Levine
• A&R: Dan McCarroll
• A&R coordination: Jonna Terrasi and Ryan DeMarti
• Marketing director: Peter Standish

Artwork

• Creative direction: Frank Maddocks, Mike Shinoda, Joe Hahn and Peter J. Lee
• Art direction and design: Frank Maddocks and Peter J. Lee
• Photography: Frank Maddocks
• Additional photography: Frank Maddocks, Mike Shinoda, Christian Tachiera and Lorenzo Errico

Live Performance

Songs Played Live

• "Nobody Can Save Me"
• "Good Goodbye"
• "Talking To Myself"
• "Battle Symphony"
• "Invisible"
• "Heavy"
• "One More Light"
• "Sharp Edges"

Tours

• One More Light South American Tour
• One More Light European Summer Tour

Promotion

In early January, the band started planning promotion and working on new merch for the album and did a photoshoot with James Minchin III on January 10.

On February 1, 2017, the Linkin Park Global Ambassadors was launched with the objective of spreading Linkin Park news and connecting fans around the world. Three pictures were posted to Linkin Park's Instagram account on the following day: a completely black screen representing a TV turned off; a picture of Rob edited to resemble static on a TV; and a picture with TV color bars and Linkin Park's logo on the 13th bar, indicating the TV is tuned and something would be coming soon. The third picture was also uploaded to Instagram by the Linkin Park Global Ambassadors and many other people related to the band such as Joe Hahn, Mike Shinoda, Chester Bennington, Phoenix, Lorenzo Errico, Adam Ruehmer, Jim Digby, Christian Tachiera, Tobias Fance, Frank Maddocks, Tal Cooperman, Mike Rittberg and Warner Bros. Records' official account.

From February 3 to February 15, the band released a series of 8 videos on their official website showing fans their process of creating songs for the album. The first video was posted on linkinpark.com/o and with the release of each new video a new letter was added to the URL (the exception being the last video which added a full word), eventually forming the album title.

On February 13, Linkin Park tweeted a blank grid and each of the Linkin Park Global Ambassadors tweeted a numbered image. When put together, the images formed the album cover. The lyrics of "Heavy" were unveiled on genius.com on the same day.

On February 15, each Linkin Park Global Ambassador changed their profile photos on social media to a flag of their country with the new Linkin Park logo which was unveiled for the first time.

On February 16, Linkin Park did a stripped down performance with Kiiara at NRG Studios which was broadcasted live on Facebook. "Heavy" was released that same day along with its lyric video and the album pre-order.

Throughout March and April, Mike and Chester traveled through North America, Europe and Asia doing interviews and live performances to promote the album.

A Plan Check x Linkin Park Meal Pack was made available at all Plan Check Kitchen + Bar locations through May 31. Each meal pack coming with a limited edition LP t-shirt.

Reception

Critical Reception

One More Light was met with mixed reviews upon its release. Metacritic, which aggregates reviews from other mainstream sources, gave the album a 46/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews". NME gave the album a 2/10, calling it a "contrived commercial move" and calling "Good Goodbye" the "only not-awful moment". In a similarly negative review, Consequence of Sound makes note of the fact that One More Light does sound like an album the band truly wanted to make, but remarks that it still feels reflective of a loss of identity. In a more mixed review, Rock Sound considered the record a "sometimes inspired, often muddled labour of love", going on to say that "there’s also a sense of liberation running through these 10 tracks; the mark of artists unshackled from their past, stepping into the unknown."

Sputnikusic, in a positive review of the album, says that the album shows the band "embracing its melodic core" and argues that a full-blown pop album was inevitable given the band's trajectory over the past several years, citing "Leave Out All The Rest", "Castle Of Glass", and "Iridescent" as foreshadowing. Likewise, Glenn Gamboa from Newsday called the title track a "touching, spare ballad where he stands up for those who are struggling" and claims that Linkin Park "absorbed the current pop scene and applied it to their own music to genuinely reflect who they are today, not who some fans want them to be."

Sean Dowdell of Grey Daze went on to say that Chester Bennington was very sensitive to criticism from Linkkin Park's fanbase, something that was amplified in the months leading up to his death. "When they did the 'One More Light' album [which came out in May 2017, just two months before Chester's death], it wasn't received the way they thought it was gonna be received, or at least the way Chester thought it was gonna be received, and he got a lot of negativity from fans, and it really bothered him. And we talked about that a lot. He would just be so bummed out and he would blast people on Twitter, and he would get upset."

Gallery

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  Standard cover

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  Album cover with sticker

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  Artwork with band name and title

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  Urban Outfitters vinyl. Limited to 2.500 copies

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  F.Y.E. vinyl

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  CD case

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  Vinyl

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  F.Y.E. vinyl

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  Limited Edition hardcover book

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  Limited Edition hardcover book original concept

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  One More Light t-shirt

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  Silver enamel pin

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  Silver enamel pin

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  Saturn Edition bandana

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  Japanese Limited Edition sticker from Warner Music Direct

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  Japanese Limited Edition sticker from Amazon

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  Japanese Limited Edition sticker from HMV

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  Japanese Limited Edition sticker from Tower Records

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  Japanese Limited Edition sticker from Tsutaya

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  Japanese Limited Edition sticker from WonderGOO

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  Emblems by Brandon Rike

Polaroids

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  Polaroids from the LPHQ in January

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  Polaroids

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  Polaroids

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  Polaroids

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  Mike Shinoda polaroid

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  Hulk drawing polaroid by Joe Hahn

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  Joe Hahn polaroid

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  Polaroids from Europe

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  Joe Hahn polaroid from Echo Awards

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  Polaroids from the Music For Relief Charity Poker Tournament

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  Mike Shinoda polaroid

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  Linkin Park polaroid

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  Polaroid from the Heavy music video shoot

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  Chester Bennington and Kiiara polaroids from the Heavy music video shoot

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  Adam Ruehmer and Mike Shinoda polaroid

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  Polaroids from the One More Light photoshoot at Badmaash

Art By Frank Maddocks

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  LP logo

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  LP logo concept

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  Linkin Park logo concept

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  OML logo

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  OML Emblem

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  Album versions

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  Back cover

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  Artwork

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  Artwork

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  Artwork

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  Artwork

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  Artwork

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  Artwork

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  Artwork

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  Artwork

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  Book

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  Book

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  Book

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  Book

Trivia

• One More Light is the first Linkin Park's studio album to feature female lead vocals, by Kiiara on "Heavy".
• One More Light is the first Linkin Park's studio album without an instrumental interlude.
• One More Light is Linkin Park's shortest studio album to date, with 10 tracks and a total length of 35:19 minutes.
• One More Light features the least amount of rapping from Mike of any Linkin Park's studio album with only "Good Goodbye", but also the first time Mike took lead singing vocals on two songs, "Invisible" and "Sorry For Now", the latter which also includes the first time Chester did a rap verse.
• "Ricochet" and "What Are You Worth" are two songs written with producer Brian Howes in the early sessions of the album. Both titles were added to the Linkin Park's song catalog at BMI in March 2016. "What Are You Worth" eventually leaked on May 2019, while "Ricochet" remains unreleased.
• Since the band did a lot of promo perfomances (with 2/3 members) before the album came out, for the first time they debuted new songs acoustically. "Heavy", "Talking To Myself" and "One More Light" were first performed with piano and guitar; "Battle Symphony" with piano only. However, on tour they played the studio versions, with the exception of "Sharp Edges", which always received stripped-down performances.
• On the One More Light Tour the band played the most amount of songs they ever did before an album release. "Heavy", "Battle Symphony" and "Good Goodbye" were performed along with three songs that were still unreleased at the time, "Talking To Myself", "Invisible" and "One More Light".
• Roadies Ben Young and Warren Johnson sneakily recorded five songs for their band Knifes while they were helping Linkin Park with One More Light in the studio.
• Chester was invited by Richard Z. Kruspe to be on Emigrate's third studio album A Million Degrees, but passed away before he could record vocals.

External Links

Music Videos

• Heavy (Official Video): LPTV | LP FB
• Heavy (Official Lyric Video): LPTV
• Battle Symphony (Official Lyric Video): LPTV
• Good Goodbye (Official Lyric Video): LPTV

Live Videos

• Heavy (Live at 102.1 The Edge): 102.1 The Edge
• Off-air songs from Linkin Park on Kimmel: Jimmy Kimmel FB

LPTV

• Studio Sounds (Good Problems)
• 360 Studio Tour with Mike
• A Message From Chester: Studio Update #7
• Studio Views
• Studio Moments: Bongo Band Jam
• Piano
• Honesty
• Lyrics
• Risks
• Drum Idea
• Female Vocal Idea
• Chester Vocals
• Heavy Teaser featuring Kiiara
• Our Record: LPTV | LP FB
• Stream Linkin Park's new album "One More Light" on Amazon Music
• Linkin Park - One More Light - Global Album Listening Party

LPU-TV

• LPU EXCLUSIVE - Mike Shinoda Tracking Vocals for "HEAVY"

Facebook

• Check out our new album One More Light on Spotify
• Linkin Park - One More Light - Global Album Listening Party

Interviews

• Linkin Park Races Go-Karts & Breaks Down The Making Of 'One More Light' | IRL: Genius | Genius YouTube