Mikeshinoda.com Exclusives

Mikeshinoda.com Exclusives
Studio album by Mike Shinoda
Recorded:	2020-2023
Released:	December 12, 2023
Length:	51:23
Producer:	Mike Shinoda
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Mikeshinoda.com Exclusives, subtitled Holders Only, is a streaming-only album by Mike Shinoda released exclusively on his official website to holders of his digital collectibles. It is the fourth album composed of Mike's Twitch tracks, being an unofficial sequel to Dropped Frames, Vol. 1, Dropped Frames, Vol. 2 and Dropped Frames, Vol. 3.

Background

In March 2020, the global pandemic created by the COVID-19 coronavirus caused communities to quarantine at home. During this time, Mike Shinoda decided to start live streaming online and inviting fans to watch him create new instrumental music.

Mike began on March 17, 2020 when he did an Instagram Live about a song he was working on titled "Open Door. The next day he went online again and a fan in the chat asked him to create a song from scratch. He accepted and created what would become the first "CoronaJam." So he decided to quickly mix the "Open Door" demo and text it to fans via the Community app, along with instrumental and stems but also the track he did earlier.

March 25th was the last stream via Instagram Live as on March 27th Mike shifted to Twitch, using Restream to also broadcast on YouTube, Facebook and Periscope. When he shifted to Twitch, he started using a Streamlab extension which allowed fans to collect points during the stream, called "Shinodabucks", that can be redeemed to ask questions or request a style for the jam. When he got too many requests he started writing all of them on sheets he put in the "Bowl of Destiny", picking randomly the themes and sometimes choosing to mashup some of them in the same track. Other prizes were gradually added like the chance to request an art theme, get a Twitch follow or an Animal Crossing visite by Mike himself, choose a Twitch channel to raid or a sound/loop to use in the tracks.

The streams were originally called "Beat Making Demos" but then Mike shifted to the tag "CoronaJams." In early June 2020, he said that he stopped calling them "CoronaJams," saying that he intended to keep releasing them after the coronavirus period eventually comes to an end.

Writing and Recording

Mike Shinoda's live streams on Twitch started on Instagram and other social media platforms in March 2020 and continuing through 2022. During this time, Mike began creating songs from scratch called "CoronaJams" (later referred as just "jams") and expanded his format including art and game streams.

The earliest track on the Mikeshinoda.com Exclusives is "The Brooklyn Way", dating from April 3, 2020. However, the majority of the album originated from Mike's latest Twitch streams. "Cold Storage" is the final original track created live on Twitch, dating from June 10, 2022.

Despite most of the songs being freestyle jams, some of them had specific parameters that Mike set for himself. "Timekeeper", dating from February 8, 2022, is a freestyle with odd time / measure; "Lava Totem", dating from January 14, 2022, is a freestyle with live drums; "Four Track Tape", dating from March 1, 2021, is a freestyle using a tape machine to chop samples up and play them back; "More Desktop", dating from November 16, 2020, is a freestyle track using mostly desktop gear rather than plugins; "Not Kyle", dating from June 3, 2020, and "Just Math", dating from July 10, 2020, are freestyle with respectively three and two loops from Sounds.com requested by fans; and "Portal", dating from February 1, 2022, is a freestyle with sound redemptions by fans.

The songs with themes are "Quarantine Tequila" from July 28, 2020, which was a fan request for a "Owl City + Madonna + J-Pop" song, and "The Brooklyn Way", which was a fan request for a "90's hip hop" song.

The stream for "The Brooklyn Way" was the first time Mike actually sang during a live stream, rapping some verses over the jam from "Ctrl C Ctrl V" (a new song he was working on), "Lift Off", "Second To None", "I'll Be Gone (Vice Remix)", and "Nobody's Listening". During his March 3, 2021 stream, Mike said, "I actually like this one that is playing right now. This one is from like a year ago. I called it 'The Brooklyn Way', that was the name of the track."

"Just Math" was created on the day of the listening party for the release of Dropped Frames, Vol. 1 (hence the working title "Release Day"). During the stream, he rapped parts of "Bleed It Out", "Wretches And Kings" and "Skin To Bone (Nick Catchdubs Remix)" over it.

Composition

The album is composed of 18 songs created by Mike Shinoda live on Twitch during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a vocal version of "Release Day" titled "Just Math". All the other tracks in the album are instrumental songs except for "Quarantine Tequila", which was created using the Cyber Diva vocaloid.

This album marks the first full-length release of "Cathedral" after the song was partially used by Mike Shinoda on a collaborative NFT with MLNSR in 2022.

The songs "Four Track Tape", "More Desktop" and "THP Freestyle" were freestyle tracks, meaning no specific theme was chosen when creating the song, and previously had no official titles, being known by fans simply as "Freestyle 3.1", "Freestyle 11.16" and "Freestyle 5.13".

Release

Mike Shinoda launched a new website on December 12, 2023. He wrote:

"Welcome to the new site!

I’m thrilled to have this new home for all my work—audio and visual, digital and analogue.

You may notice some items are “gated,” including an exclusive playlist / album of music, which includes a NEW SONG “Just Math,” plus some of my favorite unreleased instrumental tracks made on Twitch."

There are two ways of obtaining a collectible to unlock the exclusive album: the first option is to purchase a piece on the "Bazaar" or "Daily Auction" sections of the website and the second option is to connect with any member who owns a Ziggurat and ask them to gift you one “key” which is generated weekly.

The album is available for streaming only, with no download option. Files on the website have no pattern to them, with 16 of the tracks being presented in .mp3 format (one at 128kbps and the rest at 320kpbs) and 2 tracks in .m4a format (one at 128kbps and one at 124kbps).

Besides the exclusive album, new AI-generated music is released daily through the "Daily Auction". Mike explained, "Every day, a digital collectible is created from generative AI outputs, trained on my work and “style.” Each is made of image and music. The images are generative AI iterations based on my original work. The music was created in conjunction with the Authentic Artists / WVRPS team, and was created using original sounds and parameters I provided, such as tempo and chords. Every day, a new piece is generated and automatically auctioned off to the highest bidder."

Track Listing

No.	Title	Stream Theme	Writer(s)	Length
1	Just Math	Freestyle with two Sounds.com loops requested by fans	Shinoda Michael Kenji	2:41
2	Portal	Freestyle w/ sound redemptions by fans		2:46
3	Cathedral	Freestyle		3:13
4	Cold Storage	Freestyle		4:09
5	Four Track Tape	Freestyle		2:19
6	Wonderguns	Freestyle		3:20
7	Freestyle Ooh Baba	Freestyle		3:08
8	Timekeeper	Freestyle with odd time		2:25
9	Integrity Tot	Freestyle		3:10
10	Thunderdogs	Freestyle		2:46
11	Lava Totem	Freestyle		3:05
12	More Desktop	Freestyle		2:58
13	Not Kyle	Freestyle with three Sounds.com loops requested by fans.		2:50
14	Drone Strike	Freestyle		2:11
15	The Brooklyn Way	90's hip hop		2:21
16	Happy Accident	Freestyle		2:07
17	THP Freestyle	Freestyle		3:19
18	Quarantine Tequila	Owl City + Madonna + J-Pop		2:35

Personnel

• Mike Shinoda

Gallery

• 

  Cover

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  Original background image used on the cover

• 

  Full background.

External Links

• exclusive playlist / album of music