| "New Divide" | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||
| Single by Linkin Park | |||||||
| from the album Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - The Album | |||||||
| Working title: | Megatron | ||||||
| Recorded: | March - May 2009 | ||||||
| Released: | May 18, 2009 (Digital) June 16, 2009 (CD Single) | ||||||
| Format: | CD, Digital | ||||||
| Length: | 04:29 | ||||||
| Stems: | Rock Band 3 (DLC) Neko Keyboard Sounds and Samples[1] Open Labs SoundSlate Pro | ||||||
| Time signature: | 4/4 | ||||||
| Tempo: | 118 | ||||||
| Key: | F Minor | ||||||
| Live debut: | June 17, 2009 | ||||||
| Last performed: | October 27, 2017 | ||||||
| Writer: | Linkin Park | ||||||
| Producer: | Mike Shinoda | ||||||
| Label: | Reprise | ||||||
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| Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - The Album tracklist | |||||||
| |||||||
"New Divide" is a single by Linkin Park from the Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen soundtrack. The song was premiered on May 18, 2009 at linkinpark.com/newdivide.
Background
"New Divide" was recorded specifically for inclusion in Michael Bay's action movie, Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen. Brad Delson described it as "a heavy song, a high-energy song, and you don't know what's a keyboard and what's a guitar. That appearance versus reality is interesting to me sonically, where things you think are one thing are actually handcrafted, and it's something completely different. It's that 'I don't know what I'm listening to."[2]
Mike Shinoda was rather mysterious when first discussing the song on his blog. On March 28, 2009, he posted on his blog, "We've been working on a new song in the past couple of weeks that has been a lot of fun. The backdrop for the song is built on layered, heavy synths and a sharp performance by Mr. Bourdon. We're keeping the drums a little looser on this track, not doing too much studio trickery... it creates a nice interplay between the organic feel of the rhythm track and the more robotic feel of the keyboards. Bass and guitar are next, meanwhile Chester and I are emailing lyric notes back and forth..."[3] A month later, he officially announced the song would be included in the upcoming movie, Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen. Not only that, he also revealed that the band was taking part in the actual score of the film, and that certain themes in "New Divide" would be included in the score.[4] The score was handled by Steve Jablonsky, a member of famous film composer Hans Zimmer's team Media Ventures. He said, "In a nutshell, Michael Bay sent the new Linkin Park song over to my studio. Hans and I had a listen, and we both thought it was really cool, and it might be interesting to try incorporating some of those elements into the score. So we got the guys from the band down to the studio and talked about how to do that. They're all really cool guys and really excited about adding some of their sounds to the score."[5] The song was mastered in early May by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering.[6] It turned out that parts of the piece "Nest" would include samples of "New Divide". Finally, Mike revealed the name of the song on May 7, 2009 as "New Divide."[7]
Mike stated that, because the band don't usually write a song to fit with a story, it was a challenge to keep the song true to the spirit of the movie, but true to the band's intentions as well. They were under a lot of pressure. "“New Divide” was tough because, being a song for a big summer movie, it had a tight deadline. To be honest, the movie people had other bands they were considering in the beginning; all were successful bands worthy of having a song teamed with this movie. We were constantly under the time pressure to show Michael Bay and his team that our song would be the best one. Once we delivered it and they came back with a positive response, it felt we had won a race."[8] Director/executive producer Michael Bay said, "I love LINKIN PARK. This is the second film we've worked on together and the fact that they're huge 'Transformers' fans makes it all the better. They really delivered with 'New Divide' — it's a great song that perfectly matches the film's intensity."[9]
For the song, according to the LPTV episode about making "New Divide", Mike wrote four separate demos when trying to find a track that worked. They were titled "Bumblebee", "Starscream", "Optimus", and "Megatron", with "Megatron" becoming "New Divide." When asked on Twitch in October 2020 what happened to the other demos, he said, "As usual, they were just sketches of music so I'm sure they exist somewhere on a hard drive. They weren't better than "New Divide." I think at least two of them sucked. There were always more demos for everything. It's easy to imagine, "Oh, what if one of the other ones was amazing?" Like, probably not, probably not amazing."[10]
Tracklist
CD Single
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Divide | Linkin Park | 4:29 |
| 2 | New Divide (Instrumental) | Linkin Park | 4:29 |
| 3 | New Divide (A Capella) | Linkin Park | 3:55 |
iTunes EP Single
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Divide | Linkin Park | 4:29 |
| 2 | New Divide (Instrumental) | Linkin Park | 4:29 |
| 3 | New Divide (A Capella) | Linkin Park | 3:55 |
Live Single
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Divide (Live) | Linkin Park | 4:54 |
Music Video
Linkin Park worked with Ghost Town Media's VFX team which was composed of Brandon Parvini, Jeff Lichtfuss and David Torno with freelancers Gabriel Perez and Tae Lee. David Torno talked about the creation of the video in a Trapcode article, "With New Divide, we used Particular and Form. The opening shots of this video with the figures flying to and from camera while breaking apart were done with Form and the Auio Reactive option. A camera flythrough was hand animated to pass through all of the clips of Chester and then reprocessed a few times to blur and warp it at times. There are a few other random shots that form was used to warp a band member. All of the atmospheric sparks throughout the video that are flying by camera are Particular."[11]
Two versions exist of the video, the first with the band performance footage spliced between the Transformers 2 footage, and the second with just the band performance footage. Notably, there are few shots of Phoenix in the music video as it took place over two days and he injured his wrist on the first day of shooting. He is absent from the group shots but has a few shots of just him.
Artist Name: Linkin Park
Song Name: New Divide
Director: Joe Hahn
Director of Photography: Jonathan Sela
Editor: Igor Kovalik
Production Company: cYclops
Producers: Bill Boyd
Video Commissioner: Devin Sarno
Record Label: Reprise Records
Versions
Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.
Studio
| Title | Album | Length | Recorded | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Divide | New Divide
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - The Album 8-Bit Rebellion! |
4:29 | March-May 2009 | May 18, 2009 | |
| Nest | Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - The Score | 2:08 | 2009 | June 12, 2009 |
|
| New Divide | 5:30 | 2011 | 2011 |
| |
| New Divide (8 Bit Rebellion Version) | 8-Bit Rebellion! Ringtones | 0:31 | 2010 | April 17, 2010 |
|
| New Divide (8 Bit Rebellion Version) | 8-Bit Rebellion! Ringtones | 0:32 | 2010 | April 17, 2010 |
|
| New Divide (8-Bit) | 8-Bit Rebellion! | 2:49 | 2010 | April 26, 2010 |
|
| New Divide (Instrumental) | New Divide | 4:29 | March-May 2009 | May 18, 2009 |
|
| New Divide (Acapella) | New Divide | 3:55 | March-May 2009 | May 18, 2009 |
|
Live
| Title | Album | Length | Recorded | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Divide (Live) | The Catalyst
A Thousand Suns (JP) New Divide (Live) |
4:35 | July 21, 2009 | August 2, 2010 | |
| New Divide (Live In Madrid) | A Thousand Suns: Puerta De Alcalá | 4:35 | November 07, 2010 | January 25, 2011 | |
| New Divide | Live In Madrid | 4:30 | November 07, 2010 | April 1, 2011 |
|
| New Divide | Live In Red Square | 4:22 | June 23, 2011 | July 21, 2011 |
|
| New Divide (Live) | Burn It Down
Living Things (AU Tour Edition) |
4:29 | July 04, 2011 | May 18, 2012 |
|
| New Divide | Live At Admiralspalast Berlin, Germany | June 05, 2012 | March 29, 2013 |
| |
| New Divide | Live In Monterrey | September 12, 2012 | June 13, 2014 |
| |
| New Divide | One More Light Live | 4:30 | June 20, 2017 | December 15, 2017 |
Live
"New Divide" has been a staple in Linkin Park setlists since its debut at the Transformers 2 Premiere in 2009. On the setlists on Linkin Park's 2009 International Tour, the song opened the encore with an extended synth intro.
The song returned during the A Thousand Suns touring cycle, where it opened the first full show of the tour - the album release party in New York, New York after the sequence of "The Requiem" and "The Radiance". When the band began the tour, "New Divide" moved down a few slots in the setlist and its synth intro returned. It remained in this spot until Set B-1 debuted at the last show of the 2010 European Tour, where it moved into the third spot of the encore after "When They Come For Me". This stayed consistent for the following 2010 tours, though "Crawling" was moved into the encore, so "New Divide" was pushed back one slot in Set B on the A Thousand Suns Australian Tour. On the 2011 North American Tour, "New Divide" returned to the being the first full song of the set in Set B-11, which was only played once on the tour. Set B-13 replaced it, and "New Divide" was performed as the second-to-last song in the encore. This was true for Set C-5, as well, but that set was replaced by Set C-13 where "New Divide" was featured near the start of the set. The song stayed in these general positions on the 2011 European Tour and 2011 Asian Tour, as well: in the middle of the encore in Set A and Set C, near the beginning of the set in Set D and Set E, and near the end of the set in Set B. The band opened their shows at the Transformers 3 Premiere and the last show of the world tour in Singapore, Singapore at the Formula 1 Grand Prix with "New Divide" without the normal interludes; instead, a new extended intro titled the "Moscow Intro" was used before the song to open the set.
"New Divide" found itself in the middle of the sets for most of the Living Things era setlists. During the 2012 European Tour, it was featured mid-set between "Somewhere I Belong" and "Lies Greed Misery" in the headline set and near the end of the main set in the festival set. Three new sets debuted on the Honda Civic Tour, "New Divide" being featured mid-set in both Set A and Set C, while being third in the setlist in Set B. The song didn't really move for the rest of the tour, since these setlists were used for the rest of the world tour. At the show in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the song was aborted before the breakdown to address the rowdy crowd.
An abridged version of "New Divide" was performed for much of The Hunting Party touring cycle. For the setlist the band performed on the 2014 Summer European Tour, the song was featured near the end of the setlist, transitioning directly out of the shortened version of "Crawling". "New Divide" was performed without its first chorus and second verse. The song remained the same on the Carnivores Tour, featuring second in the encore in Set A with a transition outro into "Crawling" and third in the encore of Set B before "Until It's Gone". The song was not performed at the first show of the tour in West Palm Beach, Florida due to the band coming onstage extremely late and having to delay the set. On the short-lived 2015 North American Tour, "New Divide" was featured second in the encore after "A Place For My Head" in Set A with its transition outro into "Crawling" and third in Set B's encore, after "Lost In The Echo". The studio version of "New Divide" returned during the run of North American Summer Shows, where it was performed mid-set after Joe's Solo Medley. It remained in this position for the rest of the tour.
"New Divide" was performed mid-set on the One More Light cycle, not really seeing much movement or activity during the tour. Linkin Park performed the shortened version of the song at the Hollywood Bowl tribute show for Chester, as they performed the song instrumentally with a pre-recorded performance of Chester (from the band's 2014 Hollywood Bowl performance).
On the From Zero World Tour, "New Divide" was played towards the end of Act 1. It had a shortened version of the "Moscow Intro" the band had previously used twice during the A Thousand Suns cycle.
Variations
Last Updated: November 23, 2024
| Type | Description | First Played | Last Played |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intro | Synth Intro | June 17, 2009 | September 11, 2011 |
| Intro | Synth Intro w/ Keyboard | August 2, 2009 | August 22, 2009 |
| Intro | Short Synth Intro | October 27, 2010 | December 8, 2012 |
| Intro | Moscow Intro | June 23, 2011 | September 25, 2011 |
| Intro | Shortened Moscow Intro | September 11, 2024 | November 16, 2024 |
| Outro | Transition Outro into "Crawling" | August 6, 2014 | January 18, 2015 |
| Alternative | Shortened (No First Chorus or Second Verse) | May 24, 2014 | October 27, 2017 |
Live Guests
Last Updated: September 10, 2016
- Benjamin Chandler (replacing Brad Delson)
- David Schmitt (Breathe Carolina)
- Warren Willis (replacing Joe Hahn)
Promotion
In June 2010, the Linkin Park Underground teamed up with Linkin Park's biggest fansites at the time (LPAssociation.com, LPLive.net, and LPTimes.com) to bring fans giveaways of a free regular LPU9 membership and a grand prize exclusive to each site. To enter, fans simply had to answer a question posted on each site by replying to the news post. The contest was open to international fans and the winners were randomly selected from those who entered between the period of June 1st to June 6th. LPAssociation's grand prize was a set piece from the "New Divide" music video.[13]
Awards and Nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Scream Awards | Scream Song Of The Year | Won |
Personnel
Lyrics
I remembered black skies, the lightning all around me
I remembered each flash as time began to blur
Like a startling sign that fate had finally found me
And your voice was all I heard that I get what I deserve
So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide
There was nothing in sight but memories left abandoned
There was nowhere to hide, the ashes fell like snow
And the ground caved in between where we were standing
And your voice was all I heard that I get what I deserve
So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes across this new divide
In every loss, in every lie, in every truth that you'd deny
And each regret and each goodbye was a mistake too great to hide
And your voice was all I heard that I get what I deserve
So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide
Across this new divide, across this new divide
Gallery
-
Single
-
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - The Album
-
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - The Score
-
Original background image used on the cover
In Other Media
- "New Divide" is featured in the 2009 film Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and was included in its soundtrack album.
- "New Divide" is featured in the 2010 film The Last Shot.
- "New Divide" (in both studio and 8-bit versions) is featured in Linkin Park's 2010 videogame 8-Bit Rebellion!.
- "New Divide" is featured in the trailer for the 2010 videogame Medal Of Honor.
- "New Divide" was released in 2012 as part of a DLC for the 2010 videogame Rock Band 3.
- "New Divide" was used in a 2015 promo video for the Mercedes-AMG C 63.
Cover Versions
American metal act Danger Silent recorded a rendition of "New Divide" in collaboration with hip-hop/pop group SolSmash in 2012. A music video recorded at AVM Recordings in Phoenix, Arizona is available on SolSmash's YouTube channel.[14]
External Links
- New Divide (Music Video): WMG | MTV | Vimeo | VK
- New Divide (Music Video) [Band version]: LPTV
- New Divide (Moscow 2011) - LPTV | Paramount Pictures France
- New Divide (Rio+Social 2012) - The Live Room
References
- ↑ Linkin Park Fans: A Rare Opportunity to Own a Piece of | Reverb News, April 02, 2018
- ↑ MusicRadar, July 2012
- ↑ MikeShinoda, March 2009
- ↑ MikeShinoda, April 2009
- ↑ Did Hans Zimmer Help With The Transformers 2 Score?, May 01, 2009
- ↑ MikeShinoda, May 2009
- ↑ Mike Shinoda: Transformers Song Name, May 7, 2009
- ↑ MikeShinodaClan Ultimate-Guitar Interview, June 2009
- ↑ BLABBERMOUTH.NET - LINKIN PARK Reunites With Director MICHAEL BAY For Summer Blockbuster, May 07, 2009
- ↑ Twitch: Mike Shinoda - 9.22 / A little more DF3 art, then maybe a track?, September 22, 2020
- ↑ Waiting For The End & The Catalyst VFX Details | LP Association Forums, October 14, 2010
- ↑ Linkin Park - New Divide (2009) | IMVDb
- ↑ LPAssociation.com, LPLive.net, & LPTimes.com Exclusive Contests! | LP Association Forums, June 01, 2010
- ↑ SolSmash - "New Divide" (Linkin Park cover) - YouTube, February 14, 2012