Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023

*Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023*
Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023
Compilation by Linkin Park
Recorded:	2000-2016
Released:	April 12, 2024
Format:	CD, Vinyl, Digital, Cassette
Length:	67:56
Linkin Park Compilation chronology
Linkin Park Compilation chronology
Songs From The Underground (2008)	Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023 (2024)

Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023 is a career-spanning compilation album released by Linkin Park. The album includes a selection of 18 of the band's greatest hits handpicked by the band members themselves as well as the fan favorite song "QWERTY" and a previously unreleased song called "Friendly Fire". The latter was released as the lead single of the album on February 23, 2024, which renders the subtitle Singles Collection 2000-2023 inaccurate.

Composition

Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023 is a collection of the most popular Linkin Park songs, being composed of 16 out of the 18 top streamed Linkin Park songs on Spotify at the time of its release, with "Given Up" (17th most played) and "Heavy" (15th most played) being replaced with "Lost" (24th most played) and "Waiting For The End" (27th most played). The order of the songs was changed to give a better flow to the tracklist.

Because of the method used to pick the songs, the compilation omits Platinum-certified (RIAA) singles "Shadow Of The Day" (23rd most played), "Given Up" and "Heavy".

Papercuts includes songs from every studio album released by Linkin Park with the exception of The Hunting Party. In total, there are four songs from Hybrid Theory, four songs from Meteora, three songs from Minutes To Midnight, one song from A Thousand Suns, two songs from Living Things and one song from One More Light.

Two versions of "Numb" are present on the album, one being the original studio version from Meteora and the other being "Numb/Encore", a mash-up recorded with Jay-Z for the collaborative EP Collision Course.

Other songs in the compilation are "QWERTY", a song recorded during the Minutes To Midnight sessions and originally released on the fan club exclusive EP LP Underground 6.0; "New Divide", a song created during the A Thousand Suns sessions exclusively for the Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen soundtrack; "Lost", a song from the Meteora sessions released as a single in 2023 to promote the 20th anniversary edition of the album; and "Friendly Fire", a previously unreleased song from the One More Light sessions, during which Linkin Park recorded their last songs with original singer Chester Bennington.

Although "QWERTY", one of the most popular LPU tracks, was previously released in other compilation albums, Papercuts marks the first time the song received a widespread release in digital music platforms. The track was edited especially for the compilation, being similar to the version first included on Songs From The Underground but without the silence at end, making the duration of the track shorter.

Despite being a singles collection, the album versions were used for the majority of the songs included in the compilation instead of their respective single edits. All songs were edited to remove their album transitions and some tracks were made to segue into the next one in order to create a gapless compilation. This process resulted in songs that are different from their album and single counterparts.

In the past Mike Shinoda had stated he was against the idea of doing a greatest hits compilation. In an interview to NME, he explained, “I don’t love putting out Greatest Hits stuff or putting out re-masters of things we’ve done, [so] if we were to do a re-reissue of one of our Linkin Park albums, we want it to be a big deal. If we can’t make it that quality then we won’t do it. If it’s not great then I don’t think we should do it.”^[1]

On the press release of the album, he said:

“In the making of each Linkin Park album, I want to love and believe in each individual song completely. I hope that if any one track is heard on its own in the world, it is something I can feel proud of, and something that takes root inside the listener and becomes part of the energy that connects us.

Curating the tracks for Papercuts was a joy. Each song in this collection is both a singular moment on our timeline and an evolving story that is as much ours as it is yours. From our first release ‘One Step Closer’ to the brand-new ‘Friendly Fire,’ this tracklist spans all our chapters so far. Thank you for being a part of our journey. We hope you enjoy Papercuts.” ^[2]

When questioned why The Hunting Party isn't represented in the compilation, Mike answered, "ask brad why certain songs aren't on it. i voted for more songs"^[3]

Releases

Pre-orders for the Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023 launched on February 22, 2024 at 12:15 EST globally. It was released on April 12, 2024 in digital, softpack CD, vinyl 2LP and fluorescent green cassette formats. The latter was marketed as having an extremely limited production.^[4]

Several different variations of vinyls were released, with a Black vinyl being the only one widely available. A Clear, Black & Red Splatter vinyl^[5] and a Bone vinyl were exclusive to DACH countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) in Europe - the Bone vinyl also being exclusive to JPC^[6] - and a Yellow & Black Splatter Vinyl was available exclusively to Linkin Park’s top listeners on Spotify.^[7] The Bone vinyl was exclusive to Target in the United States and exclusive to JB Hi-Fi in Australia.^[8]^[9] The official Linkin Park store also had two exclusive limited edition vinyl variations with a grayscale version of the cover art, one of them being a Zoetrope designed by Drew Tetz featuring animation that can be viewed with a phone camera and the other one being a Sky Blue & Tangerine Splatter vinyl.^[10]^[11] The Zoetrope Picture Disc was limited to 7,000 units. Other store exclusive variations were a Milky Clear vinyl exclusive to Barnes & Noble^[12] and a Dark Grey Recycled Color vinyl exclusive to Walmart.^[13] This was the first time that "QWERTY" was made available on vinyl.

Besides standalone items, four bundles were available on the Linkin Park store:

Papercuts Choice of Album and T-Shirt: includes a Papercuts Reflection Black T-Shirt and a choice between one of five Papercuts album formats.^[14]
Papercuts Vinyl Collectors Bundle: includes Black Vinyl 2LP and Papercuts Zoetrope Picture Disc Vinyl 2LP.^[15]
All Music Bundle: includes Sky Blue & Tangerine Splatter Vinyl 2LP, Zoetrope Picture Disc Vinyl 2LP, Fluorescent Green Cassette, Standard CD, Standard Black Vinyl 2LP.^[16]
Splatter Vinyl & Limited Edition Print (UK Exclusive): This bundle contains the Papercuts Sky Blue & Tangerine Splatter Vinyl 2LP limited pressing featuring special edition gatefold packaging and Papercuts Limited Edition Print - exclusive to UK store customers only. Limited to 300 copies and shipping from Tuesday 16th April this exclusive 12" x 12" print is printed on 300gsm stock with a satin coat.^[17]

Pressing Errors

On digital editions of Papercuts, the unedited album versions of the songs were included in the compilation. As a result, "Leave Out All The Rest" has the transition to "Bleed It Out" at the end of the song and "Papercut" has the transition to "One Step Closer" at the end despite the songs not being in sequence in the compilation. In addition to that, a few songs include transitions to songs not present in the compilation such as "Breaking The Habit", which includes the transition to "From The Inside", and "Waiting For The End", which includes the transition to "Blackout". Songs like "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Breaking The Habit", "Bleed It Out" and "What I've Done" which originally transitioned from other tracks have the transition start.

Fans have reported that some CD and vinyl pressings of Papercuts have versions of the songs with their original album transitions while others have the songs without transitions, like "[[.^[18]^[19]

The center label of vinyls have a length of 4:24 for "Friendly Fire" instead of 2:56. Other songs have the length of their respective album versions.^[20]^[21]

Some fans who ordered the Zoetrope Picture Disc received only one Zoetrope disc, with the second disc being from the Dark Grey Recycled Color vinyl.^[22]

Track Listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Originally Released	Length
1	Crawling	Linkin Park	Hybrid Theory (2000)	3:29
2	Faint	Linkin Park	Meteora (2003)	2:42
3	Numb/Encore	Linkin Park	Collision Course (2004)	3:25
4	Papercut	Linkin Park	Hybrid Theory (2000)	3:05
5	Breaking The Habit	Linkin Park	Meteora (2003)	3:16
6	In The End	Linkin Park	Hybrid Theory (2000)	3:36
7	Bleed It Out	Linkin Park	Minutes To Midnight (2007)	2:44
8	Somewhere I Belong	Linkin Park	Meteora (2003)	3:34
9	Waiting For The End	Linkin Park	A Thousand Suns (2010)	3:51
10	Castle Of Glass	Linkin Park	Living Things (2012)	3:25
11	One More Light	Linkin Park	One More Light (2017)	4:15
12	Burn It Down	Linkin Park	Living Things (2012)	3:50
13	What I've Done	Linkin Park	Minutes To Midnight (2007)	3:25
14	QWERTY	Linkin Park	LP Underground 6.0 (2006)	3:22
15	One Step Closer	Linkin Park	Hybrid Theory (2000)	2:37
16	New Divide	Linkin Park	Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)	4:29
17	Leave Out All The Rest	Linkin Park	Minutes To Midnight (2007)	3:29
18	Lost	Linkin Park	Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition) (2023)	3:19
19	Numb	Linkin Park	Meteora (2003)	3:07
20	Friendly Fire	Linkin Park	Previously Unreleased	2:56

Note: The track lengths were taken from the digital edition of the album and may differ from physical editions due to pressing errors.

Personnel

Linkin Park

Chester Bennington
Rob Bourdon
Brad Delson
Phoenix
Joe Hahn
Mike Shinoda

Production

Tracks 1, 4, 6, 15 Produced by Don Gilmore
Tracks 2, 5, 8, 18, 19 Produced by Don Gilmore and Linkin Park
Tracks 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17 Produced by Rick Rubin and Mike Shinoda
Tracks 3, 16 Produced by Mike Shinoda
Tracks 11, 20 Produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson

Management

Worldwide Representation: Machine Shop Entertainment - Bill Silva, Ryan DeMarti, Trish Evangelista and Lorenzo Errico
Booking Agency: Dennis Arfa and Michael Arfin of Artist Group International
Europe Booking Agency: Scott Thomas, Jennie Wells and Sarah Medley 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 Records: Atticus George Carroll
Business Managers: Todd Gelfand, Jeff Gillman, Gloria Balanay and Michael Altschuler for Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, LLP
Publicity: Laura Swanson for Warner Records
UK Publicity: Lauren Hales
A&R Coordination: Ryan DeMarti and Robin Hurley
Marketing Director: Peter Standish