Mike Shinoda reminded of Linkin Park with a new song
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For Linkin Park fans, the release of Mike Shinoda’s solo single is one of the most important news in recent years. The key writer of the band that defined the rock sound of the new millennium is making music under his own name again, and it sounds like Linkin Park is still in business.
The song, called Already Over, released by Mike, is reminiscent of a modern rock action movie in the best traditions of the genre. A catchy melody, a mixture of guitars, electronics and hip-hop, typical of the early 2000s; it seems to be nothing new, but it’s hard to remain indifferent. And this is exactly the track that immediately provokes questions about the intention to return to the sound that made Linkin Park famous.
“From the very beginning of working on Already Over, I felt that this track had the DNA of Linkin Park. Of course, thoughts came into my head: “Should I get rid of this? Maybe it’s better to stay away? But then I realized that I wouldn’t like to cut anything that reminded me of Linkin Park from the song. It’s better to accept it and leave the song the way I came up with it,” says Mike Shinoda.
At forty-six years old, Mike can certainly trust his own musical intuition. After all, Mike won his first music competition with a full-fledged original work at the age of twelve, that is, he began writing music that people might like quite a long time ago. Linkin Park was formed from Mike’s school and university friends. Already the first album Hybrid Theory (2000) became a bestseller, and for the next seventeen years (during which time six more major releases were released), the group destroyed stadiums and collected tons of awards.
Unfortunately, fame and wealth did not relieve the lead singer of the group, Chester Bennington, from severe depression, and in July 2017, the musician took his own life. After this tragedy, the remaining members of the group tried to find prospects for Linkin Park, but so far they have not succeeded. Mr. Shinoda, meanwhile, was clearly not idle.
A year after Chester’s death, he released the album Post Traumatic under his own name, which became a way for Mike to cope with the loss of a friend. Then there was the Open Door EP and the Dropped Frames album, released in two parts. Mike’s music ranged from rock to very sophisticated trip-hop, but the fans (the musician often involved them in co-creating tracks using Internet streams) were generally satisfied.
Until recently, Shinoda was a trainer, writing and producing music for Demi Lovato, PVRIS, Grandson and other artists. At the same time, he himself tried to avoid the microphone. And now Mike has remembered himself as an independent artist and is preparing a lot of material, an idea of which is given by the single Already Over. In an interview, Mike calls his work on behalf of others a very useful experience, which allowed him to look at what he did in Linkin Park from different angles.
“Musical technology can do a lot now, but we didn’t let the instruments dictate our melodies and came into the studio with an understanding of what we wanted to say and sing,” Mike notes to NME. “When Linkin Park was still a young band, I would just do my own shit and if it sounded cool, I’d add lyrics to it. Now I remember some of those texts and think: “Yes, that was a young guy.” Over time I learned a lot more about songwriting. If you care, it’s an art you can get better at while you’re at it. I am not a fully formed artist now. I just feel like I’m doing things that really excite me.”
It must be admitted that even during his busy time at Linkin Park, Mike was able to find time for a variety of activities. In the 2000s, he created the Fort Minor project, released two albums under this banner and did not go unnoticed in the charts, at music awards, and also appeared with his songs in the soundtracks of various films. The BFA in Illustration was not wasted either. Shinoda painted pictures, designed Linkin Park albums, and even appeared in a collaboration with the shoe brand DC Shoes. However, all this is just an add-on to the musical basis of Linkin Park, and there is a high probability that Mike’s new project will grow using methods that have already been tested many times.
“I wrote music for Linkin Park in much the same way that I write my own,” Mike says. “A lot of people think that bands just get together in the studio, jam and write a song. But we never did that. Tried it several times over the years, but it didn’t help. As a result, I come up with many of my songs myself. For Linkin Park, I first made instrumental demos. Then I asked Chester to sing to make the demo more presentable, and only after that we showed it to everyone else.”
Six years after Chester’s death, Linkin Park’s music still has a powerful unifying force for the band’s fans. All predictions that the musicians will nevertheless begin to create new material, and then, probably, go on tour, have no basis yet. However, the band members try not to leave their fans without good news.
In the fall of 2020, in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the Hybrid Theory album, a real musical Klondike was released. All songs from the original release plus twelve unreleased tracks, dozens of videos and a hefty tome with thousands of archival photographs.
This year, the musician intends to pull off a similar trick with the album Meteora, which also turns twenty years old. There are rumors about elegant vinyl and CD sets and a bunch of all sorts of rarities. The search for such fan pleasures, of course, is of great importance in maintaining the legend, but Mike’s new music has the chance to become a more coherent continuation of the Linkin Park story. Well, or at least sound good.
Newspaper headline:
DNA of legend
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