Linkin Park

Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, and Rob Bourdon, all highschool friends in Agoura Hills California, formed their own band in 1994 and named it Xero. After highschool they began to take it more seriously and recruited Joe Hahn, Dave Phoenix, and and Mark Wakefield in 1996. Although they had limited equipment they started recording in Shinodas bedroom studio. Frustrations grew when they failed to land a few record deals and with little success Wakefield left the band in 1998 leaving them with no vocalist. After a year of searching for a replacement Jeff Blue, president of Zomba Music, referred Chester Bennington to their band, and he joined in 1999. The band changed their name from Xero to Hybrid Theory and began working on new material with Bennington. A little while later they changed their name again to Linkin Park, and although they were working hard they still could not land any record deals. Finally Jeff Blue now vice president of Warner Bros. Records helped the group sign a deal with them in middle 1999, and now having a record deal they released their first album.

In 2000 the band released their first album, Hybrid Theory, on October 24, 2000, and more then half of there work from recent years was on there. New fans emerged to the liking of the the band and the album sold more then 4.8 million records during its first year and earning best selling album of 2001. A few singles from the album were featured on movies such as Valentine, Little Nicky, and a few others. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9-eAYHooUo"Crawling"). The album catapulted their success to great heights, they were invited into many tours, in just one year they played 320 concerts.

In 2001 they began working on a remix album called Reanimation, it was released July 30th 2002 and sold just over 270,000 copies in just one week. In 2002 they spent alot of time touring the US and while traveling they started new material. Meteora featured the bands nu metal and raprock along with their recent heavy rock, they also included a shakuhachi along with other unusual instruments. The album was released March 25, 2003, it sold more then 800,000 copies only in its first week and reached #1 in the US and UK, and #2 in Australia. By October 2003 the album sold about 3 million copies. After this success the band played a few concerts and worked with Blindside, Mudvayne and a few others. A few of the singles from this album were "Numb"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7VvkZY3VVk), "Somewhere I Belong"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCD5XCu6CM), "Breaking the Habit", and "Faint"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesOnXMcaBk). The album won them a few awards like Best Artist of the Year, and Song of the Year.

2004 the band took a break and instead of starting new material they spent the beginning of the year touring the world. After that each of them went to work with different bands for a while. They began another remix album with Jay-Z and that album was titled Collision Course. Shinoda also formed a new band, Fort Minor, as a side project, and with the help of Jay-Z they started to become a hit also. During that time their deal with Warner Bros. Records was slowly sinking because of some trust and finacial issues, and finally after a few months of feuds they made a deal in November 2005.
They also participated in some charity projects for Hurricane Charley in 2004 and later Hurricane Katrina in 2005. They also played 8 worldwide concerts with Jay-Z for Tsunami relief. For many of the concerts they played Numb/Encore, their single from the remix album(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N54gFc2FpPM).

In 2006 they began working on new material for the new album, they recorded 30-50 songs. It was released on May 15, 2007 and was titled Minutes to Midnight. The new album strayed away from the previous nu metal and although it had a few songs with rapping most of the album had new material altogether. The band explained they wanted to experiment their range in genre. It sold over 600,000 copies in the US alone in its first week.
The first single was "What I've Done"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sgycukafqQ), then "Bleed it Out" which lead more too their recent rap rock(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnuuYcqhzCE), "Shadow of the Day"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_eEE12R8Gw), and finally "Given Up"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_eEE12R8Gw).
Now recently the band has been touring worldwide for their last album Minutes to Midnight.

Linkin Park is one of my favorite bands, their music is great, their influential. I think its great how they're trying new genres but still sticking too their old music. They've been through alot but they never gave up and in the end it won them major fame.