It seems like the band has forgotten about Minutes To Midnight, and the entire Minutes To Midnight cycle. They barely play any of the songs from the album nowadays, and they never mention these songs on the album in interviews or anything, despite talking about virtually almost every other album and playing songs from every other album still. They never talk about the creation of the album, recording at such a legendary place as the Houdini House, etc. And it's one of Chester's least favorite Linkin Park albums, I think, since he said One More Light, The Hunting Party and A Thousand Suns were his favorite albums. Mike seems to acknowledge the album, judging by his Twitter post about the album on it's anniversary this year, but idk. It also seems like the entire touring cycle for the album was forgotten about as well. They never mention the epic Projekt Revolution tours they had for the album, especially even after Chris Cornell just died and he toured with them on one of those tours in support of Minutes To Midnight. Anyone else agree? Minutes is my favorite Linkin Park album and I'm in love with it all, the tour, the making of, all the demos, etc.
I disagree. Anytime they talk about their change in sound, they always praise Minutes to Midnight and Rick Rubin kick-starting all of that.
Nah, they acknowledge that period and album enough. Mike and Brad have referenced MTM a lot as a turning point in how they looked at writing music. They also credited Rick Rubin for getting them to just write songs instead of thinking about the signature LP sound.
What? they currently play What I've Done (since 2007 in the setlist), Bleed It Out (set closer since forever ) and Leave Out All the Rest (with huge extended intro), these are 2 more than THP and 1 more than LT songs that played live.
Mike recently listed LOATR as one of his top 3 LP tracks and a track they enjoy playing live, and they always bring up MtM as the turning point in their careers. THP, on the other hand, they acknowledge it as a niche album and they only play 1 song from it live anymore. If there's any LP album they'll discuss the least in the future, I'd bet it's THP.
Exactly, I'd even go as far to say that they talk about MTM more than any other album bar Hybrid Theory. And sure, they only really play four songs from the album these days, but that's still more than every other album since. I can't remember the last time a set didn't have both BIO and WID in it.
As others have mentioned, Minutes To Midnight has been referenced countless times in One More Light's cycle as the real catalyst for Linkin Park's departure in sound. I do miss the touring cycle for that album though. It's arguably my favourite with the constantly rotating setlist, the extensions to staples like One Step Closer and Faint that breathed new life into them, and the fact they promoted the entire album cover to cover live. The Little Things live was godly, and that curtain drop intro to No More Sorrow stands as my favourite by far of their entire career.
Naturally, many albums fade to the back a bit as more albums come out - but as everyone else has articulated, the band really doesn't forget about Minutes to Midnight. It is always hallmarked for and by them as the moment that they departed from their signature sound and writing style, which set the stage for the diversity of sounds and genres we've seen from them since. Sadly, Minutes to Midnight has been slightly overlooked this time around because the One More Light album cycle happens to coincide with the 10 year anniversary of the release of MTM - but by no means is it a forgotten record by the band or the band's fans!