Things move quick in the world of Linkin Park these days, just days after getting the first snippet of Friendly Fire this Monday, we now have the full song and a music video to boot. The song's lyrics speak on interpersonal conflicts when nobody remembers why they ever began, with key lyrics like "What are we fighting for?" Friendly Fire was written, recorded and mixed by the band in the process of making their 2017 album One More Light, and was ultimately left off that album with the intention of releasing it at a later point. Jon Green, who contributed writing and instrumentation to Battle Symphony and Nobody Can Save Me, is credited with writing and production alongside band members Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson on this song. Alongside Green in co-producer roles are Andrew Dawson and Purity Ring's Corin Roddick (finally putting an end to the mystery of whether or not he was involved with the One More Light sessions). The production on Friendly Fire actually puts it neatly alongside those aforementioned Jon Green songs on One More Light, with a big emphasis on the halftime stomp of both live and programmed drum sounds. The rhythm is bolstered with thick bass stabs, while spacious guitar and synth textures round out the instrumentation. At the center, of course, is Chester Bennington's dynamic vocal performance; we hear his low register in the verses, bringing to mind songs like Halfway Right, but, from there, it builds up to an earworm of a refrain, "It's just friendly fire", after the second chorus. The video is directed and edited by the bands long time videographer Mark Fiore, who has directed a few of the band's music videos in the past, like Given Up. He also co-directed the One More Light video alongside Joe Hahn. Fiore typically works with footage he gets of the band in the studio and on tour. Fittingly, the video for Friendly Fire consists of in-studio material and live footage edited together. You can watch it here: So it turns out that the teasing the band did on social media the last few weeks wasn't just for a fun goof, they were teasing the release of their career-spanning greatest hits album, Papercuts! The album collects some of the bands biggest hits from 2020 to 2023, and throws in the the new song Friendly Fire with the fan favourite QWERTY as well. In a statement to Consequence of Sound, Brad Delson had this to say: In addition to the statement from Brad, Billboard.com also got a statement from Mike Shinoda: The pre-order for Papercuts is now live on papercuts.linkinpark.com and it comes out on April 12th. You can get the album in a few different variations: PAPERCUTS STANDARD BLACK VINYL 2LP PAPERCUTS STANDARD CD PAPERCUTS LIMITED EDITION FLUORESCENT GREEN CASSETTE PAPERCUTS LIMITED EDITION ZOETROPE PICTURE DISC VINYL 2LP PAPERCUTS LIMITED EDITION SKY BLUE & TANGERINE SPLATTER VINYL 2LP PAPERCUTS LIMITED EDITION VINYL + T-SHIRT FAN PACK PAPERCUTS CHOICE OF ALBUM & T-SHIRT PAPERCUTS LIMITED EDITION VINYL COLLECTORS BUNDLE PAPERCUTS ALL MUSIC BUNDLE Tracklist: Crawling Faint Numb/Encore Papercut Breaking The Habit In The End Bleed It Out Somewhere I Belong Waiting For The End Castle Of Glass One More Light Burn It Down What I’ve Done QWERTY One Step Closer New Divide Leave Out All The Rest Lost Numb Friendly Fire What do you think of the music video for Friendly Fire? Will you pick up Papercuts? Come and discuss in our forums. Sources: Linkin Park YouTube, Linkin Park Store, Consequence of Sound, Billboard.com
The track didn't do much for me on first listen, nor gave me much will to replay it. That OML era, I just can't get behind it. Not my thing ^^'
Anyhow, I find it sad that the band excluded an entire studio album - THP - from this collection. In my opinion, It doesn't really matter if you think it is a good or bad record. The fact is that it is one of their main body of work - the 2nd most recent one at that. There is a minority of fans out there which consider it (one of) their favorite. To have QWERTY on the collection, and not a single THP track, is quite... The band has now officially made THP the black sheep of the family. Coincidentally, it happens to be the one album that didn't reach N°1 in the charts. Did the relative lack of commercial success play a role in why the band seems to have lost confidence in the record ? At least Mike and Phoenix have been complimentary towards couple of THP tracks in recent years (KTTK, AFN, Mark The Graves), so I doubt the full band hates it. Would be nice to have it cleared up via interviews.
From a fan perspective, I’ve never really understood the appeal of “greatest hits” collections. I already own their albums that have all these songs, why do I need this? One unreleased song is not enough for me to want to buy it. These made sense 20 years ago as a casual listener, but in the digital age where anybody can create a playlist of their favorite songs, who is this really for? QWERTY being included on this is pretty cool, though.
I really like that new song. So cool to hear Chester's voice again. Agreed with @Gibs I won't buy the album just for one song. And I have to side with @Qwerty19. I too find it odd to exclude THP. It's still part of their discography. At least the Final Masquerade or Guilty All The Same could have been included. Oh well, at least we have "new" music from the boys.
I'm with you on this, I've bought "Friendly Fire" and that's literally the only thing on this tracklist that I don't already have. I can't even get excited about single edits because I have them all already I'll have to see later on if any of the tracks have been remastered for this release, 'cause I've heard whispers that that's the case for one or two
Just listened to this now after finishing work and all I can say is wow... I really like this hidden gem! You can tell it has that OML sound and vibe but also sounds different, especially with the drums. I can tell why they didn't include it on OML but boy am I glad they decided to release it now, instead of waiting another 3 years or more for an anniversary edition. Chester's voice is so soothing and yet powerful... love the contrast between the way he sings "what are we fighting for?" in the first chorus and then changes it up in the 2nd chorus with more energy. The bridge is small but nice, like the instrumentation (the drums are well placed and I like the acoustic guitar and gentle riffs) throughout and just love the way it builds up towards the end and the way Chester belts out "FIRE" towards the latter stages of the song and the way his vocals are sort of isolated at the end. Also, I adore the video. I got a little emotional watching it, seeing the whole band together as if we're watching footage from an upcoming album they've been working on as we were usually accustomed to during the record build-ups and then that realisation kicks in that they all won't be together in a room or studio ever again. We still don't know what the future holds and whether they will continue as a 5-piece, continue their hiatus or move onto to other things. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the now and love seeing Linkin Park being discussed and being back out there in the world with something new and fresh, even if it's a singles collection. However, it's great seeing them having such fun when they were creating music together and love the part where Chester is playing the acoustic guitar and smiling. It's such a well put together video and so bittersweet at the same time. It felt like Chester was still here with us and this video and song continues to keep his voice alive and I'm so grateful for that and thankful I got to hear this. I've purchased the Papercuts bundle with the clothes merch and also picked up some copies for my giflfriend and others, who will appreciate this. It feels so surreal getting to hear unreleased Linkin Park music again in 2024 after last year with Lost and Meteora20 and now this singles collection. So, so happy right now!
I'm also with Michele in the sense that I don't really need to buy it but I'll do it anyway. However, I think there are some decisions around this release that raised my eyebrow a little bit, The first one was when I looked at the available items for preorder, it didn't make much sense not to find a combo of the CD plus vinyl, I scrolled the entire thing before deciding to buy them separately. I decided to go with the Zoetrope design to go along with the CD. The 2nd one and most importantly was this. Not one song from The Hunting Party. I find the final tracklist to be somewhat questionable over two topics: a) I do think you can fit more than 20 songs in a CD, I just checked the tracklist length and it stands at 68 minutes. You could add at least one song more, two perhaps. If you can bend the 'greatest hits' rule and have non-singles like QWERTY and Friendly Fire (this one is forgiven bc compilation albums often include at least one new or previously unreleased track), you can definitely bend it again to put in Rebellion, Mark the Graves or A Line in the Sand. Heck, Guilty All the Same would've been fine with me. And b) Since I think two more songs could've fit, I feel The Catalyst needed a place there, it's a song that was crafted nigh-on-perfection and was the presentation card of the era where LP shattered the genre box they were in for good. WFTE, good, I know, but to me The Catalyst is S-Tier. Can't fit on the list? Well, I love QWERTY to bits but on a "Best Of" album by Linkin Park, The Catalyst is quintessential, would swap em any day. Fortunately, those things were not a dealbreaker for me, I'm happy that we get a new song in the situation we're in, but still felt like I needed to mention them.
Official store description says "Papercuts is the first singles collection from innovative musical force Linkin Park." - Might be best not to read too much into it, but I guess there's always the chance for another one, if they want that. Maybe they also just thought those tracks didn't fit this tracklist / its sounds / its flow.
Friendly Fire: I do love the song, - yea its not the most energetic one (obviously) but I absolutely love the track. I never think OML was weak anyway, so for me it fits right into a good 7/10. Definitely going to replay this several times. I love the vocals and the calm rock vibe of the song overall. Not everything needs to be flashy - i love this. Singles Collection: Not sure about this one tho. People being happy about a new song (Friendly Fire) and QWERTY (some might have not heard it before i guess [?])... but tbh i have heard qwerty a trillion times and while i do understand "finally its on spotify", its not like we weren't able to sync local files from our storage on spotify for example either... hm I am not a fan of the stylistic choice of that acid green and the font choices. All in all, i understand the idea of a singles collection, but its just not for me, i might pass on this one. i am happy however for some of the lp fans to reunite again. always amazing to see!
It just doesn't make sense to compile another collection years from now (especially after this one was named "2000-2023") and put the THP song(s) in there like no one would notice. I think this is it and they dropped the ball.
3 more bundles that I didn't have in the original post: PAPERCUTS ALL MUSIC BUNDLE https://linkinpark.warnerartists.net/eu/linkin-park/papercuts-all-music-bundle/0093624843870.html PAPERCUTS LIMITED EDITION VINYL COLLECTORS BUNDLE https://linkinpark.warnerartists.ne...on-vinyl-collectors-bundle/0093624843887.html PAPERCUTS CHOICE OF ALBUM & T-SHIRT https://linkinpark.warnerartists.ne...hoice-of-album-and-t-shirt/0093624843931.html
Yoo, that's a lot of merchandising. I mean, a new song came out of this and, for what it's worth, that's cool. But what's up with the over-prized multi-colored vinyls containing the same stuff? Not on board with this.
People responsible know that some collectors and fans will buy anything that's released, so easy money.
Friendly Fire sounds good, IMO the second best from OML (Heavy being the best)... Seeing the video for the first time, I thought the guys at the beginning listening to the song without Chester was footage from the current time, but when he joined them I almost cried... as if he joined them after all these years or from a dream... I miss him so much.