No more room for doubt: the official League of Legends Twitter account has outright named Linkin Park's "Heavy Is The Crown" as the anthem for Riot Games' 2024 League of Legends Season World Championship! The song will be used in promotional materials during the lead-up to, and all throughout, the Worlds event, which kicks off on September 25. Per the announcement tweet, the song and its League-themed music video will be premiered on the official League of Legends YouTube channel at 8 AM PT on September 24. The very brief snippet of the song heard in the preview features a typical Linkin Park octave guitar part paired with dramatic string flourishes over an uptempo rock rhythm - it's no surprise that fans have likened it to "Faint". In addition to being released in partnership with League of Legends, "Heavy Is The Crown" also serves as the second single taken from Linkin Park's upcoming eighth studio album From Zero ahead of its November 15 release, with lead single "The Emptiness Machine" having been unleashed earlier this month on September 5. Fans who attended Linkin Park's most recent live show in Hamburg have actually heard "Heavy Is The Crown" in full ahead of everyone else as the band performed it live for the first time. Video recordings from audience members have since made the rounds, revealing that the song features rap verses by Mike Shinoda as well as a fittingly-anthemic chorus led by Emily Armstrong. These classic Linkin Park dynamics paired with an energetic symphonic rock sound have garnered a positive reception from fans worldwide, and created a lot of hype for the song's full release. Linkin Park is still in the middle of a 6-date world tour ahead of the From Zero album release in mid-November, and it is not unlikely that "Heavy Is The Crown" will continue to be part of the setlists for the remaining dates. Are you excited for this new single? Talk about it on our message board! Source: League of Legends on Twitter
I have not listened to any preview, snippet or anything but from what i can see - people seemed to like it (?) Im so hyped.
Yeah I liked it. Very LP. What I also like: The fact "lpassociation" is top of my predicted google search again.
When Mike attended Arcane's first season premiere randomly, I don't think anyone ever expected the band to have a brand new song in the soundtrack of season 2 let alone be the anthem of LoL World. What a month it has been for LP fans.
My general advice would be to wait a bit too... killer song live but I couldn't make out the synths and more subtile melodies at the show very well. The snippet gives a whole new dimension to the song already.
I had to admit I listened to that snippet at least ten times lmao. I remembered the old days of early internet teasing. Just one more sleep. Let's go!
I've rewatched it a few times because I'm excited for some cool performance footage. Expecting this video to be much better than the "Emptiness Machine" one
The band look like they’re Noxian in the preview. Considering the end of S1 of Arcane, no doubt the board takes Ambessa up on her advice to go to war.
@Kevin and I could use more knowledge of this kind in describing the video once it's out - I'm not a League player myself
That might be as far as it goes in the video, Noxus is coming to Piltover to squash Zaun and LP is tied in with the military industrial complex that is Noxus, but I’ll definitely be looking closely tomorrow! Me and several others on here, I’m sure. edit; Every part of me is like ‘This is my time!’ But my kid is pretty demanding in the AM which I think is when it releases.
FROM THE INSIDE - Takes place in a riot. BLEED IT OUT - Riot/fight breaks out in a bar. SHADOW OF THE DAY - Takes place in a riot. THE CATALYST - Riots, now with color grenades! PTS.OF.ATHRTY - Riots, now with robots instead of humans! And, the grand finale... HEAVY IS THE CROWN - Riot Games made this music video.
I would appreciate context if there's any because I really do NOT know any LoL at ALL. Btw tomorrow at 8PM PT is the video premiere, but is the song as well? Will we have the song earlier on streaming platforms?
We're not sure. The focus of these things is typically the video, I don't know if it's typical for the songs to be brand-new and mostly never-before-heard. There's a lot about these Worlds partnerships that isn't easy to catch up on if you're completely new to it all BIG EDIT: So I've taken a look around, and it looks like what we see in the (very) quick preview indicates a strong Arcane influence in the visual style and presentation, something which is fairly new and which might set the "Heavy Is The Crown" video apart from previous anthem videos - in fact, bringing it closer to music videos made to promote Arcane (natch). The fact that the band is shown performing the song in the preview is another sign pointing in this direction. Artists in previous anthem videos have sometimes been depicted in the chosen animated style of the specific video and worked into the plot or theme as characters - "STAR WALKIN'" is the most obvious example - but I don't think there's ever been outright performance footage prior to now. However, that isn't the case for Arcane music videos, where performance footage is used sparingly (example here), so that's another link to the show. This doesn't necessarily mean "Heavy Is The Crown" has been tapped for the Arcane soundtrack, just that Arcane has probably had a big influence on this video, which isn't a huge surprise given Shinoda's documented love of the show and its immense popularity. Other things: Still completely in the dark in terms of what lore and such will be referenced because I've never been a League fan, so just reiterating that we would love any context we can get Is it typical for an anthem to be a never-before-heard single taken from an upcoming major album release like this? Or are they usually standalone songs that later get tacked onto a subsequent album by the artist?
I wanna be wrong but I have to assume that there won't be a lot of performance footage in the music video. Just because that Arcane visual style is A LOT of work to do. Like season 1 took like 6 years to make. It was mentioned in interviews how long it took. Even if the music video is 2-3 minutes, that's still a lot of time to put into it. I can see them put few snippets of the performance mixed with LOL stuff and maybe Arcane stuff.
Showing my work on this one to be more informative than word of mouth. The outfits that the band are in are staple Noxus red and black. I feel really safe saying they look like they’re part of their military. My source, linked to Arcane, is the Arcane S1 character Ambessa. Her garb is similar in style and identical in color scheme. It’s reasonable to assume that LP may get the Imagine Dragon’s treatment in that they may be inserted into the actual show briefly, however, I don’t think that Garen-tees much about Arcane S2 being teased in the MV outside of the inference that one could make that Noxus has been taken up on their offer to be involved in the fight against Zaun per Ambessa’s advice to fight coupled with Jinx’s explosion at the end of S1. The video could just be them rocking out in that room in Noxian gear and that could be it for plot hints and relations until the season’s release. They’ve all been standalone and occasionally bonuses. (Thanks for the correction in the shoutbox.) Also, if I’m not mistaken, HITC is the first Worlds anthem to also be tied to Arcane.
.vis really makes a good point. The knowledge we’ll really probably have to fish for is the names of the pros featured and maybe IG Champions. I’m off topic and speculating. I expect their Noxian appearance to be a functional nub on their puzzle piece!, but this is the World’s anthem video first.