The mystery and anticipation around Linkin Park's "Heavy Is The Crown" possibly premiering as the official anthem for Riot Games' 2024 Season World Championship has been building and building throughout these past few weeks, as if the band hadn't already made enough of a splash with its dramatic return at the start of the month! Among other things, we saw a vague subtweet, followed by a little hint on linkinpark.com, followed by a surprise live debut of the song in Hamburg ... and, finally, we got a proper announcement putting all the speculation to rest. Now, the "Heavy Is The Crown" music video has premiered on the League of Legends YouTube channel and is out to the public - watch it here: "Heavy Is The Crown" is an immediate, high-energy firecracker. Trademark Linkin Park guitar riffs are complemented with dramatic strings over a breakbeat rhythm, creating a cinematic rock sound fitting for the epic Worlds 2024 championship event. Mike Shinoda delivers some rapping for the verses, making way for a propulsive chorus led by Emily Armstrong. The song reaches its peak in the bridge where it takes a more metal turn, with Armstrong delivering a violent scream likely to shock unprepared first-time listeners. As with previous anthems, "Heavy Is The Crown" has been paired with a League of Legends-themed animated music video. This visual was created with help from French production studio Eddy Animation, known for their work on game cinematics. Its animation style is beyond anything that previous years' videos have presented, combining 2D digital textures and 3D modelling; the end result clearly references the distinctive, cutting-edge look of the League of Legends spin-off series Arcane, marking the first anthem video to reference the show in any capacity. The video primarily depicts last season's League of Legends e-sports world champions, T1 from South Korea (whose roster includes the formidable Faker), defending their title against fierce competition both old and new, using the abilities of in-game Champions. Alongside these riveting battle scenes, the members of Linkin Park are shown rotoscoped and animated for brief performance shots, another first for anthem videos. They appear in outfits that seem to point to Noxian military's preference for red highlights, as seen in Arcane, and are seen rocking out in what could be a Noxian throne room. While the Noxus faction has been featured heavily throughout past League of Legends lore, it has so far only been hinted at in Arcane, and is expected to have a more prominent role in the story during the upcoming second season, set to release later this year. The tenth annual Worlds anthem to date, "Heavy Is The Crown" was previously revealed to be appearing on Linkin Park's upcoming eighth studio album From Zero, coming November 15. These circumstances set it apart from all anthems before it which, by contrast, were written, tailored and released for the Worlds events specifically - until now, no artist has ever premiered an anticipated track from an upcoming album as a Worlds anthem. In a press release quoted by outlets ranging from Kerrang! to Dot Esports, band member Mike Shinoda says of the collaboration: Maria Egan, the Global Head of Music at Riot Games, also comments: The music video's connections to Arcane, although not necessarily very direct, lend strength to recent rumours that "Heavy Is The Crown" will appear in the second season of the show in some capacity. And Mike Shinoda is, of course, a noted Arcane fan ... In the meantime, the song is now also available for listening on digital platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. What do you think of the "Heavy Is The Crown" music video? Is your head spinning from the sheer amount of Linkin Park activity and content that we've gotten just within this month? Let us know on our message board! Source: League of Legends on YouTube Special thanks to @.vis and @ScatterMatter
This might be a bit nit-picky but I wouldn’t describe T1 as current. I’d describe them as last year’s winners. The tournament isn’t structured as a defense, it’s structured by how each team placed and performed in the season leading up to it. The video is more so playing at reputation than tradition. Good summary! edit: It is nit-picky. That description is fine.
It's so cozy! Unapolegetic LP goodness in every fiber of every chord! And that bridge man.. let's go LP!!!
I like this song, but I definitely prefer TEM. People will say this a Faint rip-off which is kinda correct tbh, hopefully the album will have more to offer in terms of creativity. I have nothing to say about the music video.
The song is good and I believe it will be a grower. But I can't shake the impression that it sounds like it's from Lost Demos CD.
The studio version rocks just as hard as the live one! A friend of mine was texting me how he didn’t think she would do the full scream live, so I got to inform she in fact, is. If The Emptiness Machine and Heavy is the Crown are anything to go by, this album is gonna RULE.
*hits buzzer* Um actually, she cuts off at the 11 second mark live, so it's technically not the full scream.
It is so strongly reminiscent of Faint. The bouncy feel, a strings loop, the structure - shoot, some of these drum parts are almost a match one-to-one with Faint! Though Rob's part in the latter song seemed to have a little more groove with the ghost notes, at least to my ears. One of my worries is that having a producer as a drummer might keep that side of things a little limited, but I'll wait to see what the album has to offer. It's a banger for sure. I'm also hoping we get some more variation with the rest of the songs on the album, as much as this rocks. That's always been the band's biggest strength, bringing in new sounds and ideas.
This song is unapologetically an old-school signature LP track, but with a 2024 modern sound and all the mastery they've accumulated through the years. And when it's executed so damn well, I'm all here for it. Love the synth, love the old school hip-hop vibe of the verses and how the bass in the 2nd verse had those tiny subtleties that make the track richer. Also stuff like having a prechorus after the first verse only, and then a reference to it again in the bridge is pretty clever. Keeps a sense of cohesion by having motives repeated at different spots in the track, without being too predictable. And that bridge got such a modern metal/industrial twist to it. Man, I'm making it too long already, but yeah, in summary, dig it. A lot.
Listened to it for the first time on Spotify, then watched the video, and after that the live performance. Oh my God, this song is so good. That scream at the bridge caught me completely off guard, despite the fact that people were raving about it since the Hamburg show. It did not disappoint. Here and in TEM the band managed to show us what Emily's vocals are capable of in terms of raw and gritty. I love it. I don't know why, but I really like how she delivers the "but" in the chorus, I can't explain in musical terms because I'm not educated it but you see how she goes on a lower note on "for" and "sunrise", and during my first listen I expected the same cadence as the chorus went along and that energetic, high "but" stood out for me. It's so good. It's just a single word, but I really appreciated it. As for the video, I enjoyed it, but I guess LoL fans would probably appreciate it a LOT more, I just don't have any context and don't know what I'm seeing lmao. Just that the band is playing and yay, Brad's in it, of course. Next stop, clean vocal Emily?
Great music video. I think they incorporated the band decently into it. Man, I love the animation style. And yeah, I was spot on about the scream being longer in the actual song. Its close to 15 seconds if I'm not mistaken. That's crazy! Great vocals from Emily. Mike being Mike with his rapping, per usual. Could be a positive or a negative. There's a lot more effects on his mellow bits in the actual version, didn't expect that.
This is top tier Linking Park. Which is something I wasn't sure was ever possible again without Chester's vocals. I get goosebumps from the scream onwards every time. It dawned on me that we hadn't heard this signature sound in over ten years (minus the Meteora B-sides).
I’ve listened to this song an ungodly amount of times now, and it’s still just day one… November can’t come soon enough.
I was driving to and from work today listening to TEM and HITC 3-4x over, really soaking it in. It was on the drive home that the urge to sing finally really hit me full force. I did not think I’d ever get the chance to ugly-rap/ugly-sing/ugly-scream brand new and beautifully difficult Linkin Park vocals in my car ever again. But we’re back.