Linkin Park's latest album gains more fans

NEW YORK (AP) — The day after Linkin Park’s latest album was released, its lead singer, Chester Bennington, logged on to iTunes to check some of the reviews. Though the responses weren’t all positive, he liked what he read.

“This time around it’s like they either love it and it’s five-stars across the board or they hate the record so much that... if they could they would throw it at us,” Bennington said. “And I think that’s great.”

While there’s still heavy metal-fused hip-hop on A Thousand Suns, there’s also psychedelic, instrumental moments that are a departure for the Los Angeles-based rap-rockers.

Mike Shinoda says Suns is an album that “asks a lot of attention from people.”

“It’s more of a 48-minute experience than it is just a collection of singles,” said Shinoda, the group’s lead lyricist.

“We really tried to make an album that took you out of your head a little bit... and we wanted to take people on this journey,”

Bennington added. “It’s a musical drug type of thing.”

The new sound wasn’t intentional for the guys. They say while creating 2007’s Minutes to Midnight, they decided to head in a direction different from their first two albums: The 2003 multiplatinum effort Meteora and their 10 million-selling debut, 2000’s Hybrid Theory.

But before creating Suns, the six-member band got busy working on music for its video game Linkin Park Revenge, an app for iPhones. Rick Rubin, who co-produced the new album and also Minutes to Midnight, says making music for the game was the “initial thrust” for the band’s latest sound.

“It was interesting the way it came about because originally they didn’t know that they were starting the album... and it just like kind of took on a life of its own,” Rubin said. “Then we talked about well maybe (if) this is the music that you’re passionate about making, maybe this is where it’s supposed to go.”

The veteran music producer says taking a new approach was best for the band.

“They came out sort at the tail end of the wave of the rap-rock movement... and then when sort of the world of alternative music changed away from that kind of music, they were in kind of a dangerous spot,” Rubin said. “They could have continued making music like that, which they had great success doing, but... I think it would have been a very short-term game.”

Though some fans may not appreciate the new disc, others have.

Suns debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts this month; it also hit the top spot in Europe and Canada.

Bennington says because of the sound the band is known for — a mix of rap and heavy metal — it’s virtually impossible to satisfy its many kinds of fans.

“As artists (making music is) a completely selfish endeavor,” he said. “We’re making music for us, that we like. We’re not making music for other people... We’re not thinking, ‘Let’s make a pie-graph of all our fans and find out how many people fit in whatever category and then make the perfect album for them.’ Like, that would be absolutely ridiculous.