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Linkin Park joins iTunes party
Longtime digital holdouts add two bonus tracks to each of their albums, as well as an iTunes-exclusive track; upcoming album delayed.
Linkin Park
Linkin Park, one of the last remaining holdouts from the iTunes Music Store, has agreed to allow its catalog to be sold in iTunes starting today.
And to make up for the delay to its fans, the rap-rock act has added two bonus tracks apiece to iTunes versions if its multiplatinum albums Meteora, Hybrid Theory, and Reanimation, as well as a third iTunes-exclusive track.
"We were really excited when iTunes told us that we were one of their most requested acts," Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda said in a statement. "We will never ignore our fans and the timing seemed right to make our music available, with some special additions."
iTunes is also now selling the video content featured on the group's Live in Texas and Collision Course DVDs, the latter of which is the band's collaboration with Jay-Z.
The addition of the Linkin Park catalog to iTunes, in addition to the recent decisions by Metallica and Bob Seger to end holdouts of their own, leaves few remaining heavyweights among those not selling their music on iTunes, namely the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Garth Brooks, and Radiohead.
Linkin Park is still working on its follow-up to 2003's Meteora with acclaimed producer Rick Rubin, and it sounds like a planned release for later this year isn't going to happen. "At this point we don't see that happening," Shinoda told fans last week during an online chat. "We're doing really well, but we just need a little more time."
"We have narrowed it down to about 30-50 songs, and some of those are heavy, some are softer and some are in between," he continued. "So far it has a different sound that I cannot describe. It sounds like it's older, but not vintage. More organic in some spots, like just yesterday we recorded a song with no samples that is completely raw. Other songs are full of samples."
The band debuted one new song before 85,000 fans in Japan earlier this month. The lyrics for the song, dubbed "Qwerty," were written on the plane ride to Japan, Shinoda said.
"I'm not sure if it'll make the album, but we liked the song enough to play it," he said.
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