American rock band Linkin Park has recorded material for seven studio albums, the most recent being One More Light, in 2017. The band was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1996 by high school friends Mike Shinoda, Rob Bourdon and Brad Delson. The group later expanded to a six-piece when they added Joe Hahn, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell and Mark Wakefield to the line-up. Mark Wakefield was later changed to lead vocalist Chester Bennington. After facing numerous rejections from several major record labels, Linkin Park turned to Jeff Blue for additional help. After failing to catch Warner Bros. Records attention on three previous attempts, Jeff Blue, now the vice president of Warner Bros. Records, helped the band sign a deal with the company in 1999. The band released its breakthrough album, Hybrid Theory, the following year. The album spawned four singles, "One Step Closer", "Crawling", "Papercut" and "In the End". The album included a total of twelve songs, with two additional special edition tracks available in Japan. Later in 2002, the band released a remix album, Reanimation, which would include works from Hybrid Theory and non-album tracks. Reanimation debuted on July 30, 2002, featuring the likes of Black Thought, Jonathan Davis, Aaron Lewis and many others. Reanimation claimed the second spot on the Billboard 200 and sold nearly 270,000 copies during its debut week. The remix album included twenty remixed songs, mainly hip hop-influenced.
Following the success of the two releases, the band released Meteora in early 2003. Meteora spawned five singles, "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb", "From the Inside" and "Breaking the Habit", which received significant radio attention. The album included twelve songs which included some non-single hits like "Session" and "Lying from You". "Lying from You" peaked on the Alternative Songs charts. "Session", an instrumental track from the album, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 2004. The band then released a mashup CD/DVD set, "Collision Course", with rapper Jay-Z on November 30, 2004. It reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 upon its release. The extended set contained six songs recorded overnight. The song "Dirt off Your Shoulder/Lying from You", being a non-single, charted in the UK single charts. Linkin Park returned to the recording studios in 2006 to work on new material. To produce the album, the band chose producer Rick Rubin. Despite initially stating the album would debut sometime in 2006, it was delayed until 2007. Warner Bros. Records officially announced that the band's third studio album, Minutes to Midnight, would be released on May 15, 2007 in the United States. After spending fourteen months working on the album, the band members opted to further refine their album by removing five of the original seventeen tracks. Minutes to Midnight sold over 625,000 copies in its first week, making it one of the most successful debut-week albums in recent years. The album also took the top spot on the Billboard charts. The album included the singles "What I've Done", "Shadow of the Day", "Bleed It Out", "Given Up" and "Leave Out All the Rest". The album contained politically-concerned and environmentally-concerned songs such as "Hands Held High", "No More Sorrow" and "What I've Done".