Meteora Review

Meteora is an album by Linkin Park, first released on March 25 2003.

The album was named after The Meteora. After seeing these monastaries on a trip to Europe, the band was inspired by the way they were built, almost defying gravity. It was this feeling of greatness and awesome accomplishment that Linkin Park wished to convey with their music, thus the name.

Don Gilmore co-produced the album. Linkin Park comprehensively rehearsed the album recording more than 40 choruses for the first single "Somewhere I Belong". Like the band's first album Hybrid Theory, which is the 21st century's highest selling debut album selling 19 million albums worldwide, Meteora was recorded using Pro Tools software. It has sold nearly 10 million albums worldwide, 5.1 million being in the US alone.

This album shows Linkin Park becoming less rapcore. Although there are rap-driven songs (especially Nobody's Listening and Faint), many of the well-received songs of Meteora have little or no rap (such as "Breaking The Habit" and "Numb").

Also interesting to note is the almost complete synchronization of every song throughout the album. The precedent is immediately set with "Foreward," an intro to the album which finishes with a crashing sound (thought by many to be glass breaking, but it is in fact an external CD burner on a wooden table being smashed with an aluminum baseball bat). The sound effect smoothly transitions this cue into the album's first song "Don't Stay." Almost all the songs are likewise linked together, with some instrumental motif carrying over one song into the next. Besides the connection of "Foreword" and "Don't Stay," the album performs this trick best between "Easier to Run" and "Faint," and "Figure.09" and "Breaking the Habit."

"Somewhere I Belong" was the lead single from the album. The music video features Chester singing with the band in a Gregorian-esque hall with flames surrounding it, while the band's rapper, Mike Shinoda, is "preaching" to a group of people wearing "death" cloaks. The band's main lyrics composers Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington rewrote over 40 choruses for the song alone. It is featured on Linkin Park's live CD/DVD, Live in Texas.

According to some sources, "Breaking the Habit" is based on a tragic experience of a friend of Mike Shinoda, who wrote the song. Other sources say that the song, though penned by Shinoda, actually reflects singer Chester Bennington's experience with cocaine. It is arguably one of Linkin Park's most stark and controversial songs. Along with the multitude of theories as to its subject, there are also many ideas about what the song means. Common speculations include suicide, self-mutilation, and drug abuse. Until somewhat recently, Chester could not perform the song live, because he would become too emotional.

The video of the song "Somewhere I Belong" features some surrealistic creatures moving from a painting that may have been inspired by Salvador Dalí's works - possibly The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946) or The Elephants (1948). The video actually fits in context to the song with the idea that Chester "falls" into a dream, an environment created from objects within the room where he falls asleep, reflecting the lyrics; "I wanna find something I wanted all / Along, somewhere I / Belong"

The video of "Faint" was directed by Mark Romanek rather than Joe Hahn, who usually films the band's videos. The video featured a dramatically lit set in which the band was filmed performing the song at a concert, from behind, and so all that can be seen is silouhettes, until after the bridge, at which point the band, as well as the set behind them, can be seen. The video plays on the idea of being ignored (the same idea on which the song was written) and featured a crowd of LP Underground members.

The concept footage of "Numb" was filmed in Prague, completed in Los Angeles. Directed by Hahn, the video revolves around a girl (played by Briana Evigan) who is pressured by everyone around here to be something she cannot be - again, derived from the concept of the song itself.

Around that time, the video for "From The Inside" was also filmed, though Bennington became sick after its completion. In this video there is a riot, with the band playing admist the violence (some of the violent actions of the crowd/police reflect the music). Eventually, a young boy is also among the rioters, and screams; his screaming creates a ripple effect, resultingly causing everyone around him to fall to the ground, unconscious. The video was only released in foreign markets (outside the US) and to the Linkin Park Underground.

"Breaking The Habit", released in 2004, was an unusual video, made entirely through Japanese animation. Concept footage of the band playing was filmed and drawn over. The start of the video reveals a strange city and Chester having jumped off a building and landing on a car. A "ghost" comes out of the body and flies through the piping of an apartment nearby, encountering (not directly) various people with problems in their lives. Among the problems they are facing are drugs and marital problems. Halfway through the video, the events leading up to that point start going backwards in time, and Chester flies back up to the top of the building, where the rest of the band are, performing the remainder of the song. Originally, there was a video composed of live footage, made by Kimo Proudfoot.

Meteora has topped album charts in both the UK and US since its release and has reached #2 in Canada and Australia. It was one of the best selling rock albums of 2003.