24 years in the making, Linkin Park's long-awaited and much-hyped singles collection, "Papercuts", is finally available for you stream and listen to! The 20-track compilation consists mostly of the band's most popular tracks (i.e. the band's most-streamed songs on Spotify) which means that even the most casual Linkin Park fan has already overplayed them to death over the past 2-and-a-half decades. Given the versatility Linkin Park have displayed in their music over the course of their 7 album cycles to date, "Papercuts" is quite varied. Fans who aren't deeply familiar with some of the band's history or never checked out their live shows might be surprised to hear contrasts like "Waiting For The End" next to "Somewhere I Belong", or "New Divide" after "One Step Closer", or just the fact that "Papercut" and "One More Light" are somehow both by the same band. The compilation also includes deep cut "QWERTY", which is a 2006 demo recording originally released on the 2006 fan club exclusive CD "LP Underground 6" (and later also included on a 2008 compilation called "Songs From The Underground"), and "Friendly Fire", a song idea left off 2017's "One More Light" which was updated by band members Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson exclusively for this release. For reasons none of us are able to comprehend, nearly all of the songs on this release are edits straight from their respective albums. This creates some strange moments in the sequencing; at the end of "Breaking The Habit", for example, the guitar feedback intended to lead into "From The Inside" on "Meteora" is still included, sudden cut-off and all. Given that these songs were all released as singles, single edits that omit these transitional elements exist but were oddly not chosen for this singles collection. "Papercuts" tracklist: Crawling Faint Numb / Encore Papercut Breaking The Habit In The End Bleed It Out Somewhere I Belong Waiting For The End CASTLE OF GLASS One More Light BURN IT DOWN What I've Done QWERTY One Step Closer New Divide Leave Out All The Rest Lost Numb Friendly Fire Accompanying the release of "Papercuts" is a visualiser for "QWERTY" masterminded by visual artist Dimitri Thouzery, that seems to be a throwback to the trippy Windows Media Player or iTunes visualisers which you probably hadn't thought about in years. For YouTube Premium subscribers, Linkin Park's channel also uploaded a "behind the song" documentary directed and edited by the band's longtime videographer Mark Fiore. This video features narration by Phoenix explaining the history of "QWERTY", along with footage such as the band trying it out in rehearsals ahead of the 2006 live festival shows where it would debut. In addition, most of the music videos made for the songs in the singles collection have been given 4K upgrades on YouTube and other video platforms. Some of these videos ("Leave Out All The Rest" and "What I've Done" specifically) are from an era before "high-definition" altogether. As we've experienced with previous 4K upgrades of Linkin Park's older music videos, these new versions allow us to see things which were never meant to be viewed with this level of detail ... "Papercuts" is available for streaming on digital platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. You can also check out a dizzying array of physical formats and bundles available on Linkin Park's official store. Have you checked out "Papercuts"? Tell us what you think!
It's not for me. This is the first release from the band I just cannot justify buying. That doesn't mean other people shouldn't but I don't see a big appeal for casual listeners either. I'm a bit concerned this might be the wrong product in the wrong space and time.. Does anyone here think this could mark the change to a new start for LP/the guys moving on? Recently I'm getting more and more doubts about that ever happening.
There's a wide range of opinions about what this release indicates or what it means. The band hasn't really explained beyond a single interview that still leaves us a lot of questions. I can't say whether or not it's the "right time" for something like this. What I can say is, I don't get the sense that the band (and the people they've worked with on this release) put in a lot of thought and effort into this release, compared to what us fans have come to expect. Because of that, it doesn't feel as special as it could
Personally my view is, the only time to do a collection like this is before the announcement of a new singer. A collection like this would raise a lot of controversy if it were trying to navigate a new and an old era, or if it were ignoring a new era and being promoted at the same time as anything new (Which would be a slight to anything the band was trying to do at the time). Though it may be foolish of me to try and navigate a time period for every Linkin Park fan to be, theoretically, happy. That never happens. Now this doesn't necessarily mean the announcement of a new singer is any time soon. However, a lot of this release does feel rushed. In lieu of a good reason for the rushing, I feel it would be mildly reasonable to assume that "something" is planned. Mostly because-- they were happy resting on their laurels until "now". What changed about "now" that makes this release something that has to happen? If they were content to rest, they would have waited until the drought between Meteora20 and MTM20, which is longer than the one between HT20 and Meteora20 to do something like this. It would have actually been a good thing to do in, say, late 2025 and marketed as a 25th anniversary release. It would have filled that void splendidly.