A Thousand Suns Album

A Thousand Suns (2008–Present)

In October 2008 Mike Shinoda revealed on his blog that he, Phoenix and Hahn had begun working on two song ideas at Hahn's home, with studio recording to begin in earnest soon. In 2008, Bennington announced that Linkin Park's fourth studio release will be a concept album. The band has not released many specific details about the album. In an interview with MTV in November 2008, Bennington stated, "It sounds a little daunting to me, so, I think my confidence level will drop, but when it was presented to us by this friend of ours, we liked the idea. It was an inspiring idea, and it was something we could relate a lot of the things we like to write about to". He also added that the band planned to begin recording in December for a six-week session. The album was expected in mid 2009, but in late March, Mike Shinoda wrote on his blog saying "We're hoping to have Chester's Dead By Sunrise album out this fall, and the new LP album out early next year."

In December 2008, Digidesign gave the band the opportunity to preview the new Pro Tools 8 software. The experiment resulted in an instrumental song called "Lockjaw" performed by Shinoda and Bourdon.

In April 2009, Shinoda revealed on his blog that Linkin Park would be working on the score for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with successful film composer, Hans Zimmer. On May 7, it was further confirmed that the song recorded for the film was titled "New Divide", and was released as a single on May 18. The music video for "New Divide" was released on June 12, 2009 and was directed by Hahn. On June 22, 2009, the band played a short set after the premiere of the movie. The concert took place on the street in Westwood Village.

In May 2009, Linkin Park announced that they were working on their fourth album to be released in 2010, with the aim for it to be "genre-busting." Shinoda also stated on June of 2009 in an interview with IGN that the new album would have in comparison to Minutes to Midnight a bigger "thread of consistency" and would also be more experimental and "hopefully more cutting-edge". Additionally Bennington confirmed that Rick Rubin would return to produce the new album.

In July 2009, Linkin Park played at the Sonisphere Festival in Europe. They also played at the Epicenter music festival In August 2009.

On January 19, 2010, Linkin Park released a new song entitled "Not Alone" as part of a compilation from Music for Relief called Download to Donate for Haiti in support of the Haiti Earthquake crisis. On February 10, 2010, Linkin Park released the official music video for the song on their homepage.

The band has produced a video game titled 8-Bit Rebellion!, released April 26, 2010, for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. The game includes a new song, "Blackbirds", which is unlocked when the player completes the game. Mike Shinoda has also stated that the game will be regularly updated with new content over time.

On June 6, the band revealed that its new album was nearing completion, and announced the first five dates for their first tour for 2010. The tour began in Los Angeles, California on September 7. Six days later, Shinoda revealed that Linkin Park has almost made its decisions for all of the final qualities for the album, which include the track listing, album title, and cover art.

On July 8, Linkin Park officially announced that their new album, A Thousand Suns was scheduled to be released on September 14. The album's first single, "The Catalyst," was released on August 2, 2010. A second song, Wretches and Kings, was released on September 2 to people who pre-ordered the album through Linkin Park's official website (which was in keeping with the band's promise that those who pre-ordered the album through the official website would receive music before any other outlet). On September 8, 2010, the band further debuted two more tracks "Waiting for the End" and "Blackout" on their Myspace Page.

The band, on their official website declared the "Full Experience Myspace Premiere" of the album on September 10. On August 31, 2010, It was announced that the band would perform the single live for the first at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010. The venue of the debut live performance of the single was Griffith Observatory, an iconic location used in Hollywood Movies. However, the venue was held secret till the performance, but was revealed to be a prominent landmark of Los Angeles. "Waiting for the End" was released as the second single of A Thousand Suns. The band is currently supporting the album by their A Thousand Suns World Tour which has select dates in various countries.

The band have also released a new compilation exclusively for Linkin Park Underground members entitled Underground X: Demos, which contains multiple unreleased songs and demos.

The band reached #8 in Billboard Social 50, a chart of the most active artists on the world's leading social networking sites. In other Billboard Year-End charts, the band reached #92 in the "Top Artists" chart, as well as A Thousand Suns reaching #53 in the Year-End chart of the Billboard Top 200 albums and #7 in the 2010 Year-End Rock Albums, and "The Catalyst" reaching #40 in the Year-End Rock Songs chart.

On January 11, 2011, an updated version of Download to Donate for Haiti was launched, called Download to Donate for Haiti V2.0, with more songs to download. For the updated compilation, the band released Keaton Hashimoto's remix of "The Catalyst" from the "Linkin Park featuring YOU" contest. "Burning in the Skies" was released as the third official single of A Thousand Suns on March 21, 2011. The band ended their United States tour on March 3, 2011.

Shinoda designed two t-shirts, in which the proceeds will go to Music For Relief to help the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disasters. Music For Relief released Download to Donate: Tsunami Relief Japan, another compilation of songs, in which the proceeds will go to Save the Children.

On April 13, 2011, Shinoda confirmed that the album's fourth single will be "Iridescent". He also confirmed that there will be a new, slightly shorter version of the song, which will be part of the soundtrack of the upcoming film Transformers: Dark of the Moon, continuing the streak of Linkin Park songs being the theme songs of the Transformers films (after "What I've Done" and "New Divide"), as well as the fact that a music video will be shot for the single.

The band is currently nominated for six Billboard Awards in 2011 for Top Duo/Group, Best Rock Album for "A Thousand Suns", Top Rock Artist, Top Alternative Artist, Top Alternative Song for "Waiting For The End" and Top Alternative Album for "A Thousand Suns".