사용자:에일리언보이/작업장1

Edited version

There are non-Parental Advisory releases of both the regular album and the special edition album. The songs "Given Up", "Bleed It Out", and "Hands Held High" are slightly edited, by the removal of most profanities but not all. In Malaysia, the edited version for the album is available in digipak cover while the explicit edition available for the Tour Edition which features white slipcase cardboard cover and a standard jewel case.

Anniversary covers

A year after the release of Minutes to Midnight, the band released ten different covers that they had considered for the final cover, and made them available for fans to use as the album art on iTunes.

Leak

The album was leaked onto the Internet just under two weeks before the actual album release.

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It couldn't be more exciting to give you all new music, especially after all the hard work we put into it. This album was almost a year and a half of experiments, mistakes, inspiration, and careful craftsmanship. We put everything we had into these songs, and want you to hear every second of it. I can't wait for you to absorb all the levels of meaning in the songs, and the layers of music, eventually forming your own ideas about what the songs mean to you. At the same time, a leak leaves out some very important parts of this piece of work. We put months of creative energy into the ART of the record, in the booklet, special edition, and big book... Almost as long as it took to record Hybrid Theory. The album has amazing photos, lyrics, and notes about how the songs came together — it's the visual half of the record. On the other hand, the super-special-edition book is packed with exclusive images, stories of the making of the songs, gorgeous art, the CD and a DVD that tells the story, showing the actual moments of inspiration caught on camera. For me, it's almost hard to imagine anyone really experiencing this album without that part of it. Even the song sequence alone is very important. It's WAY different to hear the songs in a random order than to listen to this record from beginning to end. At the very least, if you've already downloaded the songs, do us a huge favor and listen to them in the right order... It'll be way more rewarding.

”

In an interview, lead singer Chester Bennington explained that the album is "a mix of punk, classic rock, and hip-hop standards" and that "Rick has brought more of a stripped down, classic-rock and hip-hop kind of feel."

In another interview, Bennington stated: "This time around, Mike Shinoda is singing a lot more. It may seem like he's not on the record, but he's doing a lot of the harmonies. He also sings a couple of songs alone. We're presenting ourselves in a different way."

Mike Shinoda, in an interview, said: "We were looking back at the things that we had done in the past... and I think we just figured that we had exhausted that sound. It was easy for us to replicate, it was easy for other bands to replicate, and we just needed to move on,"

This is their first album to contain guitar solos, particularly in the tracks "In Pieces" and "The Little Things Give You Away". Also, unlike the previous two studio albums, Minutes to Midnight contains profanity and politically-charged lyrics.

Mike Shinoda performs his rapping vocals on only two tracks, "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". This is a significant decrease compared to the amount of rapping on previous albums. The rap vocals on "Hands Held High" are much closer styled to Mike Shinoda's side project Fort Minor than his traditional Linkin Park verses. All the songs that contain rap vocals also contain profanity, unlike their other records. Despite a decrease of Mike Shinoda as rapper, he has three solo lead songs on the record: "Hands Held High", "In Between" and the bonus track "No Roads Left". He also sings lead in "Bleed It Out". "What I've Done" and "The Little Things Give You Away" features backing vocals from Shinoda at the end.

All scratching elements by Joe Hahn that existed in the previous two studio albums are largely absent, except on the songs "What I've Done", "Wake", "The Little Things Give You Away", ""Valentine's Day" and "In Pieces". Hahn contributes more with programming, electronica, and other elements to many of the songs. Unlike the other albums, Minutes to Midnight contained very little scratching.

Guitarist Brad Delson experimented with an E-Bow when the band was piecing together "The Little Things Give You Away". The band decided not to use the effect for the solo in that song and instead ended up creating "No More Sorrow" out of the effect. In "Given Up", he jingles the keys that are heard while several clap sounds are overlayed in the intro of the song (as mentioned in the lyric book).

The church organ and military drumbeat on "Hands Held High" were originally to be used as the backdrop to melodic vocals, but Rubin recommended that the band try the opposite approach according to the album booklet. In live performances, Brad Delson plays keyboard on this song (the only song on which he does not play guitar.)

"Shadow of the Day" is one of two songs (the other being "No Roads Left") to have Bennington playing an instrument. In concert, Shinoda is generally playing the keyboard for "Shadow Of The Day", while Bennington plays rhythm guitar.

Reception

Minutes to Midnight received generally mixed reviews, based on an aggregate score of 56/100 from Metacritic, with critics showing approval, disapproval and indifference in almost equal measure.

Rolling Stone gave Minutes to Midnight 4 out of 5 stars, stating that "most of Minutes is honed, metallic pop with a hip-hop stride and a wake-up kick", and it was placed at #25 in their list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007. IGN referred to it as "definitely a step in the right direction and a stepping stone for things to come". In his review, About.com's Bill Lamb considered the album "an impressive achievement", and went on to write that "Linkin Park handles their explorations of a direction forward with impressive grace here". Herald Sun writer Karen Tye gave it 3½ out of 4 stars and praised the band's new sound, "Who knew being a plain old rock band could suit Linkin Park so well?". Despite commending the band for their ambition, The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan gave the album 3 out of 5 stars and perceived "their decision to stay roughly within the shrieky boundaries of their genre" as a weakness, while writing that "the sound still pivots on the interplay of walloping guitar chords and self-flagellating lyrics".

Among those with a more negative view of the album was Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic, who described the album's sound as "passé" and summed the band's effort up as "opting to create a muddled, colorless murk", giving it 2 out of 5 stars. NME magazine's Dan Silver gave it a rating of 2/10, calling it the "sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity", and referring to the song "Hands Held High", a song about terrorist attacks and war, as "far and away the funniest thing you will hear all year".