After quarantine lockdown saw Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda spending much of his free time creating music and visual art on streaming site Twitch, the muso has now utilised fan feedback to create an entire album to be titled Dropped Frames, Vol. 1.
Speaking to SPIN, Shinoda described the record – his first since 2018’s Post Traumatic – as “a highlight reel of the tracks I make on the channel, but a big part of the experience is the stream itself.”
“When I start, I usually have very little idea of where it will go. What comes out is a product of the viewers’ suggestions, my spur-of-the-moment ideas, and whatever inexplicable magic is floating in between,” Shinoda added.
Describing the tracks as a mesh of “Mariachi,” “Bollywood hip-hop” and “90’s boy band pop” as per fan suggestions, Shinoda’s tracks will feature flute loops, Nintendo GameBoy-driven chords and fan chants submitted to him through Twitch. Three of the tracks – ‘Osiris‘, ‘Open Door‘ and ‘Super Galaxtica‘ – have already dropped ahead of the album’s release.
The news comes following the Shindoa spilling to fans that Linkin Park have unreleased music featuring late frontman Chester Bennington, with one track named ‘Friendly Fire’ that had been set to appear on 2017’s One More Light.
“There was a song, a ‘One More Light‘ song” Shinoda shared (via AltPress). “We mixed more [songs] than [are on] the finished album and we mixed a couple [of] other songs just to see if one of them would make the cut or whatever. [Or] if we could use it for a B-side and it was ‘Friendly Fire’.”
As fans pleaded him to drop the unreleased track, their hopes were soon dashed.
Love Classic Rock?
Get the latest Classic Rock news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
“You literally are going to have to wait years to hear that song FYI,” Shinoda revealed.
Dropped Frames, Vol. 1 is out on July 10 on Shinoda’s Kenji Kobayashi Productions. You can check out the tracklist below.
- Open Door
- Super Galaxtica
- Duckbot
- Cupcake Cake
- El Rey Demonio
- Doodle Buzz
- Channeling Pt. 1 (feat. Dan Mayo)
- Osiris
- Babble Bobble
- Session McSessionface
- Neon Crickets
- Booty Down