Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. The band's current lineup comprises vocalist/keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Mike Shinoda, lead guitarist Brad Delson, bassist Dave Farrell, DJ/keyboardist Joe Hahn, and drummer Rob Bourdon, all of whom are founding members. Vocalists Mark Wakefield and Chester Bennington and bassist Kyle Christner are former members of the band.
Formed in 1996, Linkin Park rose to international fame with its debut studio album, Hybrid Theory (2000), which was certified diamond by the RIAA in 2005, and multi-platinum in several other countries. Its second album, Meteora (2003), continued the band's success, topping the Billboard 200 album chart in 2003, and was followed by extensive touring and charity work. Having adapted nu metal and rap metal to a radio-friendly yet densely layered style in its first two albums, the band explored other genres on its third album, Minutes to Midnight (2007). The album topped the Billboard charts and had the third-best debut week of any album that year.Linkin Park continued to explore a wider variation of musical types in its fourth album, A Thousand Suns (2010), layering their music with more electronic sounds. The band's fifth album, Living Things (2012), combined musical elements from all of its previous records. Its sixth album, The Hunting Party (2014), returned to a heavier rock sound, and its seventh album, One More Light (2017), was a more electronic and pop-oriented record.Linkin Park is among the best-selling bands of the 21st century and the world's best-selling music artists overall, having sold more than 70 million albums worldwide. They have won two Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards and three World Music Awards. In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth-greatest band of the music video era and the third-best of the new millennium. Billboard ranked Linkin Park No. 19 on the Best Artists of the Decade chart. In 2012, the band was voted as the greatest artist of the 2000s in a Bracket Madness poll on VH1. In 2014, the band was declared as "The Biggest Rock Band in the World Right Now" by Kerrang!.Linkin Park went into an indefinite hiatus after longtime lead vocalist Bennington died from suicide by hanging on July 20, 2017. The other members of the band have yet to decide whether to continue with a new vocalist.
