Mike Shinoda recently sat down with The Harvard Crimson and celebrated how it’s been two decades since Linkin Park’s breakthrough ‘Meteora’ hit the shelves and which track featured the most embarrassing vocals.
The band had only recently shared an unreleased piece featuring Chester Bennington’s vocals, titled, ‘Lost,’ while celebrating the record’s anniversary. Mike and his bandmates had come across the track while diving deep into the archives and rediscovering old recordings and early demos, and it seems that ‘Lost‘ wasn’t the only piece of old music they found.
Shinoda recalled discovering a particular Linkin Park hit’s early demo tape and cringing all over it after hearing his vocals accompanying the melody. Still, it felt like a ‘different experience’ for him to listen to the recordings after two decades, remarking how it also felt like an ‘exposure’ to release them to the public.
However, the demo he felt most embarrassed while listening to was a recording of ‘Breaking the Habit,’ as the rocker discussed how cringy it was to hear a younger version of himself dropping some lines and trying to come up with lyrics while the older Shinoda thought they were far from cool.
The singer’s words on finding the early demo of ‘Breaking the Habit’ cringy:
“It’s a different experience actually listening to the demos. To hear the most embarrassing one to me — which is the reason that it’s on there — is my singing demo of ‘Breaking The Habit.’
There’s no autotune, no compression, no EQ — it’s just me and a really bad mic, just getting my ideas down. There’s a bit of exposure — I’m really exposed putting that out in the world.”
So, it’s apparent that Shinoda had complex feelings about rediscovering the band’s breakthrough album, claiming his early demo tape of ‘Breaking the Habit’ had the most embarrassing vocals. Still, he and his bandmates decided to share them with their audience, as an exclusive ‘Meteora’ anniversary package had hit the shelves a month ago.
