Music / A Thousand Suns

God save us everyone
Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?
For the sins of our hand, sins of our tongue
The sins of our father, the sins of our young

"...A Thousand Suns grapples with the personal cycle of pride, destruction, and regret. In life, like in dreams, this sequence is not always linear. And, sometimes, true remorse penetrates the devastating cycle. The hope, of course, springs from the notion that the possibility of change is born in our most harrowing moments."

— From the album's liner notes

A Thousand Suns is the fourth studio album by Linkin Park, released on September 13, 2010, by Warner (Bros.) Records.

It is a Concept Album that revolves around mass-scale human fears and social issues, namely nuclear warfare. It derives its title from the Bhagavad Gita as quoted and popularized in 1945 by J. Robert Oppenheimer's description of the atomic bomb, which likened its blast to "the radiance of a thousand suns". Clocking in at 47 minutes, it is Linkin Park's longest studio album to date.

Following 2007's Minutes to Midnight, this album moves even further away from the band's Nu Metal roots to the point of metal being almost entirely absent. Instead, the album centers on electronic-based experimental and melodic Alternative Rock, with the addition of several atmospheric interludes to tie the songs together, some of them sampling speeches from the aforementioned Oppenheimer as well as Martin Luther King Jr. and activist Mario Savio. Although rapping is only slightly more prominent than on the previous album, this album makes Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda a Vocal Tag Team again, with Mike being a co-lead singer on many tracks.

Tracklist:

1. "The Requiem" (2:01)
2. "The Radiance" (0:57)
3. "Burning in the Skies" (4:13)
4. "Empty Spaces" (0:18)
5. "When They Come for Me" (4:53)
6. "Robot Boy" (4:29)
7. "Jornada Del Muerto" (1:34)
8. "Waiting for the End" (3:51)
9. "Blackout" (4:39)
10. "Wretches and Kings" (4:10)
11. "Wisdom, Justice, and Love" (1:39)
12. "Iridescent" (4:56)
13. "Fallout" (1:23)
14. "The Catalyst" (5:47)
15. "The Messenger" (3:01)

Principal members:

• Chester Bennington - Lead and backing vocals
• Mike Shinoda - Lead and backing vocals, rap vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Brad Delson - Guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
• Dave Farrell - Bass, backing vocals
• Joe Hahn - Turntables, sampling, programming, backing vocals
• Rob Bourdon - Drums, backing vocals

Waiting for the tropes to come:

• An Aesop: "The Messenger" rambles about how important hope and love is in the face of evil and pain. The impact of the song is increased by the fact that it's on an album mainly about how broken the world is.
• Album Intro Track: Two of them! The first proper song, "Burning in the Skies", is the third track.
• Album Title Drop: "The Requiem" and "The Catalyst". It's not quite an example of Book Ends, but the latter (and penultimate) track is the climax of the album.
  God save us everyone
  Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?
• Boléro Effect: "The Catalyst" use this on its distinct halves of the song.
• Concept Album: Dealing with human fears like nuclear warfare.
• Cluster F-Bomb: "When They Come for Me"
  "Start trying to catch up motherfucker (fucker, fucker)!"
• Fading into the Next Song: Most of the songs are linked by interludes or other songs, to the point of the iTunes deluxe edition including a bonus track that is literally the entire album as a single track.
• Foreshadowing: "Jornada del Muerto", which features Mike singing singing "Lift me up, let me go" in Japanese.
• "I Want" Song: "Waiting for the End"
  All I wanna do is trade this life for something new
  Holding on to what I haven't got
• Limited Lyrics Song:
  • "Robot Boy" has three stanzas over a slow, minimalist piece. The last one is the same lyric repeated four times.
    "Hold on, the weight of the world will give you the strength to go."
  • "The Catalyst" is also minimalist in the lyrics department, with both verses based on "God [x] us everyone". The second verse is also a reprise of the only lyrics in "The Requiem".
    God save us everyone
    Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns
    For the sins of our hand
    The sins of our tongue
    The sins of our father
    The sins of our young
• Literary Allusion Title: The album title and "The Radiance" reference a passage from Bhagavad Gita made famous by J. Robert Oppenheimer:
  "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one,"
• Minimalistic Cover Art: A negative of an image representing Earth being blown up in a nuclear war.
• Miniscule Rocking: All of the interlude tracks are under two minutes, with "Empty Spaces" (0:18) deserving a special mention. "The Requiem" just barely passes the two-minute mark.
• New Sound Album: A mix of electronic and experimental rock. More rap than Minutes to Midnight, but not as much as before.
• Power Ballad: "Iridescent", which also features the full band singing in the climax.
• Sampling:
  • "The Radiance" samples Robert Oppenheimer referencing Bhagavad Gita in his own response to the Manhattan Project that led to the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  • "Wretches and Kings" samples Mario Savio's "Bodies upon the Gears" speech.
  • "Wisdom, Justice, and Love" samples a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.
• Take That, Critics!: "When They Come for Me" disses those complaining about their shift from Nu Metal with Minutes to Midnight.
  And it seems ugly, but it can get worse
  'Cause even a blueprint is a gift and a curse
  'Cause once you got a theory of how the thing works
  Everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first
  And I'm not a robot, I'm not a monkey
  I will not dance even if the beat's funky
  Opposite of lazy, far from a punk
  Ya'll oughta stop talking
  Start trying to catch up, motherfucker
• Textless Album Cover: Aside from a Parental Advisory warning on certain editions of the album.

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Listen to your heart
Those angel voices
They'll see to you
They'll be your guide
Back home where life leaves us blind
Love keeps us kind
It keeps us kind