Linkin Park Share Previously Unreleased Song ‘Fighting Myself’
Linkin Park have shared another previously unreleased track from the forthcoming Meteora 20th Anniversary Edition. Listen to Fighting Myself below.
Meteora is being reissued on 7 April in multiple formats: Limited Edition Super Deluxe Box Set, 4LP Deluxe Vinyl Box Set, three-disc Deluxe CD and digital: all containing a wealth of previously unreleased or rare tracks. New artwork, stencils, stickers and a 40-page book will also be included, along with a QR code that will reveal “something special” when scanned. Meterora 20th Anniversary Edition is available for pre-order now.
As the band combed the Meteora archives, guitarist Mike Shinoda knew the hard-hitting instrumental for Fighting Myself was awaiting discovery but was surprised to uncover vocal stems of himself and the band’s late vocalist, Chester Bennington. He then gave the multitrack a deft mix and the song in its final form emerged as what Shinoda calls “a definitive Linkin Park track.” Now, it seethes with Shinoda’s incisive verses boosted by bruising distorted guitars as Bennington’s chorus rings out, “Fighting myself I always lose.”
It follows on the heels of lead single Lost. The track exploded as a phenomenon and the biggest rock song of 2023 so far. Storming out of the gate and to the forefront of culture, it gave the band their “first #1 debut on Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay Chart in over a decade!”. So far it has amassed over 93 million global streams and 30 million YouTube views on the stunning music video.
In a new interview with the New York Times, Shinoda paid tribute to Bennington, ““He could take that thing he was singing, and just sledgehammer it through somebody’s heart. I’ve grown to appreciate what we had even more, because it’s hard to get that. I work with people where I go, ‘Oh, can you sing it this way?’ And they just can’t.”
Shinoda went on to discuss how he approached mixing Fighting Yourself, “I really wanted to keep it true to the initial intention, because I didn’t want to taint this time warp,” he said. “What I love about the three new songs is that all of them represent a different facet of the band, as it was in 2003.”