In an interview, lead singer
Chester Bennington explained that the album is "a mix of
punk,
classic rock, and
hip-hop standards" and that "
Rick has brought more of a stripped down, classic-rock and hip-hop kind of feel." In another interview, Bennington stated: "This time around,
Mike Shinoda is singing a lot more. It may seem like he's not on the record, but he's doing a lot of the harmonies. He also sings a couple of songs alone. We're presenting ourselves in a different way."
Recording and composition Guitarist
Brad Delson experimented with an
EBow when the band was piecing together "The Little Things Give You Away". The band decided not to use the effect for the solo in that song and instead ended up creating "No More Sorrow" out of the effect. In "
Given Up", he jingles the keys that are heard while several clap sounds are overlaid in the intro of the song (as mentioned in the lyric book:
Brad added the sounds on the intro song: multiple tracks of claps - and keys jingling.). Shinoda and Delson teamed up with
David Campbell to add string elements to six songs; "Leave Out All the Rest", "Shadow of the Day", "Hands Held High", "The Little Things Give You Away", as well as the two b-sides "No Roads Left" and "Blackbirds" (which was instead later used in the
iPhone game
8-Bit Rebellion! as well as being included as a bonus track for
A Thousand Suns), respectively. All scratching elements by
Joe Hahn that existed in the previous two studio albums are largely absent because of the low mixing, except on the songs "What I've Done", "Wake", "The Little Things Give You Away", "Valentine's Day" and "In Pieces". Hahn contributes more with programming, electronics, and other elements to many of the songs. The church organ and military drumbeat on "Hands Held High" were originally to be used as the backdrop to melodic vocals, but Rubin recommended that the band try the opposite approach according to the album booklet. For the album, the band recorded fifty to sixty songs in August 2006. Their previous albums took only about three to six months to complete, while this one took 14 months. Shinoda performs his
rapping vocals on only two tracks, "
Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". This is a significant decrease compared to the amount of rapping on previous albums. The rap vocals on "Hands Held High" are much closer styled to Mike Shinoda's side project
Fort Minor than his traditional Linkin Park verses, as he raps during most of the song. Despite a decrease of Mike Shinoda as rapper, he has three solo lead songs on the record: "Hands Held High", "In Between" and the bonus track "No Roads Left". He also raps on "Bleed It Out" while "What I've Done", "Shadow of the Day", "No More Sorrow" and "The Little Things Give You Away" features backing vocals from Shinoda at the end.
Minutes to Midnight is also Linkin Park's first album to feature guitar solos, particularly in the tracks "What I've Done," "In Pieces" and "The Little Things Give You Away". Also, unlike the previous two studio albums,
Minutes to Midnight contains profanity and thus the first
Linkin Park studio album to contain a
Parental Advisory (the first overall being their collaborative
EP with
Jay-Z,
Collision Course) and politically charged lyrics. The songs that contain profanity are "Given Up", "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". Genre-wise, the album has been described as
alternative rock,
alternative metal, and
hard rock.
Cover artwork in
North Shore, California The front and back cover were recorded around the ruins of
North Shore Beach and Yacht Club in
North Shore, California. A year after the release of
Minutes to Midnight, the band released ten different covers that were originally used as consideration for the final cover for the album prior to its release. The band made all ten of these covers available for fans to use as the album art on
iTunes. ==Critical reception==