Linkin Park have revealed the details of their first career-spanning greatest hits album: Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023), a 20-song overview of the best-selling band’s two-decade-plus run, will be released on Apr. 12 through Warner Records, the group announced on Friday (Feb. 23).
In addition, Linkin Park has released “Friendly Fire,” a never-before-heard track that was recorded during the sessions of the band’s final studio album, 2017’s One More Light. Like “Lost,” the previously unreleased track unveiled last year as part of the band’s Meteora 20th anniversary collection, “Friendly Fire” features a powerhouse vocal take from Chester Bennington, who passed away in 2017.
Guitarist Brad Delson says of “Friendly Fire,” “When we started looking for an unreleased track to include on our greatest hits collection, I was blown away by the power of the song, the power of the storytelling, the power of the vocal, the sonic landscape and I actually thought that it was closer than maybe we had realized at the time.”
Papercuts features a wide swath of Linkin Park hits, from “In the End” to “Burn It Down” to the Jay-Z mash-up “Numb/Encore,” as well as “Lost,” which became the band’s latest top 40 Hot 100 hit upon its 2023 release and helped Meteora return to the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart. For completist fans, Papercuts will also include an official version of “QWERTY,” a sought-after rarity for more than a decade.
“In the making of each Linkin Park album, I want to love and believe in each individual song completely,” says Mike Shinoda. “I hope that if any one track is heard on its own in the world, it is something I can feel proud of, and something that takes root inside the listener and becomes part of the energy that connects us.
“Curating the tracks for Papercuts was a joy,” Shinoda continues. “Each song in this collection is both a singular moment on our timeline and an evolving story that is as much ours as it is yours. From our first release ‘One Step Closer’ to the brand-new ‘Friendly Fire,’ this tracklist spans all our chapters so far. Thank you for being a part of our journey. We hope you enjoy Papercuts.”
