A Thousand Suns is the fourth studio album by Linkin Park. It was released on September 14, 2010 in the United States through Warner Bros. Records. The album was co-produced by Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin, who previously worked together to produce Minutes to Midnight (2007). The lead single for the album, "The Catalyst", was released to radio and digital music retailers on August 2, 2010. It is
a concept album, dealing with nuclear warfare. The album's title comes from a quote by J. Robert Oppenheimer, referring to the Hindu scripture, "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.", in reference to the atom bomb.

WRITING AND RECORDING
Recording for the album began in 2008, shortly after the release of Minutes to Midnight. In November 2008 Chester Bennington stated this "sound a little daunting to me, so, I think my confidence level will drop, but when it was presented to us by this friend of ours, we liked the idea. It was an inspiring idea, and it was something we could relate a lot of the things we like to write about to."

In May 2009, A Billboard Magazine story was published where Shinoda revealed info on the album. "I feel like we've been writing a lot. I'd say we've got about half the music done, though I shouldn't say halfway because who knows how long the next batch of songs will take. But all the material's just kind of coming together, and every week we meet up and assess the situation and for the rest of the week we just go and work on whatever we find exciting." He also explained the experimentation that the band would be working with. "It's not going to be Hybrid Theory. It's not going to be Minutes to Midnight. And if we do it right, it'll have a cutting edge sound that defines itself as an individual record separate from anything else that's out there."

The album also features samples of notable speeches by American political figures. The album gets its name from a quote from the Hindu Sanskrit Text, "Bhagvad Gita" which says "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....".

RELEASE
On July 8, 2010, the band officially announced that the album would be released on September 14, 2010. The band also revealed that the album's first single would be "The Catalyst", which was released on August 2.

From July 9, 2010 until July 25, 2010, Linkin Park held the contest "Linkin Park, Featuring You". In the contest, fans could download stems from the album's first single, "The Catalyst", remix the stems and/or write their own parts for the song on any instrument. The winner of this contest was Czeslaw "NoBraiN" Sakowski from Świdnica, Poland, whose remix will be featured as an additional track on the album. The album's liner notes also credit Sakowski with "Supplemental Programming" on "When They Come For Me".

The music video for "The Catalyst", directed by band member Joseph Hahn, premiered on August 26, 2010. On August 31, 2010, It was announced that the band would perform the single live for the first time at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010.

On September 2, 2010, Linkin Park released another track from the upcoming album entitled "Wretches and Kings" to those who had pre-ordered the album. Shinoda stated the song pays homage to Chuck D and Public Enemy, who inspired the record to be "three-dimensional". The song features a sample of Mario Savio's "Bodies upon the gears" speech.

And on September 15, 2010, Warner Music Japan announced that the first single from the album, "The Catalyst", was picked as the theme song for the Japanese release of the Namco Bandai Games title Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. In addition, a limited edition of the Japanese release of A Thousand Suns will be bundled with a HGUC 1/144 RX-78GP01Fb Gundam GP01Fb Full Vernian "Linkin Park Edition" Gundam model, which is scheduled for release on November 24.

CRITICAL
Upon its release, A Thousand Suns received generally positive reviews from most music critics.

Rick Florino of ARTISTdirect gave the album a perfect rating, and described it as an essential album by saying that "after A Thousand Suns, all rock 'n' roll will revolve around Linkin Park" and by giving Linkin Park credit for creating their own genre with A Thousand Suns.

Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B rating and said "On A Thousand Suns at times the band's odd mélange of industrial grind, hip-hop swagger, and teenage-wasteland angst feels jarring".

Ian Winwood with Kerrang! gave it an "Excellent" rating, saying that it "can only be best described as a political album" He praised the writing of the songs, saying that "These are songs that have been constructed as much as they've been written!!!"

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