Meteora is the second studio album by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released on March 25, 2003 through Warner Bros. Records, following Reanimation, a collaboration album which featured remixes of songs included on debut studio album Hybrid Theory. Linkin Park released singles from Meteora for over a year, including "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Lying from You", "From the Inside", "Breaking the Habit" and "Numb".
Meteora is the most successful album in the history of the Modern Rock Tracks chart, a chart that specializes in radio play (with its audience impression) of alternative rock songs. "Numb" was the biggest song of the year on the chart. The album has sold over 10 million copies worldwide to date,[1] and was ranked #36 on Billboard's Hot 200 Albums of the Decade.[2]

Background and production

Don Gilmore co-produced the album.[3] Linkin Park comprehensively rehearsed the album, recording more than forty choruses for the first single "Somewhere I Belong". Like the band's first full-length Hybrid Theory, Meteora was recorded using multitrack recording methods in which each instrument is recorded individually rather than played all at once, as is done in a typical studio setting. In its first week it sold an estimated 810,000 units. To date, it has sold over five million copies in the US alone, nearly ten million copies worldwide.[1][4]
The song, "Session" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 2003. "Nobody's Listening" features a sample from the band's track, "High Voltage", which appears on the B-side for the single, "One Step Closer" and the bonus disc of Hybrid Theory. The sample is a distorted version of Mike Shinoda's rapping line that is in the chorus of "High Voltage" where he states "Coming at you from every side".
"Session" is featured in the soundtrack for the film, The Matrix Reloaded as well as the Sopranos episode, "In Camelot". "Figure.09" is featured in the 2003 film, S.W.A.T..

Special Edition
There is a special edition of Meteora, which includes the "Making of Meteora" DVD documentary. They are packaged together in a blue tinted case with the blue Meteora cover that can be found in some parts of Asia, United States, and more commonly in India. The India version contains an alternate DVD and alternative cover that is packaged in a slimline case with the disc in original packaging.

]Tour Edition
The "Tour Edition" of Meteora is packaged in a two disc set. The second disc, which is a Video CD, has the music videos for "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb", and "Breaking the Habit". The tour edition is packaged in a standard Compact Disc case, rather than their trademark digipak case.

Critical response

[hide] Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Blender [5]
NME (7/10) [6]
E! Online (A-) [7]
Yahoo! Music UK [8]
The A.V. Club (mixed) [9]
Q [10]
Allmusic [11]
Entertainment Weekly (B+) [12]
Sputnikmusic [13]
Rolling Stone [14]
With mostly strong sales response from fans, Meteora received mostly positive response from critics. The overall Metacritic score was 62.[15]
The album received excellent reviews from E! Online and Entertainment Weekly.
E! Online rated it an A-, and expected it to "shoot straight for the stars". Best tracks: "Don't Stay", "Somewhere I Belong", "Numb".[16]
Entertainment Weekly described it as "radio-friendly perfection".
The album received good reviews from Dot Music, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and New Musical Express, .
Dot Music described it as a "guaranteed source of ubiquitous radio hits". Best tracks: "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Lying from You", "Nobody's Listening"; rating 8 out of 10.[17]
Rolling Stone said the band "squeezed the last remaining life out of this nearly extinct formula" (nu metal) Rating 3 stars. Best tracks: "Breaking the Habit", "Lying from You", "Figure .09", "Numb"[18]
Billboard Magazine described Meteora as "a ready-made crowdpleaser". Best tracks: "Somewhere I Belong", "Breaking the Habit"[19]
The New Musical Express said it had "massive commercial appeal" but left the reviewer "underwhelmed". Rating 7. Best track: "Breaking the Habit".[20]
The band received average reviews from Allmusic, Blender, Q Magazine, and ShakingThrough.net.
Allmusic.com described it as "nothing more and nothing less than Hybrid Theory Part 2". Best tracks: "Somewhere I Belong", "Lying from You", "Breaking the Habit", "Hit the Floor".[21]
Blender described it as "harder, denser, uglier" (#15, page 128) while Q Magazine described it as "less an artistic endeavour than an exercise in target marketing

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Linkin Park.
No. Title Length
1. "Foreword" 0:13
2. "Don't Stay" 3:07
3. "Somewhere I Belong" 3:33
4. "Lying from You" 2:55
5. "Hit the Floor" 2:44
6. "Easier to Run" 3:24
7. "Faint" 2:42
8. "Figure.09" 3:17
9. "Breaking the Habit" 3:16
10. "From the Inside" 2:53
11. "Nobody's Listening" 2:58
12. "Session" 2:23
13. "Numb" 3:05
Total length:
36:40