"Minutes to Midnight" is the 3rd Album by Linkin Park, releasing in 2007, it was a huge hit, with songs from all throughout the album playing on the radio on repeat and having songs featured in prominent pop culture films of the time, most notably the use of track 6 on this album "What I've done" in the 2007 live action Michael Bay's Transformers. Whilst not being prominently labeled as "Emo" this album does have a large number of tracks feature emotional topics and themes exploring both internal and external forces on life.
On this page of the insert packet the band writes about their experiences in writing the album, in short it says how they wanted to try to stick to their sound identity as well as expand into perhaps less intense "Nu Metal" territory found in their two previous albums. They also go on to say that being successful in the music industry requires a lot of "dumb luck" and I like that they understand how shitty the American entertainment industry is, in that, you usually either "win the lottery" in a sense, or otherwise partake in nepotism.
Wake: This first track is the type of track that is hardly listened to as most people don't listen to albums anymore. Thanks to the ability to stream music, people tend to listen to singles/specific tracks and tend to ignore a large chunk of the original album. Wake is very short and has no lyrics, however that is not to say it is not important. this track reels you in, it grabs your attention, and sets the mood for the remainder of the album.Given Up: This track starts off with some clapping and jingling of keys as if to say to the audience "hey little baby, are you still paying attention?" Given up is the first track with lyrics and so now we will get to the portion of the review where we take these into account for the quality of the songs. This song has some really great music that is easy to sing along to and get amped up, however, the lyrics are quite depressing; the lyrics themselves are genuinely about depression and the thought of having "Given Up" as the title suggests.
Leave Out All The Rest: This song seems to be about begging their partner to to forgive them for being bad to them. In a way I think this song may be a reference to the bargaining stage of grief, if you are to believe this is the same continuity from "Given Up." It seems almost as though the lyrics are about the writer in their struggle to be in a happy relationship, possibly deal with suicidal thoughts, and deep depression.
Bleed It Out: BOOM! This song really explodes, maybe to wake you back up after the previous songs being a bit slower. If it weren't obvious to you, this song is squarely about suicide, continuing the themes of previous songs.Shadow Of The Day: Another song about suicide, although this song is a bit more on the melancholic side than in "Bleed it out" in which it is much more graphic in details of ways the writer may choose to end their life. It is a much slower song once again, but it is good. In my opinion, there have not been any misses so far in this album.
What I've Done: The titular song of the album. This is the song from the Michael Bay Transformers movie, you know the bit at the end right before the credits? yeah that part. Anyways, as it says in the booklet, the lyrics in this song aren't necessarily decipherable, as they kind of have a few meanings, the most obvious one, is, once again, suicide. The booklet also states that the lyrics could just b using suicide as a metaphor this time, as the death of the old and birth of the new self. I would be surprised if someone reading this has not heard this song at least once in their life, at least so long as they were in their 20s to 40s lol. It's a great song, albeit a bit on the shorter side.Hands Held High: Coming back to the quieter, more rythmic part of the album, this song speaks volumes on the issues faced at the time when this album was being written. Some notable examples of this are "like this war's really just a different brand of war, like it doesn't cater to the rich and abandon the poor, like they understand you in the back of the jet / when you can't put gas in your tank / and these fuckers are laughing their way to the bank" and "the soliders / they're out today, they brush the dust from their bulletproof vests away, it's ironic / at times like this you pray, but a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday" and finally "when the rich wage war, it's the poor who die." When this song came out nearly 20 years ago, The United states was firmly at war with Iraq, and suffering at home due to a housing bubble and an uncaring Wall Street elitist class. This song is just evidence that war never changes, the United states does not care about the lives of anyone except the rich, and that a revolution is required for any meaningful change to occur.
I won't lie, I started crying in reading through the lyrics for "Hands Held High." In light of recent news of the bombings in Iran orchestrated by the evil, demonic, and disgusting United states and Israel I would like to take a silent moment of reflection and observance for the poor souls that were lost, specifically the children who lost their lives at Minab elementary school. If you are listening along to the album, please pause and take as long as you need before proceeding through the review and may god give peace and retribution to those affected by this devilish attack.
No More Sorrow: This seems to be a sequel song to "Hands Held High" as it repeats a lot of the same sentiment, although this time the song focuses a lot more on the anger felt around the topic and less so about the acknowledgement and more sad grievances. "Your time has come to be replaced, your time has come to be erased" seems to be a call to arms, to try and do something against the evil in power in our own, scarily real world. "I see liars and thieves abuse power with greed" "replaced freedom with fear, you trade money for lives" all critiques that are easily attributable to capitalism.Valentine's Day: This song seems to be written from the perspective of the partner after the writer of the previous songs finally gave up and committed suicide, this song highlights the other side of what it's like in the relationship when someone has to deal with their partner passing in such a way. In the lyric "So now you're gone, and I was wrong" I think that they're trying to express some kind of remorse/regret for having not been able to stop their partner from killing themselves, again referencing the stages of grief, this person seems to think they should have done more.
In Between: I think that this song being placed here in the album is quite purposeful. I think that the placement in the album is meant to invoke the idea that this is perhaps a post-mortem apology, or if you look at it from a very nihilist perspective, perhaps as a suicide note. Overall the theme of this song seems that "the only thing that's worse than one is none" in saying that it's better to admit fault and apologize than to never do so, this one definitely seems quite a bit more nuanced and I think maybe on purpose, as a way for the audience to take meaning from it in their own way through personal perspective.In Pieces: This may be the best song on the album, it is super catchy, amazing vocals, tempo change, little guitar riff. In this song they continue in the story about an arguing couple, this time a little further backwards in the timeline, where the two seem to be arguing about who is in the right or something like that. Analyzing the lyrics on this one is a bit more difficult for me as it's just such an entertaining song I can't stop singing along during this review/retrospective.
The Little Things Give You Away: Finally, here we are at the end of the album. This is a song about the suffering the people of Louisiana suffered after the 2004 natural disaster "Hurricane Katrina." $125 billion was the monetary cost associated with the destruction of the storm, but the real destruction was the lives of over 2,000 killed or missing by the storm, including the direct damage from the storm, but mostly due to lack of immediate and swift action from the government at the time. Linkin Park visited New Orleans some time after the storm in an effort to help rebuild and raise money for survivors in "Music for Relief." In researching this topic I found that there were about 40 or so songs written by popular artists that directly reference hurricane Katrina, some were written just as a way to raise money, others written as a critique of the response. We may be far from the time that Katrina devastated the united states, but let us not forget so easily how little those in power will do for you unless you fight fight fight. 
Here we are at the end, no more pages in the booklet. The last two pages are mostly the band members thanking people, both individually, and as a whole. This was one very emotional album and I find myself coming back to it very frequently, singing along to those sad songs helps me to work through some of the more complex emotions that come with the depressing state of the world as it is. As unnerving as it may be to say, it provides at least some comfort in the fact of knowing that world hasn't changed much, at least in that at least I know what to expect. here's to hoping things will change for the better.