What I've Done
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| "What I've Done" | ||||
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| Single by Linkin Park | ||||
| from the album Minutes to Midnight | ||||
| Released | April 2, 2007 | |||
| Format | Digital download, CD single | |||
| Recorded | Los Angeles, California | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock | |||
| Length | 3:25 (album version) 4:04 (single edit) 3:28 (iTunes version) 3:29 (radio edit) |
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| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Writer(s) | Linkin Park | |||
| Producer | Rick Rubin, Mike Shinoda | |||
| Certification | 2× platinum (RIAA), Gold (SWE) | |||
| Linkin Park singles chronology | ||||
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"What I've Done" is a song by the American rock band Linkin Park, and the first single from their third studio album, Minutes to Midnight. The song was released as a radio single on April 1, 2007, as a digital download on April 2, and as a CD single on April 30.
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[edit] Composition
Chester Bennington described the track in a March 2007 interview with MTV:
| “ | Joe [Hahn] came up to Mike and me and asked us to take the whole idea of Minutes to Midnight and apply that to how the band has changed. So, in a way, it's us saying goodbye to how we used to be...The lyrics in the first verse are 'In this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi,' and right away, you'll notice that the band sounds different: The drums are much more raw, the guitars are more raw and the vocals aren't tripled. It's just us out there ... and that's how Rick Rubin wanted it.[1] | ” |
The single and video appeared in the iTunes Store shortly after midnight EST on April 2, 2007. It became available the day after on iTunes in the UK and Australia. On April 2, the song was featured streaming on the front page of their official website, with the video being added to the site shortly thereafter.
The song starts out with a piano riff which is extremely like the film Halloween's theme, before adding a hip hop-inspired drum line, and then introducing a raw-sounding guitar riff. When the song is played live at Linkin Park's concerts, Mike Shinoda plays the piano intro and the guitar after that. This song differs from most of Linkin Park's previously released songs (except "Breaking the Habit") in that it features almost no lead vocals from vocalist Mike Shinoda, save for a brief "na na na" refrain at the end. "What I've Done" was the last song written for Minutes to Midnight.[2] The song also has a downbeat exactly once every second, consistent throughout its entirety.
[edit] Track listings
CD 1
All songs written and composed by Linkin Park.
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "What I've Done" (radio edit) | 3:29 |
| 2. | "Faint" (live in Japan) | 2:45 |
CD 2 (Maxi / AU Single)
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "What I've Done" | 3:28 |
| 2. | "Faint" (live in Japan) | 2:46 |
| 3. | "From the Inside" (live in Japan) | 3:31 |
DVD Version
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "What I've Done" (music video) | 3:29 |
| 2. | "Faint" (live in Japan; video) | 2:45 |
7" Picture disk format
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "What I've Done" (radio edit) | 3:29 |
| 2. | "Faint" (live in Japan) | 2:45 |
All of the live tracks on this CD (and vinyl) were recorded at the Chiba Marine stadium in Tokyo, Japan on August 13, 2006 at the Summer Sonic Festival.
[edit] Music video
The music video for "What I've Done" explores the many ironies of humanity and its ill effects on the earth and the environment. It juxtaposes various pieces of footage: a large, well-fed man eating fast food, a woman measuring her waist and a man who is so malnourished that his ribcage is visible through his skin; African Americans being hosed down and the Ku Klux Klan; nuclear explosions, the World Trade Center towers collapsing, children waving American flags, a Middle Eastern child holding an AK-47, clips of oil tankers torn in half and birds covered in an oil slick. The band's turntablist Joe Hahn directed the video for the single, which was shot in the California desert.[3] The video premiered on April 2, 2007 on MTV and Fuse. It premiered on MTV-Asia, MTV-Germany, TMF Netherlands and Canada's MuchMusic on April 3, 2007.
It features footage of the band performing in the desert, interspersed with stock footage reflecting on a variety of social and environmental issues including pollution, global warming, racism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, abortion, starvation, terrorism, warfare and nuclear warfare, deforestation, poverty, drug addiction, obesity, destruction, rising gasoline prices and crimes committed by humanity. The video also features short views of important historical figures, such as Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, and Mahatma Gandhi. Some cut scenes like the traffic scene and the napalm exploding were also featured on the Rise Against music video for "Ready To Fall".
The video clip was featured and won on MTV's Battle of the Videos against videos by Evanescence ("Sweet Sacrifice") and Lil' Mama ("Lip Gloss").[4] The video also marks the first appearance of a Linkin Park video in the #1 spot on MTV's TRL, hitting #1 six times so far. The video was among the all-time top 50 most viewed on YouTube with over 36 million views but was removed as a result of Warner Music Group's feud with YouTube. AOL currently has a live performance of "What I've Done" on their website.[5]
When the band's logo is shown for the first time in the video (on the front of Rob's bass drum), it features a complete circle with the stylized letters "LP" within it. However, every time the logo is shown after this, the circle is not complete, being "separated" by two blank spaces above the "L" and below the "P". This is explained in "Making of What I've Done", where the band shows the original drums that were wrongly made, and that they had to use black tape to make the breaks in the circle.
So far, this is the only video in which Joe Hahn's face is not focused at although some parts shown his hands on the turntables.
Chester's jacket was lent to him by Yellowcard frontman Ryan Key as mentioned in an episode (Episode 89) of MTV Cribs.[citation needed]
[edit] Alternate music video
A second video, made exclusively for Australia, features a considerably different scenario from the first; instead of clips of human sin, the video tells the story of a woman (played by Emma Mullings) working at a government-run pharmaceutical company learning of a plan to develop a deadly new virus for "social control", and - with the help of several people dressed in black hooded sweatshirts with Linkin Park's logo on them - smuggles out several blood samples of a human test subject of the virus to expose the conspiracy. The video can be seen on YouTube and Linkin Park's Australian website.[6]
[edit] Notable clips from the video
The following is a non-exhaustive list of historical and/or stock footage in the music video:
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[edit] Chart performance
The song made big debuts on the US charts during the chart week of April 21, 2007. The song debuted in the top 10 of the US Hot 100 on April 10, 2007, at #7. It is the band's second highest debut to date on the chart (this title was previously held by "Somewhere I Belong" which opened at #47), earning "Hot Shot" debut of the week, and subsequently becoming the third highest position for a Linkin Park single to date on the Hot 100. The song was their highest debut until they released "New Divide" in May 2009. At the time of its debut it was only the eleventh song since 2000 to debut at #7 or higher on the Hot 100, and only the third song to do so by an artist not from American Idol.[7] The song was partly fueled by digital sales, debuting at #4 on the digital chart.
In addition the song became only the third song ever to open at #1 on the Modern Rock chart, also becoming the band's seventh number one on the chart. It held the #1 spot on Alternative Songs for 15 consecutive weeks, at the time tying it with Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy" as the second longest running #1 in that charts history (it is now tied as the third longest running). It was the most successful song on the Alternative Songs chart of 2007 until Foo Fighters released "The Pretender". The song also reached #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, where it stayed for 8 consecutive weeks. In the iTunes music store, the song had reached number two. It was kept out of the top spot by "Give It To Me" by Timbaland. The music video is the first to reach the number 1 spot on TRL for Linkin Park video history. It has also become a moderate hit on the Adult Top 40, and Pop 100 Airplay charts, so far peaking at number 22 and 24 respectively on those charts.
In the rest of the world, the song has been their most successful overall, reaching the top ten in over twenty countries including Canada, Germany, Italy, and New Zealand to name a few. In the United Kingdom, the song hit #6 once the physical format was released, making it Linkin Park's highest-charting UK single. The song was highly successful in China as well, where it became their first number one there. Statistically speaking, this is Linkin Park's biggest song to date.
The song was number one on a list of the top 101 songs from 2007 by Q101 in Chicago. "Bleed It Out", "Shadow of the Day", and even "Given Up", which didn't become a single until March 2008, were also on the list.
| Chart (2007) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australia Singles Chart[8] | 13 |
| Austrian Singles Chart[8] | 1 |
| Dutch Top 40[8] | 23 |
| Dutch Top 100 Singles | 9 |
| French Download Chart | 17 |
| German Singles Chart[8] | 1 |
| Irish Singles Chart[8] | 7 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart[8] | 9 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart[8] | 12 |
| Swedish Singles Chart[8] | 6 |
| Swiss Singles Chart[8] | 6 |
| UK Singles Chart[8] | 6 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100[8] | 7 |
| U.S. Billboard Pop 100 | 8 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks | 1 |
[edit] In popular culture
 |
Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (September 2009) |
"What I've Done" is featured during the film Transformers, playing on Bumblebee's radio as Sam Witwicky is dropping Mikaela Banes off at her home, as well as leading in to the end credits, and included on the official soundtrack and used heavily in the film's ad campaign, because of this the song is sometimes unofficially referred to as "The Transformers Song". Megan Fox revealed that when the band first heard about the movie, they asked to be on the soundtrack.[9]
During Fox NFL Sunday "What I've Done" was one of theme songs for the show.
"What I've Done" is a playable song in the 2008 music/rhythm video game Guitar Hero World Tour, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, and Wii gaming systems.
"What I've Done" was played after Leinster Rugby won the Heineken Cup on 23 May 2009.
[edit] References
- ^ "Linkin Park Finish Apocalyptic Album, Revive Projekt Revolution Tour". MTV. 2007-03-06. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1553982/20070306/linkin_park.jhtml.
- ^ LP Times reports on "What I've Done".
- ^ "Clock Strikes 'Midnight' For New Linkin Park Album". Billboard. 2007-03-06. http://billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003554313.
- ^ "What I've Done" wins MTV Battle Of the Videos.
- ^ "What I've Done" live on AOL.
- ^ Linkin Park
- ^ http://billboard.com/bbcom/chart_beat/bonus.jsp Billboard.com Retrieved on 05-27-07
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Linkin Park - What I've Done global chart positions and trajectories". aCharts.us. Retrieved June 30, 2007.
- ^ "Megan Fox Interview". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MyRPHXvPAQ.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by "Survivalism" by Nine Inch Nails |
Billboard Alternative Songs number-one single April 15, 2007 – July 28, 2007 |
Succeeded by "Icky Thump" by The White Stripes |
| Preceded by "Breath" by Breaking Benjamin |
Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks number-one single May 12, 2007 – June 30, 2007 |
Succeeded by "I Don't Wanna Stop" by Ozzy Osbourne |
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