6/11/2012
 Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda has issued a challenge to fans: he wants them to gather together on the day the band's new album, Living Things, is released and share the listening experience together. According to Loudwire, Shinoda wrote at the band's website, "Growing up, when one of my favorite bands released a new album, it was an event. I used to leave school at lunchtime with my friends, drive to the store and buy it. We would rip open the packages and put one in and listen to it together eating lunch in the car. We would shout over the music, rewind our favorite parts, play songs over."
The vocalist adds that he finds it sad fans don't share that anymore, and then offers his challenge. He writes, "It's no secret that the album will likely leak a week or two prior . . . When the album leaks, ignore it. You'll only have to wait a few days. Then, at midnight of the release date in your country, listen to the album from front to back. If you can, listen to it with friends, have a party, drive somewhere, enjoy yourself. If you decide to download the album leak rather than purchase the album, fine. This challenge still applies to you. This is not about downloading. It's about deciding to have more fun."
- Shinoda asks fans who do participate in the experience to document it by taking photos of themselves purchasing the album, putting the CD in their cars, downloading it and listening to it on their iPods, or playing it on their stereos.
- Those photos can be tweeted to @linkinpark with the hashtag #LIVINGTHINGSRELEASEDAY. The group will pick their favorites and retweet them.
- Linkin Park will release Living Things, its fifth studio album, on June 26th. The first single, "Burn It Down," is already a Top 10 hit at both Modern and Active Rock radio.
- The band will co-headline the Honda Civic Tour this summer with Incubus, beginning in Bristow, Virginia on August 11th.
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