Linkin Park - Papercuts (2LP)

Papercuts doesn’t just gather Linkin Park’s big moments. It stitches together a story the band has been telling since 2000, from the teeth-rattling churn of Hybrid Theory to the open, aching light of One More Light. Released in April 2024, the collection spans their singles from 2000 to 2023 and adds a heart-sore gem from the vault, Friendly Fire, recorded with Chester Bennington during the 2017 sessions for One More Light. It plays like a memory reel for a generation that grew up with this band in their headphones and on their bedroom walls.

The set opens a window onto every version of Linkin Park that mattered. You get the seismic certainties, the ones that still rattle venues and sports arenas. In the End and Numb feel as huge as ever, and they make a convincing case for why the band became one of the few rock acts to own both radio and the internet at the same time. Crawling still carries that fragile-loud charge that won them a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. What I’ve Done and New Divide remind you how deftly they could write for the big screen without losing their core identity. Burn It Down brings the gleam of A Thousand Suns and Living Things into focus with those clipped synths and Mike Shinoda’s precision.

Then there’s Friendly Fire, the reason even the faithful completists need Papercuts on the shelf. It is unmistakably One More Light era, with a pulse that leans pop and a lyric that lands like a late-night text you never sent. Chester’s voice, intimate then sky-high, cuts through the mix with a warmth that feels both familiar and startling. Hearing him here is a jolt, and it reframes the softer side of the band not as a detour, but as a real endpoint they reached together. Lost, the 2023 single discovered in the Meteora archives, adds another layer to that arc, a time capsule from 2002 that suddenly became a modern hit. Together, those two tracks turn a singles set into a conversation across years.

A compilation this broad can flatten a career if it’s sequenced without care. Papercuts avoids that. The flow makes sense, bouncing from the dense rap-rock hybrids to the lean, widescreen anthems, then into the later pop-leaning material. Heavy, with Kiiara, still divides fans, but here it makes musical sense after the band’s run of cinematic singles. It’s a reminder that Linkin Park were restless, not complacent. They tore up their own rulebook more than once and somehow kept the hooks sharp.

Context matters with a release like this. The band has been thoughtful with their history, first with the Hybrid Theory 20th anniversary set in 2020, then with the deep-dive Meteora 20 package in 2023. Papercuts feels like the public-facing version of that archival work, the chapter you hand to someone who asks why this band mattered. Critics across the board treated it that way on release, noting how the tracklist maps onto two decades of rock radio and internet culture. You hear the turn-of-the-millennium angst, sure, but you also hear how quickly they learned to write gigantic choruses and how that skill carried them into the streaming era.

If you’re a format person, the Papercuts vinyl pressing is the sweet spot. These songs breathe on wax, with the low end on Faint and Bleed It Out knocking just enough, and the gentler tracks sitting quiet between the grooves so you can catch the room around Chester’s voice. It’s the kind of record you’ll see up front at a Melbourne record store, or on a staff picks wall anywhere people still argue about guitar tones. If you buy Linkin Park records online, this is an easy add. It also plays nicely next to other Linkin Park albums on vinyl, since the sequencing keeps you from having to jump between eras to chase a mood.

Twenty-plus years in, Papercuts works because it doesn’t try to rewrite the past. It presents the band’s highs with clarity, leaves space for grief and celebration, and gives fans one more moment with a singer who meant the world to them. If you’re new, it’s the best on-ramp. If you’ve been here since Papercut blared from every car on your block, it’s a reason to drop the needle and remember. And yes, for those digging through crates or browsing vinyl records Australia late at night, this is the Linkin Park vinyl you’ll reach for most.