This document discusses the career of Mike Shinoda, from his beginnings with the band Linkin Park to his side project Fort Minor. It describes Linkin Park's evolution from their early albums Hybrid Theory and Meteora to their more mainstream sound on Minutes to Midnight. It also summarizes Fort Minor's only album The Rising Tied, how it featured various artists but was not intended for commercial success. Mike Shinoda created Fort Minor to represent minorities and everyday people facing struggles. While Fort Minor did not achieve the same level of fame as Linkin Park, its music videos effectively represented its messages.

1. The History Of Mike Shinoda Mike Shinoda with Linkin Park. Linkin Park, The Image. How did Linkin Park use the music videos to promote the band. Fort Minor, The Image. How Fort Minor use the music videos to promote the band? Similarities and Differences between Linkin Park and Fort Minor.

2. Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory. Linkin Park made their name with the release of their debut album, Hybrid Theory. Linkin park had initially struggled to sign a contract with any record dealers but the album proved to be a huge success, receiving 3 Grammy awards. The success of Hybrid Theory brought Linkin Park for the first time into the attention of mainstream and went on their first tour with the likes of “Xzibit” Backing them up.

3. Linkin Park, Meteora. Only a year later, Linkin Park struck again with the album Meteora, which instantly found world recognition and comfortably landed number one in England and the USA in the Album charts. The album earned yet more awards for the prosperous band and they received awards for the best music video, “Somewhere I belong.” An award for the best artist and an award for the best single, “numb.” Linkin park kept their same style of “Nu Metal and Rap Core” of the debut album, Hybrid Theory.

4. Minutes To Midnight Minutes to midnight shows a vast difference in sound and direction from the band, not only is the music different, but the album was embraced as number one in 16 countries including the USA and the UK. Minutes to midnight shows a much more mainstream reach from the band which was inexperienced in the previous two albums. This bald move from Linkin Park had them lose many of their fans but gain a lot more mainstream support, as when they featured in Jay-Z’s album collision course mixing the mainstream and the rock sound to create a genre which would cater for everybody promoting both artists. Linkin Park appeared to be heading towards the mainstream direction.

5. Development Of The Band Linkin Park came from being a very punk like band to a very mainstream and casual looking band. Linkin Park originally performed to cater to the taste of their fan base but moved towards the mainstream. The band developed their music slowly in this effect

6. Linkin Park Music videos. In every Linkin Park video, the band is featured at some stage playing their music as a group. This is a typical convention of rock videos presenting the band as one who performs their own music. There is huge contrast from Hybrid Theory’s Crawling which features the band in a punk like image, then eight years down the line with New Divide.

7. Comparison of Band Image. Hybrid Theory Meteora The main notable changes are the More casual style of clothing and The loss of hair colours typical to The punk image. The two vocalists here appear with punk Hairstyles and clothing. This is a big Contrast to Meteora.

8. Linkin Park now. Linkin Park used their music videos to promote the band as a typical rock group who perform their own music. Through use of the music videos you can also track the progress in the evolution of the band’s image and sound as all major changes in the band’s sound and image were singles released with video’s such as the groundbreaking “numb” and “faint” which contrast with the likes of “papercut” and “one step closer” from the previous album or Transformers’ “New Divide and What I’ve Done.” With evolution and progress to the sound and image Linkin Park now look like this.

9. The Band Now

10. Mike Shinoda. Linkin Park was the birth of notorious artist Mike Shinoda, one of the first members of the group. Mike Shinoda decided to start the side project Fort Minor when the front man of Linkin Park decided he wanted to have more vocal performance in each song, effectively shunning Mike to a side in the group. Mike Shinoda created Fort Minor as a side project featuring himself as the only member with support of other rap artists. Mike Shinoda had never expected Fort Minor to be half as successful as it was.

11. Fort Minor Fort Minor to date has released one album, “The Rising Tied,” the programme was titled Fort Minor for two reasons, “Fort” representing the darker side of Mike Shinoda’s music and “Minor” addressing the Minority who he represented in his music as well as the Minor key in music being the darker ones. Mike commented, “I wanted a name to focus on the style of music which was more important than having my own name on the album.”

12. The Rising Tied The rising tied featured a wide variety of different rap and hip hop artists from Holly Brooke to Jay-Z. The Rising Tied never made it into the charts but still made sufficient headway as an album, selling 400 000 copies outside the US worldwide. The album was never intended to reach number one but to make an impact on the lives of others and to represent the minorities with only three music videos to represent the music.

13. Where’d You Go? Where’d You Go is Fort Minor’s most successful song, featuring Holly Brooke and Mike Shinoda. Where’d You Go portrays the group as a serious one and clearly emphasizes Fort Minor’s grip on reality by using shots set in run down houses, all these video’s share the same image that Fort Minor is nothing glamorous. The use of Mike Shinoda rapping in a run down council home is a powerful image for the band. The video also features families talking about their problems and how they struggle to cope through the worst of it, the music video is a powerful representation of what the group is about.

14. Remember The Name Remember the name is a song about people who are dedicated to what they do, featuring Mike Shinoda and Styles of Beyond. The group appear in the video only a handful of times. The song is described to be a song about normal people who do extraordinary things. The video features many professional and unprofessional people of various talents from skating to free running, not only does this attract a target audience, but it represents those people as extraordinary people. This video again focuses on the song as opposed to the artist, showing that Mike Shinoda wasn’t making the song for profitable gain, but to represent minorities who in his mind, needed some recognition.

15. Fort Minor Fort Minor was set up to raise awareness of the real things in life and they do this effectively. As of yet Mike hasn’t taken it into any other direction because his work with Linkin Park has always been his priority. Fort Minor consistently use their videos to represent the song as opposed to the artist, it could be said that the lack of success from the album is because of its difference to the mainstream. Mike Shinoda never expected the album to go so far, but if it was his name on the front of the album, it would possibly have been a more explosive hit because of his relation to Linkin Park and the fame he had acquired from the group.

16. Comparison There are huge differences between Fort Minor and Linkin Park. Even though Fort Minor didn’t ever reach the same scale Linkin Park did. Linkin Park aimed more at success, especially recently when they started angling towards the mainstream, but Fort Minor were never made for this yet still were surprisingly popular. Linkin Park and Fort Minor both have major victories in that Linkin Park made it big but Fort Minor were able to raise the awareness of problems in the world and this is what the songs were designed to do.