Mike Shinoda Minchin III, Nick Spanos, and Joe Hahn for the artwork of the band's second studio album "Meteora". Shinoda also produced the album, with his bandmates and Don Gilmore which was his first production experience. By the release of the Jay-Z and Linkin Park collaborative mashup EP, entitled "Collision Course" in 2004, Shinoda's involvement in the creation of the albums continued to grow. He produced and mixed the album, which won a Grammy Award for "best rap / song collaboration" in 2006. The band released their next album, "Minutes to Midnight", on May 14, 2007. On this album, Shinoda shared a
Minutes to Midnight (song) some 12 minutes in the preceding decade. This was the closest to midnight the clock had reached since the overt testing of H-Bombs by the US and Soviet Union in 1953. This setting was surpassed only recently, after the inauguration of American president Donald Trump in January 2017, when the clock was set at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. The lyrics warn of escalation in the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union (""ICBMs, SS-20s / they lie so dormant, they got so many""), and allude to both H.G. Wells and heralded Australian racehorse Phar Lap. Minutes to