Minutes to Midnight (Linkin Park album) Linkin Park started work on their third studio album in 2003, taking a break to tour in support of "Meteora" in 2004. In this time period, the band formed numerous side projects; Mike Shinoda formed his hip hop side project Fort Minor, while Chester Bennington formed Dead by Sunrise, causing the album to be shelved temporarily. The band returned to work on the record afterward, taking on a different musical direction than the 2003 sessions while working with producer Rick Rubin. The album's completion was delayed several times for unknown reasons. Eventually, "What I've Done" was chosen as the album's
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