Mike Shinoda Reveals the Reason ‘Lost’ Was Cut From Linkin Park’s ‘Meteora’
Today was a big day for Linkin Park. Not only did they announce a massive 20th anniversary box set in commemoration of Meteora, but they released an outtake from the album called "Lost." In an interview with Audacy, Mike Shinoda explained why the song was cut from the album's final track listing.
Shinoda recalled that the Linkin Park camp uncovered "Lost" while going through all of their Meteora files, and it had already been mixed and mastered because they initially intended to put it on the album. Therefore, he didn't want to remix or remaster the song prior to releasing it today.
"The philosophy was — don't really touch it. Present it the way it would have been presented back then. If you don't have to mix it, if you don't have to master it, don't do it," Shinoda told Audacy host Nicole Alvarez. "So we stuck very closely to that."
The rocker described the emotional nature of the song (check out the lyrics here), and noted that the perspective is mainly focused on "some not-so-good stuff." As a result, the track was cut from the album because they already had one with a similar message.
"It was this close to being on the record... At some point, you put [the songs] in kind of an order, like these are the best ones and from there it goes down," Shinoda stated. "And the one right on the other side of the line was this song 'Lost.' And the only reason it didn't go on is because it sounded — it had the same intensity as 'Numb.'"
Thus, we get to hear it today in a whole new light, albeit in the absence of Chester Bennington, but his vocals sound as powerful as ever throughout it.
See the full interview below.
The 20th anniversary edition of Meteora is available on a variety of different formats, and is expected on April 7. Pre-order yours here.
