Minutes To Midnight is the third studio release from Linkin Park (Hybrid Theory; 2000, Meteora; 2003), and was released internationally on May 14th, 2007, with the North American release one day later on May 15th. The album, co-produced by the legendary Rick Rubin and Linkin Park frontman Mike Shinoda, took 14 months to write and record. This intensive process resulted in the recording of over one hundred rough ideas for songs. The band whittled down the number of songs to 17, then narrowed that number even further until they had 12 songs. The album's first single, "What I've Done" was released to radio on April 2nd, 2007, and became an instant hit on rock stations across the globe.
 

The album title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, a clock created in 1947 by scientists from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. Its purpose is to portray how close (in imaginary "minutes") the world is to nuclear destruction ("midnight"). The clock's hand was originally set to seven minutes to midnight (11:53) at the start of the Cold War in 1947, and has been pushed forward or reversed several times since then. It currently stands at five minutes to midnight (11:55). History lessons aside, Mike Shinoda has commented about the title, saying "don't take that at face value. there are layers of meaning, most are metaphoric." and "It's definitely a reference to the doomsday clock 'the Apocalypse' metaphor for death and rebirth, but it could also be applied to the music industry, sort of tongue-in-cheek."