The Emptiness Machine

"The Emptiness Machine" is a song by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released as the lead single from the band's eighth studio album, From Zero, on September 5, 2024. This is the band's first single to feature Emily Armstrong on vocals and Colin Brittain on drums, as well as the first single not to feature former members Chester Bennington and Rob Bourdon. The track was a commercial success across the globe, charting at number one in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Switzerland as well as the top 20 in Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Finland, France, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom. The song was also nominated for "Top Hard Rock Song" at the 2024 Billboard Music Awards.
On August 24, 2024, the band launched a 100-hour countdown, furthering speculation on the recent reunion rumours. Upon the expiration of the timer, the band teased the fans as the clock started to tick back up, before glitching for a few seconds on 09:05, leading to speculation that there could be an announcement on September 5, which the band later confirmed on their social media accounts.
On September 5, at a fan event held in Los Angeles, California, the band officially reunited and performed "The Emptiness Machine" live for the first time at Warner Bros. Television Studios, while simultaneously releasing the song as the lead single from their newly announced eighth studio album From Zero. This was Linkin Park's first public performance with new members Emily Armstrong and Colin Brittain.
On September 17, the band appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. After Shinoda's sitdown interview with Jimmy Fallon, the whole band performed the song live, making it the first televised appearance of the new lineup.
Revolver described "The Emptiness Machine" as "a supercharged rock anthem in the tried-and-true LP tradition." More specifically, the song has been described as hard rock, alternative rock, alternative metal, and pop-punk by critics.
In the United States, "The Emptiness Machine" made an instant impact on rock radio within its first six hours of release, debuting at number 24 on Billboard's Rock Airplay chart. Despite being released at the tail-end of the tracking week, the song simultaneously debuted on the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart at number 7, selling 1,000 digital downloads and racking up 690,000 streams in its first six hours. In its first full tracking week, the song tallied up 13,400,000 streams and 8,000 downloads, debuting at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 3 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, while topping the Hot Hard Rock Songs and Rock Airplay charts. In the process, "The Emptiness Machine" became the band's highest-charting song in the United States in fifteen years since 2009's "New Divide" that peaked at number 6, only being denied as a Top 20 hit by Morgan Wallen's "Cowgirls".
In the United Kingdom, "The Emptiness Machine" was battling for the band's first chart-topping single on the UK Singles Chart, trailing only to Sabrina Carpenter's "Taste" in the midweek update with 14,101 sales. At the end of the week, the song debuted at number four, becoming their highest-ever charting song on the chart, beating "What I've Done", which peaked at number six in 2007, with their best opening week performance in the UK for a single release totalling over 38,000 units. Simultaneously, the song debuted atop the UK Singles Sales Chart and UK Singles Downloads Chart, gifting the band their first ever UK number one on pure sales in the country with over 2,500 downloads; it also spent six non-consecutive weeks at the summit of the UK Rock & Metal Singles Chart. By November 2024, "The Emptiness Machine" had already achieved 176,137 chart sales in the UK. The week following the album's release, the song rebounded into the UK's Top 10 and got certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry for 200,000 units.
The song debuted atop the German Singles Chart, becoming the band's first number-one single in Germany, and their highest chart entry since 2012, where "Burn It Down" peaked at number 2. It stayed at number one for eleven consecutive weeks, becoming the longest-running number one of the entire calendar year in the country. Elsewhere in Europe, "The Emptiness Machine" was also a number one hit in Austria, Czech Republic, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland.
In Ireland, "The Emptiness Machine" debuted at number 16 on the Irish Singles Chart, their highest-charting song since 2007, where "What I've Done" peaked at number 15.
Worldwide, the song debuted at number three on the Billboard Global 200 chart with 74 million streams and 19,000 sales sold in its first full week, making "The Emptiness Machine" the first song by the band to become a top-10 hit on the chart.
The music video for "The Emptiness Machine" was directed by the band's turntablist Joe Hahn and was filmed in Los Angeles, California in late July 2024. It was published on YouTube and released on September 5, 2024.
The video features glitchy visuals and the band members getting teleported to different locations. Mike Shinoda is also seen painting a picture featured on the single CD cover. Similar to the music video for "New Divide", data moshing was used to transition to the final scene, which features the whole band performing on a platform. Motion capture is used for the particle effects during the music video's finale.
Linkin Park
Additional personnel