“New Divide” by Linkin Park

"New Divide" arrived on May 18, 2009, a Linkin Park single that stood apart from any album: the band wrote it for Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, where it served as the film's main theme and kicked off the soundtrack. Mike Shinoda produced it, and the working title was, naturally, "Megatron".

It's the band at its sleekest and most arena-sized. Joe Hahn's synths and samples hum underneath, Brad Delson's guitar surges in waves, Rob Bourdon and David Farrell keep the engine room tight, and Chester Bennington tears into the chorus while Shinoda backs him up. David Sardy and David Woolley handled the mix. It climbed to number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and pulled off a rare feat, sitting on top of the Rock Songs, Alternative Songs and Mainstream Rock charts at once.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.