"A Light That Never Comes" is a song written and recorded by American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band Linkin Park, and is their first collaboration with American DJ and record producer Steve Aoki. It was included on the band's second

remix album A remix album is an album consisting of remixes or rerecorded versions of an artist's earlier released material. The first act who employed the format was American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson ('' Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'', 1971). As of 200 ...

, '' Recharged''. It is the twenty-sixth single by the band. The song appears as the opening track on the album while a reboot version produced by

Rick Rubin Frederick Jay Rubin (; born March 10, 1963) is an American record producer. He is the co-founder (alongside Russell Simmons) of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. Rubin helped popula ...

serves as the closing track. In addition to the song being released in advance when ''Recharged'' was partially released early on September 16, 2013, "A Light That Never Comes" was released to radio and made available to stream as a

promotional single A promotional recording, or promo, or plug copy, is an audio or video recording distributed free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available. Promos are normally sent directly to broadcasters, such as ...

on digital music service

Xbox Music Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music or Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. The app is also associated with a now-discontinued music streaming service, Groo ...

on the same day. The

CD single A CD single (sometimes abbreviated to CDS) is a music single in the form of a compact disc. The standard in the Red Book for the term ''CD single'' is an 8 cm (3-inch) CD (or Mini CD). It now refers to any single recorded onto a CD of any si ...

was released on October 11, 2013.

Background and promotion

According to

Mike Shinoda Michael Kenji Shinoda (; ja, 篠田賢治, Shinoda Kenji; born February 11, 1977) is an American musician, singer, rapper, songwriter and record producer. He co-founded the rock band Linkin Park in 1996 and was the band's collaborative vocal ...

, "The coolest part about the song is it was really organic in how it came together ... Steve Aoki and I first talked on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, and then we were emailing, and then we started throwing music back and forth." In an interview on August 30, 2013, with Shinoda and Aoki, Shinoda said that they began working on the song "no less than a half a year ago". He said they did not constantly work on it, but "the ideas would flow whenever...something new came up". HBO featured the song in their 2013 fall preview advertisement. The band released the song's official lyric video on September 16 when players from across the world unlocked the track on '' LP Recharge'', their first

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

game. The song was heavily contributed in the 2014 documentary film '' The Distortion of Sound'', which features Mike and Steve, as well as the background music for the introduction video of '' Grid Autosport''. The Rick Rubin Reboot of the song was also featured in the soundtrack of 2014 American

ensemble Ensemble may refer to: Art * Architectural ensemble * Ensemble (album), ''Ensemble'' (album), Kendji Girac 2015 album * Ensemble (band), a project of Olivier Alary * Ensemble cast (drama, comedy) * Ensemble (musical theatre), also known as the ...

action film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include l ...

'' The Expendables 3''.

Live performances

Shinoda, Bennington, and Aoki performed the song together for the first time at the

Summer Sonic Festival The , also known as Supersonic, is an annual two- or three-day rock festival held at the same time in Osaka and Chiba, Japan. The majority of the bands playing in Osaka the first day go to Chiba the following day and vice versa. The line-up co ...

on August 10, 2013, in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, Japan. Aoki said, "we just kind of threw this show together like...it was very just raw." At the time, Shinoda said that there were no plans to perform the song again with Aoki, however, he said "I imagine it will happen," but he did not know if it would be the same set up as the Summer Sonic show, or if it would be the full band and Steve. He said he could see both happening. On November 15, 2013, Mike Shinoda, Chester Bennington, and Steve Aoki performed the song with

Blink-182 Blink-182 (stylized as blink-182) is an American rock band formed in Poway, California in 1992. Their current lineup consists of bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus, guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker. Though their sound has ...

drummer

Travis Barker Travis Landon Barker (born November 14, 1975) is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the rock band Blink-182. He has also performed as a frequent collaborator with hip hop artists, is a member of the rap rock group Tran ...

at the

Shrine Auditorium The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue in Los Angeles, California. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 139) in 1975, and ...

and Expo Hall. On November 26, Shinoda, Bennington, and Aoki performed the song on '' Jimmy Kimmel Live!''. On January 9, 2014, at The Joint in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

, Linkin Park performed the song for the first time as a full band without Aoki. On Celebrate Life concert, the song was performed with pop singer Bebe Rexha on vocals

Critical reception

Stupid Dope gave the song a positive review, saying "The track is packed full of dope energy, heavy melodic elements, and of course, the patented sound of Linkin Park, as they mesh together nicely with Mr. Aoki."

Commercial performance

In its first week of release, the single sold 55,000 downloads in the US.

Music video

On October 6, 2013,

Joe Hahn Joseph Hahn (born March 15, 1977) is an American musician, DJ, director and visual artist best known as the DJ of the American rock band Linkin Park, doing the scratching, turntables, sampling, and programming for all seven of Linkin Park's ...

confirmed a video for "A Light That Never Comes" is in production, by posting two behind the scenes pictures, and a short video preview on his Instagram account. The video was released a couple of days later, albeit on several sites across the world appealing to their respective regions only. The music video was then officially released worldwide on YouTube on October 17, 2013. A behind-the-scenes feature of the video is on Dell's official website. It features the band and a statue of Steve Aoki in a cyber world along with an unnamed actress. As of December 2022, the music video for "A Light That Never Comes" has over 38 million views on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

Track listing

Remixes

''A Light That Never Comes (Remixes)'' is the third extended play released to the public by American rock band Linkin Park and the second released EP by American electro house musician Steve Aoki. It features seven remixes by seven various artists for the collaborated single, "A Light That Never Comes". This is one of their few extended plays that were not released by Machine Shop, which was founded by the band's co-vocalist

. The whole album was available on Aoki's and

Dim Mak The touch of death (or death-point striking) refers to any martial arts technique reputed to kill using seemingly less than lethal force targeted at specific areas of the body. The concept known as ''dim mak'' (), alternatively ' () traces its ...

's official YouTube channel."EP on YouTube"
''

'' Retrieved July 2, 2014.

Background

''A Light That Never Comes (Remixes)'' features EDM remixes of the single. The EP was confirmed by the band on their Facebook page. The EP included artists like

, Angger Dimas,

Coone Koen Bauweraerts (born 30 May 1983), better known by his stage name Coone, is a Belgian hardstyle producer and DJ. Career Coone first started producing in 1998 at age 15. He released his first EP in 2002, "Protect The Innocent". Under the ...

and various others. The

Vicetone Vicetone is a Dutch electronic music DJ and production duo formed by Ruben den Boer ((), born 22 January 1992) and Victor Pool (born 9 July 1992) from Groningen. The duo began as a DJ act, and in 2013, they were voted into the ''DJ Mag'' Top 100 ...

remix was originally available for digital download when people Shazamed Linkin Park and Steve Aoki's performance on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' straight to their own mobile phones or other electronic communication uses, which was recorded and aired on TV on November 26, 2013. The remix was actually a winner of the A LIGHT THAT NEVER COMES remix contest. The reboot by Rick Rubin for the song was also included in the band's second remix album, ''Recharged''. It served as the closing track of the album.

Promotion

The EP was not promoted well but still it was commercially a success by the online shopping websites. For the promotion of the EP, there were two music videos for the Coone remix and the Vicetone remix, which were available on their YouTube channels. The video of the Coone remix is a live performance and also includes some lyrics of the song, but it was not declared as a lyric video. The video was directed by Editz. The video for the Vicetone remix was a remix of the official video of the single, which was an animated video, taken from the official video of the song by the band and Steve Aoki.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Light That Never Comes Steve Aoki songs Linkin Park songs 2013 singles 2013 songs Songs written by Mike Shinoda Electronic rock songs Songs written by Steve Aoki Warner Records singles Warner Records EPs