In January 2011, it was released in a Linkin Park DLC pack for Rock Band 3. The song is also a B-side to the UK single of "Iridescent". An instrumental version of the song is currently used by Sky UK as background music for their interactive services.
Joe [Hahn] came up to Mike and I and asked us to take the whole idea of Minutes to Midnight and apply that to how the band has changed. So, in a way, it's us saying goodbye to how we used to be...The lyrics in the first verse are 'In this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi,' and right away, you'll notice that the band sounds different: The drums are much more raw, the guitars are more raw and the vocals aren't tripled. It's just us out there .... and that's how Rick Rubin wanted it.[7]
The single and video appeared in the iTunes Store shortly after midnight EST on April 2, 2007. It became available the day after on iTunes in the UK and Australia. On April 2, the song was featured streaming on the front page of their official website, with the video being added to the site shortly thereafter.
The song is composed in the key of G minor.[8] It starts out with a short 3-second guitar part and then a pianomotif, before adding a hip hop-inspired drum computer line, and then introducing a raw-sounding guitar riff. When the song is played live at Linkin Park's concerts, Mike Shinoda plays the piano intro and the guitar after that. This song differs from most of Linkin Park's songs from previous albums in that it features almost no lead vocals from vocalist Shinoda, with the exception of a brief "na na na" refrain at the end. "What I've Done" was the last song written for Minutes to Midnight.[9] The song also has a downbeat exactly once every second, consistent throughout its entirety.
Shinoda created a remix of the song, which is called "What I've Done (Distorted Remix)", which is included as a B-side to "Bleed It Out". The remix was then included in the international tour edition of Minutes to Midnight, as well as a track in the Linkin Park Underground-exclusive CD Underground X: Demos.[10]
Music videos
Main music video
The music video for "What I've Done" was filmed in the California desert and was directed by Linkin Park turntablistJoe Hahn.[11] The video begins with grass sinking down into the dirt, causing it to turn wet. It features footage of the band performing in an area outside of the city, interspersed with footage showing many political movements and humanitarian issues including pollution, racism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, abortion, terrorism, Holocaust, deforestation, poverty, drug addiction, obesity, war, destruction, rising gasoline prices, and crimes committed by humanity. The video ends with the same clip from the beginning but played in reverse, where it has the grass re-growing. Some cutscenes, such as the traffic scene and the napalm exploding, were also featured in the Rise Against music video for "Ready to Fall". The video premiered on April 2, 2007, on MTV and Fuse. It premiered on MTV Asia, MTV Germany, TMF Netherlands and Canada's MuchMusic on April 3, 2007.
The video clip was featured and won on MTV's Battle of the Videos against videos by Evanescence ("Sweet Sacrifice") and Lil' Mama ("Lip Gloss").[12] The video also marks the first appearance of a Linkin Park video in the #1 spot on MTV's TRL, hitting #1 six times so far. AOL currently has a live performance of "What I've Done" on their website.[13]MTV's James Montgomery called "What I've Done" the "biggest, baddest and best Linkin Park video of all time," praising the visuals as well as the numerous political figures and events occurring within the video. He summarized the video's message: "Hahn was smart — or brave — enough to inject a message here: the destructive power of man versus the unyielding beauty of nature, and where it all will undoubtedly end ()."[14]
A second video, made exclusively for Australia, features a considerably different scenario from the first; instead of clips of human sin, the video tells the story of a woman (played by Emma Mullings) working at a government-run pharmaceutical company learning of a plan to develop a deadly new virus for "social control", and – with the help of several people dressed in black hooded sweatshirts with Linkin Park's logo on them – smuggles out several blood samples of a human test subject of the virus to expose the conspiracy. The video can be seen on YouTube and Linkin Park's Australian website.[16][17][18][19]
Commercial performance
The song made big debuts on the US charts during the chart week of April 21, 2007. The song debuted in the top 10 of the US Hot 100 on April 10, 2007, at #7. It is the band's second highest debut to date on the chart (this title was previously held by "Somewhere I Belong" which opened at #47), earning "Hot Shot" debut of the week, and subsequently becoming the third highest position for a Linkin Park single to date on the Hot 100. The song was their highest debut until they released "New Divide" in May 2009. At the time of its debut it was only the eleventh song since 2000 to debut at #7 or higher on the Hot 100, and only the third song to do so by an artist not from American Idol. The song was partly fueled by digital sales, debuting at #4 on the digital chart. The song was certified 6× Platinum by the RIAA on May 12, 2022.[20] It reached 3 million downloads by early 2011, making it their most successful digital song in the US.[21] As of January 2015, the song has sold 3,700,000 copies in the US.[22]
In addition the song became only the third song ever to open at #1 on the Modern Rock chart, also becoming the band's seventh number one on the chart. It held the #1 spot on Alternative Songs for 15 consecutive weeks, at the time tying it with Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy," and was the number one song for the year on this chart. The song also reached #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, where it stayed for 8 consecutive weeks. In the iTunes music store, the song had reached number two. It was kept out of the top spot by "Give It to Me" by Timbaland. The music video is the first to reach the number 1 spot on TRL for Linkin Park video history. It has also become a moderate hit on the Adult Top 40, and Pop 100 Airplay charts, peaking at number 21 and 17 respectively on those charts.
The song hit #6 in the UK once the physical format was released, making it Linkin Park's highest-charting UK single for over 17 years, until "The Emptiness Machine" reached #4 in September 2024.
In September 2023, for the 35th anniversary of Modern Rock Tracks (by which time it had been renamed to Alternative Airplay),[23]Billboard ranked "What I've Done" at number 64 on its list of the 100 most successful songs in the chart's history.[24]
Since August 2022, "What I've Done" has been used in internet memes where the opening riff is dubbed over scenes from recent films, referencing Michael Bay's collaboration with Linkin Park in the Transformers film.[26]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
^"ČNS IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Radio Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Select 24. týden 2007 in the date selector. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
^"ČNS IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Digital Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Select 28. týden 2014 in the date selector. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
