The title is a reference to the Bhagavad Gita, a line from which was popularized in 1945 by J. Robert Oppenheimer, who described the atomic bomb as being "as bright as a thousand suns".

[4] In November 2008, lead singer Chester Bennington said the new record was a concept album; he said it "sound[ed] a little daunting to me, so, I think my confidence level will drop, but when it was presented to us by this friend of ours, we liked the idea.

The band wrote about these comments in the album's liner notes: Oppenheimer's words resonate today not only for their historical significance, but for their emotional gravity.

[20][21] The fifth track "When They Come for Me" references The Blueprint2: The Gift & The Curse, the seventh studio album by hip hop artist Jay-Z, with whom the band collaborated on the 2004 EP Collision Course.

Compared to their previous record, Minutes to Midnight (2007), Shinoda contributed many more vocals, while Brad Delson's guitar riffs are put further into the background, which Gary Graff of Billboard described as "on the back burner (and barely even in the oven)".

[44] Dave "Phoenix" Farrell stated that the band's members believed the song's "dark undertones ... fits with the subject matter" of the game, which was the reason "The Catalyst" was chosen for Medal of Honor.

[44] During the Japanese release of the album on September 15, 2010, Warner Music Japan announced that "The Catalyst" would be the official theme song of Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs..[45] In addition, Warner Music Japan released a limited edition package bundle for the album, containing the CD, along with a 1/144 scale plastic model kit of the RX-78GP01Fb Gundam "Zephyranthes" Full Burnern from the anime OVA series Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, molded in colors and using color-correcting stickers evoking the imagery used on the cover of the album.

It was further accompanied by artwork of the members of Linkin Park in Earth Federation military uniforms and pilot suits alongside the custom colored GP01Fb.

[49] "Blackout", "Burning in the Skies", "The Catalyst", "The Messenger", "Waiting for the End", and "Wretches and Kings" were available as downloadable content in the "Linkin Park Track Pack" for the rhythm video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock,[50] which was released on October 19, 2010, on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, and Wii Shop Channel.

The re-release includes a live DVD of the band's MTV Europe Music Awards concert at Puerta de Alcalá, Madrid on November 7, 2010, and an MP3 audio file of the show.

[57] The winner of this contest was Czeslaw "NoBraiN" Sakowski from Świdnica, Poland, whose remix is featured as an extra track on a version of the album made available from Best Buy and Napster.

[63] On August 31, 2010, it was announced that the band would give their first live performance of the single at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010,[64] at Griffith Observatory.

[76] Linkin Park's performance of "Waiting for the End" at Puerta de Alcala in Madrid was broadcast as part of the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards.

He also said a slightly shorter version of the song would be included the soundtrack of the movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and that a music video directed by Hahn had been made to promote the single.

[97] In the second week, the album slid to number three, selling 70,000 copies;[98] in December 2010, two months after its release, its sales passed the half-million mark.

[104][105] On September 10, 2010, two days after the album's UK release, A Thousand Suns was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), marking shipments of 100,000 copies to retailers.

[19] Dave de Sylvia of Sputnikmusic called it "an extremely well-crafted rock album," saying it was somewhat better than its predecessor Minutes to Midnight (2007), but does not live up to their debut, Hybrid Theory (2000).

[14] Jordy Kasko with Review Rinse Repeat gave A Thousand Suns a perfect rating, calling it an "epic quest".

"[13] Christopher Weingarten of The Village Voice praised the album, calling it "2010's best avant-rock nuclear-anxiety concept record", as well as comparing it to Radiohead's OK Computer (1997).

[12] Mikael Wood of Spin gave the album six stars out of ten, saying it "contains plenty of aggressively arty material" and calling "The Messenger" the "most unexpected track on the boldly conceived A Thousand Suns".

[119] Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B rating and said "at times the band's odd mélange of industrial grind, hip-hop swagger, and teenage-wasteland angst feels jarring".

[117] Australia's Music Network magazine gave the album a mixed review, calling it "a radical shift for the band, but it's also a very uneven one ... while there's some commanding moments ('The Catalyst,' 'Wretches and Kings'), many of the tracks feel like experiments rather than fully-formed songs".

[122] Tim Coffman of Far Out magazine said that with A Thousand Suns, Linkin Park was "ahead of the curve" in blending the musical genres of electronic and rock.

[124] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said the album was a "clear continuation" of its predecessor but said "the problem is, the subdued rhythms, riffs and raps of A Thousand Suns wind up monochromatic".

[1] Jim Farber of The New York Daily News gave the album one star out of five, saying, "no fewer than 15 cuts crowd the tight 47-minute length of the CD, many of them fragments or, more accurately, sonic non sequiturs".

[116] Jamie Primack of The Badger Herald wrote, "there are at least five filler tracks that contain nothing more than noise and sound bites ... the full-length songs aren't particularly daring or interesting".

[126][127] Sara Ferrer of Orange County Reloaded said the album split the views of fans and critics into "love-it versus hate-it groups".

[128] Montgomery expressed similar sentiments, saying the album "alternately thrilled and thinned [Linkin Park's] substantial fanbase with its vast swaths of sonic sprawl (and overall lack of guitar solos).

"[129] Mike Shinoda shared his thoughts on the divided reception of the fans; he thanked the people who accepted the album and defended it from the criticism of those who disliked it.

[130] Commenting on fans' polarized response to the album, Chester Bennington said, "[A Thousand Suns] is definitely something that we knew people would need to digest and get over the fact that it's not what they thought we would do.