Linkin Park's fifth album, Living Things, landed at Number One on the Billboard album chart on Wednesday (July 4th), selling 223,000 copies in its first week of release. The new disc inched into the top spot by selling just 1,000 more copies than Maroon 5's Overexposed, which moved 222,000 copies to settle for Number Two. Living Things is also Linkin Park's fourth consecutive chart-topping album. According to Billboard, no other band has had more Number Ones than Linkin Park since 2000.

• The group's debut disc, 2000's Hybrid Theory, peaked at Number Two although it ended up being the biggest selling set of 2001.
• Linkin Park started as part of the nu-metal movement but showed staying power even as most of the other groups from that time have fallen by the wayside. Singer Mike Shinoda explained why: "When we look back at it, we've really gotten to a point where we can say, you know, that's fine that things were influential. We were inspired by somebody else, somebody else was inspired by us. But we owned our thing. And to be able to look at that and say, whatever else happened, that's fine, but when we comes to our sound, we made our sound, we own our sound and we're gonna be comfortable with that -- who we are."
• Linkin Park's last album, 2010's A Thousand Suns, also topped the chart with first-week sales of 241,000 copies.
• The first single from Living Things, "Burn It Down," has topped the Active Rock chart.
• Linkin Park will co-headline the Honda Civic Tour this summer with Incubus, beginning in Bristow, Virginia on August 11th.

SIDE NOTES
The week's other big rock release, the Offspring's Days Go By, missed debuting in the Top 10, entering the chart at Number 12 on first-week sales of 24,000 copies. Their previous effort, 2008's Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, sold 46,000 copies to debut at Number 10.

LISTENERS' POLL: Linkin Park's sale figures -- strong or weak? Is the band finished or do they still have a pulse?

INTERNET COMMENTS at Loudwire -- agree or not?

juan111 wrote: "Great!!! Linkin Park deserves this #1 more than the pop boyband Maroon 5..."

oakdaledude wrote: "It's great to see a band that performs challenging music rise above the stale, cliche Clear Channel approved crapola of a band like Moron 5."

Gabriela Buriu wrote: "i'm prouder and prouder of being a Linkin Park fan.. they completely changed my life and the way i see things,people..The more people hate them,the more i love them...And i'm proud because they stuck to their guns and got to do whatever they loved and feel like it."

Eric Deverick wrote: "Sad to hear there are close to 223000 people really disappointed right now. Thankfully, I didn't buy into the 'going back to their roots' crap, and listened to this garbage first, so I didn't waste my money. Just because they sell a lot of albums doesn't make it a good album, just means they have people who will buy anything from a certain name."

Mike Shinoda On Linkin Park's Staying Power

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