Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda recently blogged about his desire for the band's fans to hold off on the urge to just hit download and listen to the new 'Living Things' album alone through your computer speakers, longing for the days when a new disc was an event that was shared among friends.

Monday night in Los Angeles, Shinoda was able to see part of his wish in action as fans, friends and media (including Loudwire) packed into Sonos Studios for a multimedia preview of the band's new 'Living Things' album. The Linkin Park rhyme-slinger dished a few niceties before letting the disc speak for itself.

'Living Things' finds the group finally finding some comfort in their own skin, bringing back a little bit of their past guitar-based sound while putting a modern spin on it with the electronic elements that have started to emerge in recent releases. With a major sound system and a video screen that amassed a full wall showing images that reflected the music's themes, the audience received a treat of both sight and sound to get the full experience that perhaps Shinoda had envisioned.

In the session afterward, Shinoda reminisced about his own favorite listening experiences growing up, "I remember everything specifically from Wu-Tang's first record to Alice in Chains, Nine Inch Nails, A Tribe Called Quest, I remember sitting in the car with my friends and going and listening to those records. It was not what we do today. And I'm not saying it's a commentary on downloading or leaks or whatever, it's just that usually these days people experience it on their own by themselves on their little laptop speakers which are terrible and they don't make a decision to enjoy it. And if you just take one extra step and decide to have more fun with it, then you really get a lot more out of it."

We're still a week away from the new Linkin Park album hitting stores (June 26), but the stream for the album just arrived online for fans to check out. Will you follow Shinoda's lead, and invite your friends to gather around before you hit play?

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