LINKIN PARK's 'One More Light' Expected To Debut At No. 2 On BILLBOARD Chart

According to Billboard, LINKIN PARK's new album, "One More Light", is likely to move around 90,000 equivalent album units in first week of release to debut at position No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).

LINKIN PARK has previously landed in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 nine times — with all six of their earlier studio albums, two remix efforts, and the band's collaborative mash-up set with Jay Z, "Collision Course".

LINKIN PARK vocalist Chester Bennington recently defended the band against the backlash caused by the pop direction of "One More Light". Speaking with Rock Sound, Bennington said that the group began writing pop songs even before recording its heavy 2014 album, "The Hunting Party". He explained: "We started down a pretty clear path of writing some pretty serious pop music. Mike [Shinoda, co-vocalist] was giving me litmus tests like, 'Hey, what would you say if I said let's do a collaboration with Katy Perry or Kelly Clarkson?' and I was like, 'Fuck yeah! I actually really like pop music.'"

Bennington continued: "It was just a test to see if I'd go, 'Absolutely not, that makes me want to puke' or if I'd be open to the idea, and I'm pretty much open to anything."

Bennington added that the group started taking risks as far as back as its third CD, "Minutes To Midnight", saying: "If the songs are great, that should be all that matters. We feel like we're pushing ourselves creatively… We like to really play with our palette and expand our abilities as songwriters and performers, and that's what we did on this record."

The singer also revealed that he went through a number of personal and family issues over the last couple of years that inspired the lyrics on the new disc, saying, "I literally hated life... it was a legitimate breakdown of me as a human being and then going through all of the effort and hard work it takes to rebuild it and reaping the rewards."

The first single from "One More Light", "Heavy", features guest vocals from Kiara Saulters, and was co-written with pop songwriter Emily Wright, who has worked with artists like Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry.