Two months into the start of 2021 and Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park/Fort Minor) has dropped his first piece of new music for the year, a collaboration featuring rapper iann dior and alternative/pop artist UPSAHL. The single, titled “Happy Endings,” is a perfect representation of the feelings of frustration and regret that comes with the hindsight of remembering the events of 2020, balanced out with the hopeful reminder that we have the ability to reframe our own narratives to cope with the disappointing realization that many of those feelings from 2020 have carried over into the new year.

“Happy Endings” was released worldwide Friday, February 19 on various streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, and more. An official lyric video has also been released, which you can watch below, with an official music video hopefully on the way!

To promote the release, Shinoda put 10 copies of a clip of the single up for fans to bid on through a NFT (non-fungible token) auction on Zora, becoming the first major label artist to do so. All proceeds Shinoda makes from the auction will be donated to the Michael K. Shinoda Endowed Scholarship at the Arts Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. The scholarship fund, which Shinoda founded himself, benefits aspiring art students based on financial need and artistic merit in the fields of graphic design and/or illustration. Winners of the NFT auction will also be receiving a physical print of the art for “Happy Endings” signed by Shinoda and Cain Caser, who designed the art together. 

In addition to the NFT auction, Shinoda also invited both iann dior and UPSAHL onto his Twitch channel to talk about the song, which you can watch in the video below. Shinoda is also doing an interview on The Needle Drop’s Twitch channel with Anthony Fantano on Friday, February 19 at 10 a.m. PT.