I could not believe the news I heard as I was getting ready to leave work yesterday. Someone had told me that Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin Park had committed suicide.. I don’t really think it hit me until I got home and started listening to Linkin Park’s second album Meteora.
While listening to it I started to think about the band that Chester was the front man for and the effect that his music has had on my life. I remember as a kid hearing “One Step Closer,” “Crawling,” and ‘In The End,” on the radio, but I didn’t buy That first Linkin Park album until after I had bought Meteora. I do however remember loving those songs and thinking that I had never really heard anything like it.
Then I thought about how all day yesterday I would randomly sing “Bleed it out,” and how anytime I started to sing a Jay-Z song I would subconsciously sing the Collision Course version, (By the way, there needs to be more collaborations like that album.)
When I was in middle school I think kids were really starting to drift into listening to more hip hop and rap than rock, and Linkin Park was bridging that gap. Mike Shinoda was great at rapping the verses while Chester Bennington would melt your ears off with one of my favorite voices in rock music.
My mom would actually yell at me whenever I was singing “One Step closer,” because she didn't think I should be yelling “:Shut up when I’m talking to you.”
I loved Hybrid Theory, but for me Meteora was a masterpiece. That album was practically glued into my discman. (For you kids who might be reading this, a discman is a way to listen to an artist’s full album on the go, you actually had to carry this bulky thing around and listen to one artist at a time.) I still to this day know every single word to every song on that album.
I was 13 years old when it came out. For a 13 year old boy in middle school music can play a big role in making that person who they will be for the rest of their lives. I was, and still am obsessed with music and Chester Bennington and Linkin Park are a big reason for that. I always try to find bands that sound similar to Linkin Park. I love when a band can rap the verses and then get super heavy during the chorus. Without Linkin Park I would not have found Thousand Foot Krutch, and the electric sound of Bring Me The Horizon’s two latest albums caught my attention because of Mr. Han from Linkin Park.
So what this boils down to I guess is that for me, Chester Bennington’s music is a big part of who I am today, and I would like to thank him for that. I won’t say goodbye to him because I know that I will listen to him on a weekly basis and I will play Meteora at least three to four times a year, and his voice will constantly be in my head.
Thank you for all you’ve done for me Chester, and I hope you have found the peace you were looking for.
