HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Linkin Park
Tasked with piecing together LINKIN PARK’s first greatest hits album, Papercuts, band leader Mike Shinoda described the process as “a joy”. It probably isn’t the first word that springs to mind when reflecting on one of the 21st century’s biggest rock bands. From their raging ‘shut up when I’m talking to you’ refrain to the death of frontman Chester Bennington, for all of LINKIN PARK’s successes, there were always shadows that followed.
It is strange now to consider how the band’s most recent album, 2017’s One More Light, sounded like a new beginning. Following a couple of straight-forward alt metal records that didn’t exactly set the world on fire, opinions were deeply split on their new electropop sound. But for the first time in a while, people were talking about LINKIN PARK again. Regardless of the backlash, it broke new ground for the band and was bold in its Billboard aspirations. Featuring the likes of STORMZY and PUSHA T, it was a reaffirmation of something we had always known: LINKIN PARK aren’t for the purists, they’re for everyone.
It is almost impossible to separate the album from Bennington’s death just two months later. In some of his final interviews, he lashed out at those who accused him and his bandmates of selling out and catering to popular trends, telling those critics to stab themselves in the face. His outbursts may offer a window into his state of mind at the time, but perhaps more simply, they were a sign of the deep connection he had with his art. Known for his personal and confessional lyricism, an attack on his creativity was an attack on him.
Only One More Light’s title track appears on Papercuts, which is an inarguably beautiful piece of pop music that seems to foreshadow the grief that would follow the record’s release: “Who cares if one more light goes out? Well I do.” It took on a new meaning far too soon, a dedication from Bennington to someone who had passed became about him too. It is no wonder fans turned to it in remembrance.
His death brought to life to a deep cut from 2012’s Living Things too, their fifth record. A competent collection of songs with a few standouts, fans leaned on Roads Untraveled for its comfort in the face of the bittersweet. “Weep not for roads untraveled, weep not for sights unseen” was a reminder to be grateful for all that had happened, despite the painful loss. The rest of the record is fine and feels like a course-correction after the challenging A Thousand Suns (2010). Each cut is clear and concise, and tracks like Lost In The Echo and Burn It Down (which features on Papercuts, along with Castle Of Glass) are decent standalone radio metal bangers.
Compared to the previous record’s experimentation, and the sharp turn of One More Light, this pocket of LINKIN PARK’s career plays it safe. That might explain why nothing from its follow-up The Hunting Party (2014) is on Papercuts. Generally praised at the time for its return to their nu metal roots, its angst isn’t as potent as their early masterpieces and, if anything, highlights why the band had to shake up their sound. Opener Keys To The Kingdom is a nice little rager and Guilty All The Same has a sense of scale that serves it well, but the record left little impact on the band’s legacy.
If their career can be bisected, everything up to and including A Thousand Suns would make up its first half, and everything that followed would be its second. It is a record of superlatives: grandest, longest, toughest. Within a decade they had gone from soundtracking adolescent frustration to sampling J. Robert Oppenheimer and Martin Luther King as part of a sonic epic focused on the anxieties of nuclear war. It drew comparisons with prog masterpieces like Dark Side Of The Moon [PINK FLOYD](1973) and stylistic shifts such as Kid A [RADIOHEAD] (2000). For some fans, it is the band’s crown jewel, while others missed the accessibility of their earlier anthems. The band sound brave and certain in their vision, and the album’s lofty ambition matches the quality of its songwriting, but its lack of hits might explain why they got bogged down in trying to recreate past glories on the next couple of records.
For those whose tastes changed when coming of age, Minutes To Midnight (2007) may have been their last LINKIN PARK record. Having effectively recreated Hybrid Theory (2000) for their second album, they had to break new ground on their third to avoid stagnating. The clean and sharp What I’ve Done announced a new chapter for the band, who sounded more polished than ever before. By and large this was a record to politely nod your head to, concerned more with the state of the world than the condition of the self as had often been the subject of Bennington’s lyrics until that point. They hadn’t left their crunchier side behind completely: No More Sorrow and Given Up are notable for both their aggression and the ways they stand out like a sore thumb next to the balladry of Shadow Of The Day and Leave Out All The Rest. Its back half is more interesting than it is given credit for, and as a whole it has stood the test of time as a good alt rock record.
What more can be written about Meteora (2003) and Hybrid Theory? There has rarely been such an effective one-two punch in metal, announcing and solidifying LINKIN PARK as leaders of the pack right out the gate. Despite never reaching the popular heights of either again, the goodwill from both has carried the band to this day, continuing to fill the floors of rock clubs and comfort a new generation looking for music that puts into words what they are going through. This is the band at their most physically charged, the sound of torn hair and scratched skin, of breaking points and cries of desperation.
At their most obviously tortured, they went from strength to strength. When all appeared to be well on One More Light, tragedy struck. The same contrasts endeared them to an entire generation: the pain in Meteora’s Numb made millions feel seen and understood; the duelling voices in Papercut made sense of their isolation. For a career that will always be associated with Bennington’s death, Shinoda has continued this tradition of contrasts by mining their back catalogue, reassembling it for fans on Papercuts, and finding joy.
New songs have emerged from the vault over the years, including Lost and Friendly Fire which appear on the collection. But the last track on Bennington’s final record, Sharp Edges, is an acoustic little toe-tapper, a quiet denouement to a loud body of work. As if looking behind him at all he has been through with his bandmates, his music, us, he turns the other way and repeats: “We all fall down, we live somehow, we learn what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Until the very end, he willed us on. We owe it to him to keep feeling the joy he brought to us all.
Long live LINKIN PARK. Long live Chester Bennington.
Papercuts is available now via Warner Records
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