3. Living Things (2012)

Linkin Park’s fifth album Living Things is the third and final record of their experimental phase and last to be co-produced by Rick Rubin. I’m going to bet that, at this point, screwed-up faces are being directed towards the monitor. How could I possibly think that this LP is worthy of being in the top three? Living Things, like A Thousand Suns, is labelled a lesser album by the mainstream critique. But unbeknownst to them, Linkin Park seem remarkably contented and exultant with their unprecedented electronic rock style here, and are having a lot of fun in the writing process.

The key band member that makes this album so satiable is Joe Hahn and his programming wizardry bestowing the indispensable groundwork. A lot of the topics on this album appear to revolve around human nature. Furthermore, the album artwork illustrates a decaying human body that could be interpreted as the decay of the human nature needed to survive. One of the ear-catchers on this album is ‘Castle Of Glass’ because of its discussion about the nonimportance of humans as individuals on the gargantuan planet Earth (“I’m only a crack / In this castle of glass”). ‘Lies Greed Misery’ and the line “Let show you how the breaking point sounds,” rapped by Shinoda, comes across from the perspective of a victim of an assiduous bully and fighting the bully back. This can relate to the ‘fight or flight’ nature of humans during a confrontation. In addition, the droning backdrop during Shinoda’s verses brings an unforeseen edge to Linkin Park’s work.

The opener ‘Lost In The Echo’ begins with an effervescent electronic melody followed by pulsating siren-like booms and Bourdon’s bombarding drums before Shinoda does what he does best. This track covers illegitimate promises and relationships made by people to support only their gains. “Each word gets lost in the echo” perhaps hints at the downfall and de-legitimisation of the art of vocal communication between humans, particularly in dire situations of requiring it. The single ‘Burn It Down’ consists of Hahn’s greatest work with a catchy, oscillating melody and the unassertive synthesizing, computing sound effects in the background. Bennington secures the mic for most of the track but Shinoda lifts his short but momentous rap segment of vilifying lyricism (“I play soldier, you play king / Struck me down when I kissed that ring”) to high levels of fulfilment.

‘Roads Untraveled’ opens with a pleasant chiming ditty (like the one from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western epic For A Few Dollars More) and then progresses into heart-breaking balladry. Shinoda sings about being heartbroken for the first time, then Bennington provides solace for him, signifying the bolstering friendship between the two of them. The best track on this album though is the closer ‘Powerless’ and my personal favourite Linkin Park track of all time. It’s not as artistic or expressive as the big-boy tracks, which shall be discussed later, but the grandiosity of ‘Powerless’ is intolerably overlooked. “And you had it all / But you were careless to let it fall” is a sensational Bennington line and the all-encompassing instrumentation is emotionally thought-provoking. It’s a shame this track was never made into a live staple because it could have been a real asset.

Living Things is one of Linkin Park’s auspicious albums yet but experienced the same mixed criticism as A Thousand Suns. It makes one wonder how carefully and intricately the critics listened to both these albums before putting words to paper. After several years of testing and implementing different approaches, Living Things succeeds triumphantly with its profound vibrancy. (LISTEN)

2. Meteora (2003)

Hybrid Theory may be Linkin Park’s best-selling album ever, with sales estimating at over 30 million copies being shifted worldwide, but album sales do not necessarily tell the whole story. Both in commercial (27 million globally) and artistic terms, Meteora runs Hybrid Theory right down to the wire, keeping up the momentum built from their debut even as the nu-metal craze was beginning to sputter out.

Taking roughly a year to record, the band members started to push each other for creative ideas. Shinoda shares more of his negative life experiences on Meteora and entangles them with Bennington’s. Topic-wise, Linkin Park covers loneliness, depression, and anger amongst other things – very much like the debut basically. If they made it work once, they could do it again with increased exposure and a larger following now at their disposal. Meteora was to be Linkin Park’s final nu-metal/rap metal album before a decade of genre reshuffling would occur. All the singles from this record became emblazoned within their future live shows for one obvious reason: They. Are. Awesome!

If there is one track that musically stands out from the rest, it’s ‘Breaking The Habit’. Where the rest of the tracks consist of heavy down-tuned guitars, ‘Breaking The Habit’ comprises of beautiful clean effects and Bourdon’s drums hold back on their usual intensity. It’s clear that Bennington is singing about the depths of drug addiction (“You all assume, I’m safer in my room / Unless I try to start again”) and the anguish attached to it (“I don’t know what’s worth fighting for / Or why I have to scream”). Its animated music video is a terrific visual representation of how Bennington feels inside. In addition, this track foreshadows Linkin Park’s future electronic rock tendencies – a first glimpse as it were.

Meteora’s endemic despondency and, for some teenagers at least, its relatability towards social issues played a huge role in its album sales. If, in real life, one felt like an outsider or one did not fit in with normal social circles, then this album was, and still is, a therapeutic way to channel that teenage angst thanks to the album’s rasping vocalism and nu-metal riffage. ‘Don’t Stay,’ prefaced by ‘Foreword,’ deals with social anxiety and peer pressure extensively with the line “Look what you are changing me into” having the most impact on the listener. The single ‘Somewhere I Belong’ follows up with an influential message that being yourself and being accepted by people for who you are is critical. The greatest Delson Meteora riff must be on ‘Figure.09’ because of the raw nu-metal rage and the signature low-to-high transition guitar slide – also used consecutively by Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit. The potency of the cheerless lyricism on Meteora leaves goosebumps every time, as demonstrated copiously by ‘Easier To Run.’

Meteora flows fluently and smoothly from beginning to end but there are two unmentioned tracks which trigger repercussions and raise blood pressure levels significantly. As Linkin Park tracks go, ‘Faint’ is an artefact. Bourdon’s energetic drumming is exceptional and Delson’s identifiable riffage is up there with the likes of ‘One Step Closer’. Shinoda’s evermore inebriating rapping and Bennington’s screams in the chorus and the mid-breakdown puts emphasis of someone going completely mad with fury. Bennington’s stresses the line “I won’t be ignored!” as he wants that to be the primary message: I’m here! I exist! Deal with it!

As funny as the animal remix shared profusely on social media platforms is, the closing track ‘Numb’ is undeniably a serious noughties classic, along with the video being one of Linkin Park’s most viewed videos to date. It’s a perfect conclusion to an unparalleled album that ties it all into one last projection of societal faithlessness. “Every step that I take is just another mistake to you” is one of many powerful lines in this track that symbolises the malcontent that people experience when they are “different.”

Throughout Meteora, Linkin Park refer to their ostracizers in the second person and forge all that received hate into a single entity and attempt to thwart it with nu-metal mojo and lividity – mission accomplished I’d say. (LISTEN)

1. Hybrid Theory (2000)

Perhaps you was wandering if I’d go against the vox populi in this piece. To be fair, it’s not surprising that some Linkin Park fans regard Meteora as the superior entry but, alas, not in this feature. Hybrid Theory is the best Linkin Park album ever created and has one of the most iconic pieces of noughties album artwork, and is certainly the album to which the uninitiated and hardcore fans alike will turn in discussions of the group’s legacy as the years go by.

Built up around Bennington’s drug and alcohol abuse, Hybrid Theory deals with the harsh realities of paranoia and depression. The polished major-label production can barely disguise an abrasiveness that suits the subject matter perfectly. This album has sold 10.5 million copies (as of July 2017) and made it to #1 on the iTunes and Amazon music charts after Bennington’s heart-rending death. At their Download Festival 2014 set, Hybrid Theory was played live in its entirety for the first time!

Originally, Linkin Park was called Xero and Mark Wakefield was the vocalist at the time. After he departed from the band, Xero were on the hunt for a replacement. Meanwhile, Bennington’s band Grey Daze had broken up but then his lawyer referred him a man named Jeff Blue, who then sent copies of Xero’s instrumental tapes to him to record over. When Xero received the tapes with Bennington’s implemented vocals, Delson famously described Bennington as “the final piece of the puzzle”. Lo-and-behold, Linkin Park’s line-up became solidified and would not change until July 20^th 2017. Hybrid Theory would be released in October 2000 and become a curated rap-rock/metal masterpiece like Rage Against The Machine’s self-titled debut or Limp Bizkit’s sophomore LP Significant Other to name a few. What arguably blew the sub-genre into the stratosphere was the unforgettable Woodstock ’99 festival and thus began a short-lived but unrestrained era of music.

As mentioned earlier, Meteora would be non-existent without the success of Hybrid Theory because they bear a myriad of similarities. Noughties metal kids felt the angsty grunt and forceful thrust this album emitted from start to finish. What better place to start dissecting this extraordinary album than the dark and dismal opening track ‘Papercut.’ The track starts off with a theatrical ascending melody before the heavy guitars play the opening main riff. Shinoda kills in the verses as he paints a mental picture of paranoia and Bennington sums it up neatly in the chorus with the line “It’s like a whirlwind inside of my head”.

The end of ‘Papercut’ then streams into the second track, and immortal Linkin Park classic, ‘One Step Closer’. Directed by a porn filmmaker, the video for ‘One Step Closer’ shows how much the band has evolved in a fashion sense (Shinoda and that fiery red, spiky hair!), as well musically. The distinguishable guitar riff from Delson is implanted and memorized worldwide by the metal community especially – if one does not know ‘One Step Closer,’ schooling and constant belittling awaits oneself. Like ‘Faint’, Bennington is telling his foes to shut the hell up and listen during the volatile breakdown but nothing gets more iconic than the chorus sung in great harmony by the frontmen: “Everything you say to me / Sends me one step closer to the edge / And I’m about to break!”

‘A Place For My Head’ portrays more of Delson’s captivating riffage and it’s a moment that’s criminally undervalued and submerged under the ocean of Linkin Park’s hit singles. It’s a similar story on ‘By Myself’ but the lyricism’s effectiveness and vigour arouses superior responsiveness. The difficult topic of self-harm seeps its way into this track and the lyrics “I pull out my daily façade but then I just end up getting hurt again by myself!” warns the listener that they cannot always know whether a person is committing disturbing self-maltreatment like this. Whoever trained, assuming he was trained, Bennington to scream like he does on ‘By Myself’ and still have “it” nearly two decades later is overwhelming.

If there’s one track on Hybrid Theory that advertises rap metal as a genre marvellously, it’s ‘Forgotten’. The instant, punching introduction followed by usual soft-verse-hard-chorus regime that occurs frequently in Linkin Park’s catalogue is simply bewildering. My best mate would kill me if I did not mention ‘Points Of Authority’. This track goes out to those who have been controlled and manipulated by others to unbearable limits. Shinoda’s rapping vocals sound eloquently spiteful thanks partially to Delson’s simple but muscular riff.

Living in an age where internet trolls and memesters are now culturally ubiquitous, Linkin Park became victimized by such people but ‘Crawling’ and ‘In The End’ have been hit the hardest. Don’t let these memes cloud one’s judgement because these two tracks, along with ‘Papercut’ and ‘One Step Closer’, amalgamate to one of the holiest collections of singles on an LP that a metalhead could ever ask for. ‘Crawling’ starts with a chilling introduction then all hell breaks loose with its downhearted chorus of hopelessness (“Crawling in my skin / These wounds they will not heal”). Moreover, the passion that exits Bennington’s lips during the verses is incontrovertible. The music video for this track is a must-watch for any newcomers.

What better track to end this album countdown than with the colossal ‘In The End’. What else do I really need to say that hasn’t been said already? Ok, the music video’s graphics, even back in the early noughties, were appalling but that’s forgivable. Whatever anyone else thinks, ‘In The End’ objectively features Shinoda’s greatest work – period. Line after line, lyric after lyric, he unstoppably preaches to the listener that life is shorter than you think (“Time is a valuable thing / Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings”). In the chorus, when Bennington shouts “In the end, it doesn’t even matter,” a dichotomising situation occurs. Does he mean that all the harm people have caused you during your childhood does not matter in adulthood life? Or, conversely, does he mean that all the pain and suffering experienced throughout one’s life insinuates no relevance because death is the end? Each interpretation suits the lyrics either way. In conclusion, ‘In The End’ and it’s familiar piano chords left a tattoo on Linkin Park fans’ conscience that, still to this day, has not shown any signs of fading away. (LISTEN)

Thank you for reading my piece on Linkin Park albums ranked from worst to best. Agreed? Great! Disagreed? Even better! We’d like to know how you would have ranked their LPs as well as general opinions on what has been written. One can only hope that Linkin Park find some way through the devastating loss of their lead singer and make more albums in years to come. Finding a replacement, if they intend to do so, will be a challenging prospect for them because Bennington was, quite simply, one of a kind.

R.I.P Chester Bennington