Chester Bennington: One year since his death - eight of the best Linkin Park songs

Singer is being remembered on the one-year anniversary of his death

Throughout his career, Chester Bennington penned multiple phenomenal songs with the band, leading to five number one albums in the US: Meteora, Minutes to Midnight, A Thousand Suns, Living Things, and One More Light.

The singer died one year ago on 20 July 2017, aged 41. His death sparked worldwide mourning among fans, friends, family and fellow artists.

To pay tribute to his work, below is a selection of songs which showcase the singer's huge range and enormous popularity.

In The End

Hybrid Theory was a monumental album, breaking new ground by mixing rap and power chords. For many, “In The End” was their first Linkin Park experience. And what an incredible song, Bennington’s chorus being catchy and brilliantly performed. A gateway into this amazing band.

Crawling

Arguably containing the most Linkin Park of opening lines in the band’s canon, this is them at their most angst-ridden, the graphic depiction of distress and soul-baring emotion set them apart from their peers. For so many of their fans, this blunt approach to sentiment - from the lyrics themselves to Bennington’s drawn-out wail - really had an impact on them.

Breaking The Habit

Mike Shinoda’s epic instrumental “Drawing” was transformed into this fleshed-out hit single. It was the final song released off Meteora yet has become one of the band’s most enduring. “Breaking the Habit” also perfectly showcases how the band managed to shift with the times without losing their mainstays of rock and rap-core. With each shift in the tempo and the instrumentation the song maintains a perfect tension throughout.

Numb

Thanks to a remix with Jay Z’s “Encore”, “Numb” quickly became one of Linkin Park’s best-known songs. However, the original — which appeared on the album Meteora — was a truly excellent closer, mixing the band’s softer moments with the heavier. Witnessed live, the song became absolutely unforgettable.

What I’ve Done

Minutes to Midnight may not have reached the critically acclaimed heights as the previous two records, but there were some standout tracks. Along with “Bleed It Out”, “What I’ve Done” was certainly one of them, becoming one of their best-known songs and an astounding anthem.

Burn It Down

It might not be the best Linkin Park songs but for me this was a huge statement, that Linkin Park chose to make in the form of their first single from fifth studio album Living Things.

Shinoda noted that his interpretation of the song was based on the band’s personal experiences: “We're talking about my personal story and his personal story, and there's also a layer of pop culture that plays a role in the lyrics of the song,” he told the Huffington Post.

“For example, people build up a certain celebrity or musician or actor or whatever and they're popular one minute and the next thing, you know either they've done something wrong or they've done nothing wrong and there's just a bad rumor that goes around about them and then everybody's attacking that person. That's just the way things are. We've actually lived through that as a band. All that stuff plays a role.”

Faint

Mixing electronic sounds, breakbeat drums, heavy guitar, rap, and a screaming chorus, “Faint” encapsulates everything early Linkin Park stood for. While “Numb” offered Meteora a brilliant closer, “Faint” was a huge midway point, coming after the more subdued “Easier to Run”.

Waiting For The End

This was the second single from 2010’s A Thousand Suns and was viewed as a big departure from the band’s usual tone. While a bell tolls behind Shinoda’s verse, Bennington goes for a processed-style breakdown vocal that seemed like a departure from his usual style.

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