In the early 2000s, the largest influences of art I was exposed to was music and games. I wasn't yet a fan of movies, as they were still exclusive to theaters at the time. Music was relatively easy to pirate over low bandwidth dial-up connections with their small file sizes and pen drives would easily exchange hands during classes in this shared economy.
The first song of Linkin Park I listened to was In The End, like many others at the time. The existential crises that I was going through, like most brooding teenagers at that age, seemed to come to life in that one song. It spoke to me; the easy to relate lyrics, the rap interludes, the alternative rock music and that pain in the lead singer's amazing vocals. In conversations, it seemed like this was an anthem for everyone at the time. I asked for and easily got the album, which was called Hybrid Theory.
Everything about Linkin Park was perfect for me at the time. Firstly, it was an up and coming band and Hybrid Theory was their first album. Everyone wanted to speak eloquently about the music they listened to, and if you hadn't started off earlier, you would never be respected in that snobbish group that listened to heavier metal and classic rock like Metallica. Linkin Park was music made for me, from my generation, and I could talk about every song they've sung.
Moreover, it wasn't middle aged big men singing in elaborate sets or psychedelic videos, it was a lanky young guy singing this.
And most importantly, it spoke to me. About my woes with friends, girls and life, in general. Crawling, Pushing Me Away, Points of Authority. These were my words, articulated in a much more poetic way than I ever could.
Very soon, this became my favourite band. Reanimation had released in 2002 and when I got the songs from someone's pen drive, I felt like the song names were some garbled versions of their original ones - Pts.of.Athrty, P5shg Me A*wy*, 1Stp Klosr. Was this really another album or just some other pirated source for the same files or some virus?
I ran the antivirus and copied them onto my local drive. I opened my skinned WinAmp and started listening and wow, were they different. I liked some of the Reanimation versions even better than the originals. Nobody knew that an artist could just remix their songs and release a new album with that; it was a first. And it made for more of a cult following.
It was 2003 - 2nd semester of Engineering. I was trying out this vague concept where I would sleep twice over the course of the night, waking up in between to study for a few hours. My mom would have dinner prepared and kept in a box, which I would eat at 11pm and go on to study until 2-3am. While having my late dinner, I would switch on the TV with the volume on mute not to wake anyone up. And on one of these nights, when I was up, MTV played the world premiere of Somewhere I Belong. I turned up the volume. 4:09 later, I had goosebumps and was left mesmerized,
Linkin Park was coming out with a new album called Meteora, which everyone was waiting for. And this was the first music video. It was another winner, probably second only to In The End. This became a ritual - watching MTV play Somewhere I Belong and later, Numb, during my late dinners. That concept I was trying out with breaking my sleep and eating/studying in between turned out to be a bit of a disaster, I later realized, after the results were out.
By now, all of Meteora's songs were circulating around and I had my hands on them quite early. Easier To Run, Faint, Breaking The Habit - all beautiful songs. Very soon, I could sing along with every single song of Linkin Park end to end. And in 2004, when the Jay-Z collaboration Collision Course released, that seemed masterfully done, again. It was Reanimation Part Deux.
Over the course of those 3 albums, they helped me sail through some dark times. College life was rife with breakups, fights with friends and other random inconveniences. I went through it all with Linkin Park; with Chester Bennington's vocals, Mike Shinoda's rap, Mr Hahn's music.
As time passed, my music influences evolved to explore other genres - flash back, fast forward and everything in between. Access to music on broadband was a godsend. I didn't pay as much attention to Minutes To Midnight when it released in 2007. By 2010, when A Thousand Suns released, I barely listened to the album at all. For me Linkin Park was always Hybrid Theory, Reanimation and Meteora.
Earlier this year, when I was at Warner Bros Studios in Los Angeles, I was walking back to my car after what had been a very enjoyable experience with the studio tour. I was walking by the WB Music office and the entire front was decked with posters for One More Light by Linkin Park. I went back to my car, reminiscing about my days listening to the band. I had to do it, I had to go to their concert, I realized. Of all the musicians I can sing more than 10 songs of, this was the only one left that I hadn't seen live. I had to cross it off my bucket list.
I came back home and searched for performances and found they're going to be in New York in late July in a collaboration with Blink 182, Machine Gun Kelly and Wu Tang Clan. This was it, I waited for the day the tickets went on pre-sale for fans. I was in Europe on vacation at the time, but I sat up in a hotel room on my tablet, going though the hoops and captchas before booking Floor Admission tickets to the concert. I had missed the time to get Well tickets, but the Floor was going to be amazing!
Fast forward to last Thursday, when I was headed back from work. I opened Instagram and saw a post with Chester Bennington's photo; scrolled down to read the caption "RIP Chester". This had to be a rumour, I thought, as my heart skipped a beat. I fired up my browser and typed 'Linkin Park' and autocomplete gave me 'Linkin Park lead singer' and saw the page littered with news about his death.
My first thought was: why couldn't this have happened next month. At least after I watched them live! It was 10 days to the concert - such a waste watching LP without Chester. Of all the things money can't buy, this is one of them. No amount of money can buy going back in time to watch an intact Linkin Park perform live.
I came back home and forgot about it until the day after, when I read innumerable accounts of people grieving over Chester's death. People had spoken about their own demons, their own battles with abuse, mental illness, tragedy and how Linkin Park and Chester had helped them live through it, not take their own lives, survive. It was an incredibly powerful experience reading the Reddit thread about people's experiences.
It reminded me that there is so much pain in this world and we all look to something to get us through it. A musician, a game, a movie, a friend, a lover - something to help us close our eyes and take a deep breath and say to ourselves that it was all going to be better.
It completely baffles me how someone that influenced so many lives didn't himself have that to save his own. Did he know how many lives he saved? Did those fans who are having these public epiphanies express that to him? I'm angry at how we all appreciate things more when they're no longer available to us.
When an art form dies, nothing can take its place. Nobody can replace Chester Bennington or Linkin Park and what they meant to millions of people.
What we can do is respect the art that is accessible to us and make the best of it, today.
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