Linkin Park's latest album, One More Light , turns two years old on May 19th.
It's always the same thing. When a band decides to take sonic directions different from their original ones, many people turn their noses up at them. Many fans complain, curse, and say the band is over. That's how it was with Linkin Park for practically their entire post- Meteora . But the breaking point was in 2017, with the release of the band's (tragically) last album.
One More Light was released two years ago, on May 19, 2017. Reactions were quite divided. While some critics and fans considered it Linkin Park's worst work, many others praised the album's melancholic pop.
Analyzing the discography as a whole, it's easy to see the change in each work. Hybrid Theory is one of the seminal nu-metal albums, but from there, each album took on new layers and influences. Meteora brought more elements of electronic music, Minutes To Midnight went from hard rock to ballads in the best U2 . A Thousand Suns delved deep into EDM and experimentalism, Living Things mixed everything and brought it to the radio music of the 2010s. The only outlier was Hunting Party , a clear concession to the fans, which returned to nu-metal and added some hints of hardcore.
Then we come to One More Light . The album, decidedly pop, contains little of what Linkin Park once was. Although guitarist Brad Delson helped compose most of the tracks, his guitar work is barely noticeable.
The same can be said of almost all the members, except for Chester Bennington and programmer and DJ Joe Hahn . Mike Shinoda makes his great contributions here as a keyboardist, since his powerful rap of yesteryear only makes an appearance in one song on the album, "Good Goodbye".
However, none of these changes seem like "the band selling out," as many detractors claim. In all interviews, the sextet confirmed that this was the direction they wanted at that moment, perhaps just another experiment among the many that built Linkin Park's career.
Ultimately, the band members were no longer in their twenties, as they had been during the Hybrid Theory . The teenage anger and rebellion reflected in their sound no longer matched who they had become. While the musical change is easy to perceive, the lyrical evolution is clear in each new release. One More Light was the pinnacle of Mike Shinoda and his bandmates' songwriting.
While in Hunting Party most of the songs were political and social, here Linkin Park returned to looking inward, something they had done in the early 2000s. The malady of the century took over the band's work. The songs began to be about the members' children, about past adolescence, about loss and depression. All of this becomes even more powerful with the tragic death of Bennington, a unique voice that marked the history of rock.
The title track, for example, is a small work of art. The ballad speaks of the loss of loved ones. The pain of suddenly no longer seeing a friend or family member by your side. With the death of Chris Cornell, a close friend of Chester's, the track once again took on new dimensions. The songs on One More Light are like that; they find reflection in the small pains of adult life.
“Sharp Edges” features one of the band's best compositions. It is, at the same time, an apology from someone who abused drugs and the intensity of life, and an anthem that shows we are shaped by all the experiences we go through. Meanwhile, “Talking To Myself,” from the perspective of his wife Talinda Bennington , narrates Chester's struggles with drugs.
And so on, the work culminates in the duet “Heavy,” almost a manifesto about the album. “I don’t like my mind right now,” sings Chester with a vulnerability that only he was capable of conveying with his voice. “Why is everything so heavy?” he asks. It’s rare to see artists open up so much and be so sincere and pure as Linkin Park was on One More Light .
Without distorted guitars, screams, and heavy metal, the band delivered the most sincere album of their career. A sound that's light, but extremely profound in its messages. Given everything that's happened, it's hard not to get emotional listening to it from beginning to end. One More Light is no longer a work for angsty teenagers, but for adults on the verge of a crisis. For ordinary people who wonder why everything is so difficult. An album to listen to and, at least, feel some comfort knowing that the band that has accompanied you for so long also feels the same as you.
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