Geki

Badass. Love it.

Yes, that and the fact that What I've Done was huge in 2007 when it dropped. The live performance of it from RTR was even nominated for a Grammy in 2010 or something, anyone remember that? I'll try and find where I read that it has now become their most successful single, it was some article about how LP is back in the charts now.

Check the charts. It says What I've Done has now become their most successful song of all time in terms of charts. In The End and Numb are probably more well known, though, if that makes sense. New Divide I don't really think is that popular.

Idk, this may come across as really dickish of me, but why is it not appropriate now? Chester should be being celebrated for everything he has done in music, not just Linkin Park's new album. His entire career, spanning from like 1992-2017 should be being celebrated. That means unreleased music coming out, video footage, t-shirts, posters, etc. He was the greatest singer of all time, IMO. His family and friends can take how ever long they need to grieve, I understand that. But Chester also left behind a lot of fans. The fans lost just as big of a loss as anyone, and I 100% stand behind that statement.

What's funny is that What I've Done has now become the band's most successful song of their entire career in the charts. It was always my favorite Linkin Park song by far from the first minute that I heard it, but this is cool to me.

Linkin Park's biggest days are well behind them anyways, even the band knows that. They aren't going to ever have the success of something like Hybrid Theory or Meteora ever again, and probably not the success of Minutes To Midnight, either. Sales dropped largely for A Thousand Suns and albums after, they might be able to pull that sort of success if they continue on, but I sadly doubt it. They lost the heart of their band, the soul. Casual fans already were not as interested in Linkin Park before Chester even died, and it also depends on what kind of music they are going to make in the future. I'm sure if they made another nu-metal record or hard rock record that some people would eat it up, but doing so without Chester might be pretty hard. They could go a hip-hop direction, but if they did that, there's no need for a new Chester. Continuing on the pop train seems to be what they should do, and they could easily find a pop vocalist, since pop music doesn't require talent like the singing on the first three Linkin Park albums. They could do that, honestly. This site and LPA are a very small fraction of people. Not everyone posting is going to go to the shows and buy their music, even if they say they are. I mean this thread only has 9 pages. In the past, this thread would have had like 50+ pages, easily. Same with LPA. Linkin Park isn't as big as they once were, and sometimes it's hard for the hardcore fans to realize that.

Their statement was: "Our love for making and performing music is inextinguishable," the band wrote. "While we don't know what path our future may take, we know that each of our lives was made better by you. Thank you for that gift. We love you, and miss you so much." To me, that says they plan on continuing on and even playing live without Chester. I'll admit, it did shock me a bit, since Chester is 100% not replaceable, but who knows. There are plenty of other bands and artists out there that I would support of Linkin Park without Chester. I just feel bad for all the fans who love Linkin Park and want them to continue. So like I said, I'm not gonna say they shouldn't continue, because a lot of people want them to, it's just my own personal opinion that they shouldn't. And there are quite a few that Chester didn't sing on in Linkin Park's catalog, but none of them are big songs at all, most are very obscure, underground songs. Invisible was the closest to being a hit with Mike singing lead.

Idk. This is Chester Bennington we are talking about here. A band who has sold over 80 million albums and won several Grammy Awards.

I know, I agree fully. Chester can never be replaced, he was one of the most unique vocalists of time. I remember Mike saying on the Minutes To Midnight DVD. ''I dare anybody to cover a song and make it sound anything like him, you can't do it''. But yeah, it goes even beyond the voice. Chester left his soul and essence all over Linkin Park. That's why I say it would be nice for them to continue on as a 5 piece if they are truly going to continue on. Look at a band like Hawthorne Heights who lost a vocalist from a drug overdose 10 years ago, they still continue on but they just continue on without him, as if he never left, they didn't replace him. Linkin Park can do that, they'll just have to twerk things around a bit and as time goes on, they'll get more and more new songs to use with Mike. But I'm just not sure if Mike can handle it all himself. I did at first. I think they will need a new vocalist, because Linkin Park is so diverse.

It kind of is but I know a lot of people want LP to continue. If it were up to me, I would have ended the band since it's already 17 years into their career with tons of Grammy's and albums sold, and you really can't continue without Chester. Given Up is a song that nobody on this Earth can perform the way Chester did, that song was so fucking unique to Chester in terms of his screaming and singing on it. Just his essence is all over that track. I read in Rolling Stone that Jared Leto said Chester was balancing the Angel and the Demon on his shoulders, and sometimes the demon would come out in his voice, and sometimes the angel would come out in his voice. Given Up is 100% the demon in Chester unleashing. Lol. Just listen to that put me out of my fucking misery scream, accompanied with the 18 second long scream.

This is really amazing and should be quoted for being an amazing post. I also wanted to elaborate a little on how much Chester meant to me. My parents got divorced when I was 11, and that was weird for me. My family life was kind of chaotic because of it, always going back and forth between my Mom and Dad's, then seeing both side of Grandparents, etc. I didn't really have any friends when I was a kid except for maybe 1 or 2 other kids, and I wasn't really that close with them. I began to listen to music as a form of identity and healing. I found Linkin Park one day in 2003 when I heard ''Somewhere I Belong'' and I remember falling in love with that song. It's funny because I've always been unsure about how exactly I first heard Linkin Park in the past, but when Chester died, it all came back to be full force. I then went and bought Meteora at a F.Y.E. in a local mall (that is no longer there) sometime around the time it was released and I thought it was the greatest music I had ever heard. I didn't even know about Hybrid Theory (strangely), but I played the shit out of that Meteora CD, multiple times a day, everyday. I was pretty angry as a teen (just look at some of my old LPA posts from like 2005 and prior) and I resonated a lot with the anger and emotion of Meteora. I went through a lot of ''mind games' and different psychological abuse but I won't elaborate much on that here. 'I then started checking out other stuff from the band and discovered Hybrid Theory, Reanimation, etc. My Family also owned a Pizza Restaurant while I was growing up and one of the guy's that worked there was really into music, and he ended up burning me a CD called ''Under Attack'', which was a fake compilation album of Linkin Park back in the day. It had a lot of Grey Daze songs, as well as rare songs like Carousel, And One, etc. I remember then searching for the origin of those songs and discovered Hybrid Theory EP, Xero, etc. I remember I asked him to then burn me some more stuff and he burned me Hybrid Theory EP and LPU 2. I then joined LPU 3 late in 2003 or early 2004 and I got my LPU 3 package in the mail, which I still have the items from to this day. I then started going on LP message boards and stuff at some point in 2004 and became really obsessed with the band. I never was interested in going to concerts when I was younger for some reason, although I'm sure I could have if I had wanted to, but I do remember asking my Dad or my Mom or something to bring me to Live 8, but I remember we couldn't go last minute. It would have been about a 6 hour drive for us. After that, I got more into the band as time went on, and I eventually saw the band live for the first time at Bamboozle in 2007. I then went to Projekt Revolution 2007 three times and tons of shows in the years after that. My strongest memories of my teenage years are linked to Linkin Park and Chester. I ended up meeting my best friend in High School who also loved Linkin Park and had been a fan even longer than me, with Hybrid Theory, and we went to tons of shows together and stuff. They really shaped who I was as a person, and my identity, something I'll be forever grateful for. I'm pretty much known as that Linkin Park guy around my town because it's not a big town and there really aren't any hardcore fans here except for me. I also possibly met my first girlfriend and girlfriends after because of the band, something I'll also be eternally grateful for. Minutes To Midnight also became my favorite album of all time and I ended up being able to go to LA and to see the Houdini House in 2007, etc. I'll never forget the years 2007, 2008 because of Linkin Park. Chester in particular, I looked up to him a lot. I knew he had issues growing up, and while I didn't have the same ones as him, I still felt like he was someone I could look up to and connect with. Chester pulled me out of the darkest period of my life, when I was about 19 to 23 or so, I was hanging out with the worst kinds of people and got into drugs and alcohol and just a lot of bad things, and Chester really inspired me to pull through and come out of it. I used to look up to him so much, i wanted to be just like him, I'd try and dress like him, get tattoos like him, etc. It's quite funny when I look back at it now, but that's how much he meant to me. Of course, I love the rest of the band too, but Chester I loved the most. I remember meeting him for the first time and saying ''sorry, I'm kind of freaked out to be honest'' and he was like ''it's ok man, and he put his arm around me, etc.''. That's my best memory of Chester. I feel fortunate to have met him and tell him how much his music meant to me, etc. I even gave him a folded up letter at the Camden 2012 Summit, not sure if he truly read it or not, but I said ''will you please read this'' and he said ''I absolutely will''. I don't know, it just doesn't seem real that he's gone. It's cut me up deep and I'm probably never going to be able to truly move on. RIP Chester.

Yeah I mean, if you want my true opinion, there is no Linkin Park without Chester, not at all. But that's my selfish thought. I know a lot of people want the band to continue on and think Chester is easily replaced. But the thing is, you can replace the job, but you can't replace the heart and soul, and Chester was 100% the heart and soul of the band. Someone said once that Mike and Brad are the brains, while Chester is the heart and soul. You can't survive without either, and the heart and soul is now dead. I've just been going along with it because it's a possibility that the band might continue on. Like I said, my original thought and feeling towards it were that they should continue as a 5 piece. But I then realized they would need a new vocalist. It sucks, but I'm thinking realistically.

Yeah, but it's better than having some random person being brought in. I think they need a new singer but I'd rather just take Mike singing instead of bringing in someone completely new. Chester's son, I could 100% accept that. And I think many people would. I said earlier that they will need a new singer in order to do live stuff but who isn't to say that Jaime couldn't do it - we don't know because he's probably never tried. He might like the idea of it and if he wasn't half bad, I could see it working.

Like I said in the Newswire, Chester's oldest song, Jaime, writes music. Talinda says he is just as talented as Chester. Why not have him take over? All fans would support it and Mike could definitely help train him, etc. Perfect fit IMO.

You know who should take over Chester's role? His son, Jaime. He writes music, and Talinda said today on her Twitter that he is just as talented as Chester was. The entire fanbase would accept him as the new lead singer and I'm sure Mike and the rest of the band could train him, etc. I would love for him to become the new lead singer, and he's in his 20's. It could happen. https://twitter.com/TalindaB?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

I belong on Blabbermouth.

They should pick Kiiara. Just kidding.

You could never compare anything with the Given Up music video unless it's something from Hybrid Theory, Meteora or Minutes To Midnight. Everything after Minutes To Midnight sucks.

That's because Mike sang it in 2011, like 4 years after the MTM Cycle ended, and it was over BIO. He didn't try a real performance of it, so it wasn't authentic, and also, NRL is a hard song to sing as it is.

Yeah, but this is known fact. Chester was doing DBS during the ATS Sessions and STP during the THP Sessions. OML he was apparently battling alcoholism and depression, so that probably took up some time. But he did do a lot during HT, Meteora and MTM, now that I look back on it, Hahninator was 100% right.

Linkin Park said goodbye for me on the last day of 2008. EDIT: Kidding aside, I don't think this is a final goodbye for the band. I agree with what Hahninator said in this thread.

I agree. Meteora does have a few songs that seem like an evolution. Easier To Run, Breaking The Habit and Numb all feel like the direction of Minutes To Midnight, and Nobody's Listening is very experimental, like you pointed out, it wouldn't have fit on Hybrid Theory. The rest of the songs could have, but I love that sound. People always say that Minutes To Midnight was the big change for the band, but I don't 100% feel that way. Minutes To Midnight seemed like a natural progression of Meteora in some ways, just not the nu-metal elements as much. Songs like Breaking The Habit, Numb, Easier To Run, etc. Don't forget, Minutes To Midnight had some hard rock songs like Given Up, Bleed It Out, What I've Done, No More Sorrow, Qwerty, etc. Yes, it was far more experimental, but it wasn't something like you'd never guess it was Linkin Park. A Thousand Suns was the real game changer, IMO, because that was so out of their comfort zone in every way.

Actually, I want to elaborate more on what I said earlier. Chester did contribute a lot to the first three albums. Hybrid Theory, he wrote a lot, and had a lot to do with the direction of the album. Meteora, he wrote the lyrics to Easier To Run, came up with the intro to Somewhere I Belong, and also helped craft the direction of the album, he was a big fan of the direction of Breaking The Habit, etc. Mike said that no one else could have done Breaking The Habit the justice Chester did it because of how good Chester sang it and was into it, etc. Chester also seemed to be very present during the Meteora sessions, he was in all the videos, photos, etc. And with Minutes To Midnight, everyone in the band wrote their own song ideas for that album, and Chester clearly talks about that on the DVD, etc. about ''having something that he really loved be cut from the process'' and ''I have very strong opinions on what should be on the album, etc.''. He also wrote lyrics with Mike for that album, as shown in the DVD. And last but not least, he seemed very involved with the album and tour for it. A Thousand Suns was really the first album where Mike and Brad kind of took over the ship for the time being and it became that way since.

Same here. I really want to hear that ''Thoughts That Take Away My Pride'' song a lot, especially now. And I'd also love to hear any other Meteora demos that they have. The Meteora remixes would also be epic, if they were indeed real. Has it ever been confirmed by the band if they're real or not? I think Linkin Park should empty the vaults to us of the early Linkin Park albums demos, from 1997-2008. That's my dream.

Well, I think he actually replied to someone and said he didn't know what project they would fall under. But, it could be likely. I always thought that perhaps Chester would make something again with DBS someday. There's a lot of stuff that Chester was involved with that has never been released, and now likely will never be released. Don't forget, there are several songs he made with DBS that never made the cut for Out Of Ashes, as well as the 20 Eyes cover. He also wrote a lot of stuff with STP for the album that they were going to eventually release but that never ended up happening. Then you have stuff like the Head Like A Hole cover with Korn, the Mark Morton track, etc. None of that stuff ever ended up coming out. As a fan of Chester first and foremost, I'd love to hear all of that stuff more than any Linkin Park stuff, but I just don't see it ever happening now.