Chester Bennington has died

Today we received the news that the singer of Linkin Park, Chester Bennington, has died. I actually first thought it was a hoax, like many before and some part of me didn’t want to believe it. It didn’t help that there were no official statements and Linkin Park even posted a video on their Facebook page without any mentions of Chester.

Unfortunately, Mike Shinoda then confirmed it

Shocked and heartbroken, but it's true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one.

— Mike Shinoda (@mikeshinoda) July 20, 2017

To me, Linkin Park and of course Chester as the one you heard the most, has a special place in my life. I got hooked on them via Numb, as many did, but for me it was the remix of Numb/Encore together with Jay Z. I heard that in the Miami Vice trailer back in 2006 and I just had to know what that song was. Remember, there was no Shazam or SoundHound back in the day. After many e-mails with broken English to various media sites, I finally got my answer and my song (does anyone remember Limewire?).

Linkin Park has changed their style with almost every album. I didn’t like the newer ones that much as I did the older stuff, but you always knew there was gonna be another one. Minutes to Midnight was revolutionary compared to Hybrid Theory and Meteora (not counting Reanimation) and many didn’t like it. I did, and it set the mood for albums to come. A Thousand Suns and Living Things were more on the electronic side of music, while The Hunting Party returned to their metal roots. And One More Light was more like Minutes to Midnight.

The thing is, I didn’t like all those albums. But I did like at least some songs of each one. And if I did like it, I listened to it a thousand times, and for some songs that may not even be exaggerated.

Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but I do remember that I thought about Chester especially in the song One More Light. It begins with these lines:

Should’ve stayed, were there signs, I ignored?
Can I help you, not to hurt, anymore

I did know that Chester has had his fair share of problems and I wondered, if that was meant as a call for help for himself. But again, maybe my mind plays tricks on me.

I thought about doing a list of songs I liked the most here, but that wouldn’t do it justice. There’s just so many songs that accompanied me through the years that I don’t remember by name anymore. So this list would be biased on the songs I listened to recently, which surely isn’t what matters.

I’m wondering what the other members of Linkin Park are doing as a next step, after all this has toned down a little. There’s the case of Gotthard in Switzerland, where the lead singer died in a freak accident and they replaced him, and I think the band is still good. As a fan, I hope we can support whatever they do, if they stop it, continue without Chester or even try to replace Chester. The future will tell.