Sunday, July 23, 2017

Farewell Chester Bennington


With the untimely passing of their vocalist, will Linkin Park be able to maintain their previous worldwide success?

By: Ringo Bones 

With the untimely death of Linkin Park’s principal vocalist – Chester Bennington – of an apparent suicide back in July 20, 2017, many of their fans now wonder what direction will the band take or will the remaining members maintain their previous global success. But given the track record of the band’s propensity of overcoming challenges since the success of their Hybrid Theory major label debut album, it seems than Linkin Park could go on – more likely morphing into a very different band musically without Chester Bennington.
I’m probably not the only one wondering why Chester Bennington killed himself despite the success of Linking Park – i.e. successful enough to have founded the Music For Relief charity and being a recipient of the UN Global Leadership Award, not to mention a global success that include legions of headscarves-wearing Muslim teens from South-East Asia which used to be the domain of Metallica, Sepultura, Joe Satriani, Bon Jovi, Scorpions, Rammstein and this is probably all of 'em . It seems that Chester’s demons had become too intransigent for hi to deal alone. 

Being accused as a “manufactured boy band” during the runaway success of their Hybrid Theory album during the start of the 21st Century – probably because of the execs at Warner Bros doing their part to make the band a runaway financial success despite of the Napster debacle depriving every signed hard rock acts at the time earning their financial dues – Linkin Park responded by sticking to their true selves and touring – which only resulted in legions of fans both in the United States and the rest of the world and two Grammy Awards. All earned before the end of the George Dubya Bush Administration – which is no mean feat indeed given that all of them were still under 30 when they took on the challenge. 

While a significant portion of Linkin Park’s fans view Chester Bennington as the voice of a new generation of hard rock enthusiasts ridiculed by conservatives for harboring “White Liberal Guilt” during the George Dubya Bush administration’s Post 9/11 jingoism, there’s no question of the vocal interplay between the melodic hard rock oriented singing of Chester Bennington and the skillful Rap oriented delivery of Mike Shinoda is the very aspect that marks the uniqueness of Linkin Park. It’s just too bad that Chester Bennington was fated to pass away before his time given that the band has yet a lot of artistic exploring to do.