For as much as it sounds like the furthest thing from metal in some spots, “Waiting For The End” may still be one of the greatest Linkin Park tracks ever made, going from slow and brooding in Chester’s register to one of the greatest builds in rock history once the electronics kick in. Without any lyrics, Hahn intercuts different beats and string arrangements to make a song that feels both sad and weirdly comforting all at the same time.īy the time they got to A Thousand Suns, Hahn really started to step up his game, putting different audio effects alongside Chester’s vocals to make everything sound like it’s floating on air. A lot of people forget that his scratch track “Session” was one of the first Linkin Park cuts to actually win a Grammy…and rightfully so. Even though the DJ role in nu metal bands became a bit of a punchline, Joe Hahn actually manages to make a lot of his tracks work alongside the more heartfelt lyrics. Yeah…it’s time that we all give our proper respect to Mr. Hell, even the non-metal aspects of the group made everything feel a bit more surreal.
As much as something like “Given Up” is just unbridled frustration from beginning to end, something like “Leave Out All the Rest” does still feel like it’s coming from a genuine place. Despite people calling them sellouts for switching up their sound on records like A Thousand Suns or Minutes to Midnight, they never let the change in sound get in the way of their core message.
And this is where the era of Linkin Park’s career starts to get a little spotty. Then again, this is metal…and metal is not supposed to be all soft and nice (unless maybe if you’re setting up mood in an Opeth track or something). Just a few years after talking about wounds that wouldn’t heal, this is where we see Chester finally reaching for some sense of stability, as if he’s finding a way out of the darkness. If we’re talking fragile beauty, it doesn’t get any better than “Breaking the Habit.” Although fans were lining up left and right to call this a premonition of Chester’s demise, it’s still one of the greatest signs of hope in the band’s body of work.
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