R.I.P. Chester Bennington · 5:07am Jul 21st, 2017
I don't even know where to begin with this one. I'm just stunned, really.
I think it's safe to say for many of us that Linkin Park, among others, were the soundtrack to our adolescence. Hell, I was eight at the time I first listened to Linkin Park. I didn't even listen to much music back then! My younger self could not even comprehend a breadth about the stuff that Chester was singing, but I was really immersed in all of it. There was just this... rawness and emotion in Chester's voice that just captivated me and put me onto the tracks into becoming a Linkin Park fan. Not an avid one, but a fan nonetheless.
You could say times were tough for me later on. I would say I have it easier than most people do, now that I look back and think about it, but if you told me that I was better off than most people back then, I'd probably be strangling you and beating you up with a stick. Even as the years went by and their music changed with their albums Minutes To Midnight and A Thousand Suns, I still grasped the emotions toiling and resonating within Chester. I still listened like many do with Hybrid Theory and Meteora. That stayed true later on with their later albums wherein some fans denounced the band: Living Things came around just as I was about to graduate from high school. The Hunting Party came during college. Both still struck a chord within me. Both still held a place in my heart and by the name of whatever insane creature dictating the laws of this world that we're worshiping, both albums were great, each in their own way.
Then this year came along, and with it the release of One More Light.
Frankly, I couldn't care less about it. Age does that to you sometimes. If I were to be honest, some part of me, disappointed by the singles that came out, didn't want to listen to it at all and pretend it never existed. Even now, I have not listened to it yet, but in light of what just happened, I just might. Nevertheless, the backlash this time around was much more swift and much more furious than the last time, to the point where Chester himself began venting his frustrations online. Seeing him do that was unlike him, I thought. At one point, I even believed he was being a little bit childish for doing that. Still, when you consider the life that Chester had lived, which had shined brilliantly however painful it had been, it made sense.
You'd think he made it. You'd think he brushed it off. You'd think he sees these things and think to himself that it's just another ordinary day.
In the end, we were all wrong.
There's just no right way to say how great Chester Bennington was and how the world was shining a little darker after this. There's nothing that, for the life of me, could capture how great of a person he really was. For a man who had stared down into the eyes of death throughout all his life, Chester Bennington encapsulated everything that's great and good in this world. His voice, howling with the anguish and suffering he was constantly under, pushed the world up to its feet and carried it onward. Anyone who could do that will always be, in my mind, a star worth celebrating and remembering.
Thank you, Chester. For everything.
May you finally get the peace you needed.
That was beautiful.
I have no words. Chester and Linkin Park were a great inspiration to me; still are, I guess. Thank you for saying this.