Review Summary: everything has a legacy.
Nu metal has been a genre that’s gotten a lot of unnecessary hatred towards it over the years. Sure, it spawned a plentiful amount of awkward social/fashion trends, including but not limited to: spiked tips, white people with dreads, chain wallets, and all too many Limp Bizkit t-shirts. But what people don’t really acknowledge is the impact of some of these albums. Without bands like Slipknot, Korn, and
especially Linkin Park, a lot of modern music wouldn’t be even remotely close to how it is now. I know for a fact, without albums like
Hybrid Theory as well as
Meteora, a lot of people, including me, wouldn’t be on this website right now. Without albums like
Meteora, there’s a good chance that you, reading this now, well, wouldn’t be here reading this now.
It’s all for good reason though. The experimentation, genre-crossing, and execution of this record is unparalleled by pretty much anything else at the time. How polarizing it was for music at the time, popularizing and shaping a new generation of music fans to come is no easy feat.
Meteora was the peak of not only a genre, not even a subculture, but an era of time in general. The DJ’ing by Joe Hahn is genre-defining; the chord progressions from Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson respectively still give a metallic feel to their already eclectic style that bands to this day still try (and fail) to replicate. The rapping and heartfelt lyricism from Mike Shinoda give a cutting edge counterpart to Chester Bennington’s cathartic and introspective vocals and respective songwriting duties as well. Songs like “Breaking The Habit”, “Somewhere I Belong”, and as meme’d as it is, “Numb” all serve a place in today’s culture for what it did to shape the 2000’s in music as well as culture.
The thing is though, even with its flaws in some of its quirky production choices, the album changed my life. I’m sure it changed a lot of your lives as well. I’m certain of it. “Faint” was the reason i got into heavier music and picked up playing the drums, which led me to going into marching band and falling in love with music as a whole. Everything is a chain reaction and that’s what so intriguing and thought provoking about this world and existence we occupy. Some of us have our own gripes with it, and we all have our individual demons we fight and carry, and the we need to be more acknowledging of that. Songs off of
One More Light paint a picture of a damaged man that we failed to see, with songs like lead single “Heavy” describing Chester’s low periods, and the burdens he carries with him around; and I can’t help but feel it might even be part of our faults for him feeling like this. Especially with fans just bombarding the band and Chester with constant hate as the album dropped, even though a lot of
One More Light lyrically (and stylistically) plays a lot like
Meteora, even if it’s sonically softer and a little bit more produced.
In retrospect, with its flaws,
Meteora is a testament to music and its effect on culture as a whole, not just in 2003, but in today’s day and age as well. Without Linkin Park, and without Chester, culture would be entirely different at its time as we know it. Bands like Linkin Park shaped millennials worldwide and offered a lot of new takes on music that were previously deemed childish and “edgy”. While Linkin Park may not live on from here on out, their legacy, as well as Chester’s influence on this day and age, will live on as long as we are here. And to me, personally there is nothing more beautiful than that.
