Two days ago we lost a voice in the Metal/Rock community, tragically Linkin Park's lead singer Chester Bennington chose to take his own life. It comes around a month after his close friend Chris Cornell did the same, a lot of voices are speculating he would still be alive if Chris where too. Chester has spoken openly about his childhood abuse and inner struggle in the past and with the reality of his actions we now realize the extent of pain and suffering he was going through. In my teenage years Chester was a big, immensely talented voice in our generations music and their massive album Hybrid Theory remains the most popular Nu Metal album to date. I never kept up with the band over the years however that record holds a special place within.
I recently decided to check in with their latest release One More Light, mainly due to a morbid curiosity with the media backlash for the bands change in direction. Listening to it again the record feels almost unrecognizable when focusing on the lyrics. My main criticism of the album was that of a disingenuous feeling between lyrics that glorify pain and suffering through what were yesterdays squeaky clean, sunny pop sound. Now reality illuminates the authenticity in his words, the sincerity all to raw to accept. Listening back to the classic "Crawling" again sounded like a whole new song, a chapter had been closed on that page. The words "crawling in my skin, these wounds will never heal" have a tragic weight about them now.
The point of this article is perception, the master of our reality. In my case a sense of a disingenuous expression has turned out to be utterly false. Ill never enjoy this record now as its drenched in a harrowing sadness given Chester's passing. Whats to be learned is the same lesson I'm trying to teach myself all the time. Everything is just a perception. You are a perception of yourself, you only perceive others and that all comes with a wealth of ignorance that our minds bypass in order to give us a sense of understanding. We are wired to think we know best when we actually know an infinitesimal amount of whats to be known... I conclude that we should grant artists some authenticity with their music, regardless and lessen our instinct to pass judgement. The same should be said of people in our day to day lives too, for we our all capable of feeling pain and should never let those expressions fall on deaf ears.
RIP Chester