I'd never really been affected by "celebrity" deaths before, but Chester Bennington's suicide last Thursday hit me surprisingly hard. I say "surprisingly" because I'm not a die-hard Linkin Park fan. But Hybrid Theory was one of the first metal albums I ever bought — I still remember that I had just started Grade 9, when I was heavily into nu-metal, and went to Music World to pick it up from the New Releases shelf — and it was a such a game-changer in the genre that it really helped define a new generation of alternative rock. At the time, I could not have foreseen just how big they would get because a lot of nu-metal bands had reached their peak in the early 2000s, but Linkin Park's success only grew exponentially. I followed them through until Meteora (which was a "guilty pleasure" because I was really into post-hardcore/screamo by then), which ended up becoming one of the most successful alternative rock albums of all time. But even years after I stopped actively listening to Linkin Park, I still wanted to see them live because they played such a big part in my angsty teenage years, so just for nostalgia's sake, I went to their concert in 2014 during their Carnivores tour (where they not only put on one hell of a show, but truly revived my interest in their music). So it came as a shock that such a relevant modern rock icon — who not only released a new album just two months ago with Linkin Park, but that I'd also seen happily chatting away in interviews up until last week — could be gone just like that. It's unbelievable that we won't hear his voice — arguably one of the most distinct and wide-ranging in rock music — ever again, and I am genuinely mournful and heartbroken.
RIP Chester Bennington.
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