“Unique”: Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda picks the song no one can come close to
Upon the release of their debut album Hybrid Theory in 2000, Linkin Park pretty much immediately staked a claim as the biggest band in the world. Now, 25 years later, they have a claim to the title once more. After a few warmly received arena shows in 2024, they begin their first world tour since 2017, later this summer, jaunting around the stadiums of the world.
Nearly a quarter of a century after their heyday, it’s quite possibly the largest tour they’ve ever been on. One can’t ignore the tragic loss of lead singer Chester Bennington in this outpouring of goodwill for the band, but I think the appeal of Linkin Park runs a lot deeper.
The band arrived on the scene during the heady days of nu-metal and has been lumped in with that cultural cul-de-sac ever since. On the surface, this is fitting. After all, Linkin Park was a band that combined the core tenets of hip-hop and heavy metal in a manner similar to Limp Bizkit and Korn.
However, even a casual Linkin Park listener could tell that where the stars of Woodstock 1998 were content, hashing out the different kinds of aggression you could find in those genres, Linkin Park were much more profound. For one thing, Mike Shinoda’s band was a lot more openly emotional than other bands of their ilk.
What did Linkin Park have over their nu-metal peers?
Sure, Korn’s early work can get truly harrowing in its descriptions of the dark side of the band’s psyche. By 1998 though, they’d shown their true colours by trading jovial homophobic slurs with Fred Durst on ‘All In The Family’, much like any other bunch of jocks more interested in money over art. Linkin Park remained steadfastly serious and heartfelt, though, almost to their detriment.
Never, ever forget that up until Bennington’s passing, Linkin Park were something of a joke in the world of modern rock due to their deeply emotional lyricism. While the 32 million copies Hybrid Theory has sold to date went some way to history vindicating them, that’s something that everyone outside of the band and their fanbase needs to recognise.
Especially when, from a musical perspective, the band were far more interesting than most gave them credit for. As far as musical influences go, most bands of their generation were content reiterating all the worst, most commercial parts of Ice-T’s Body Count and Rage Against the Machine’s discography.
On the other hand, Linkin Park were musical omnivores, much like fellow nu-metal overachievers Deftones. Alongside the more standard likes of Beastie Boys and Nirvana, Linkin Park talked up the likes of Radiohead’s Kid A, The Smiths and KRS-One as well. Nowhere is this range better showcased than in the Metal Hammer article about Mike Shinoda’s ten songs that changed his life, to which he contributed.
In a list that runs the gamut from Public Enemy to Portishead, Shinoda pays special tribute to one song in particular, Tears for Fears’ 1985 classic ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. He called it his favourite song from the 1980s, going on to say, “Anytime someone references it, you can tell instantly because it’s such a unique song that you can’t get close to it without giving away that’s what you’re doing.”
He’s not wrong either; whether it’s that chiming guitar riff or bouncy, shuffling drum track, the uniqueness of its songwriting and production means you can spot it in every song that tries to lift a trick from it. Much like how, in the world of modern rock, you can spot the Linkin Park influences in bands like Spiritbox, Sleep Token and Bring Me the Horizon from a mile away.
That’s the kind of legacy you don’t get simply from selling millions of records and turning profits but by genuinely touching the hearts and minds of multiple generations. This is exactly what Linkin Park did at the turn of the 21st century and continues to do to this day.
