Linkin Park, Chester Bennington and the Necessity of Catharsis

“Life is nothing if not a series of infinite nuances”. Keep this quote in mind as we progress through this post.
The teenage years are the most formative of an individual’s life. We become a confluence of mixed emotions; you undergo significant physiological change all the while being thrust through the darker facets of human psychology. Though you may appreciate that your friends are going through the same changes, it does not make your experiences feel less individual.
I do not wish to paint a singularly abject picture. There are not many journeys of self-discovery to rival teen hood and there should be no denying how scary such a period can be. I, and everyone else, will forever be unable to verbalise effectively how we felt during that time. Which is why I marvel at how easy it is for many to dismiss these very real emotions of teenagers as simply “angst”? It is pervasive, it is unfair and it is reckless.
As a teenager, I often found myself at odds with my surroundings. I had friends who I loved, and loved me in return, but I still felt ostracised. There were many times when I could not find solace in them, nor with my parents or anyone I knew for that matter so in a bid to find kindred, I found Linkin Park.
I am now 23, and The Police are my favourite band of all time. The 15-year-old me, however, would place no one above Linkin Park. Music is a safe space. No one knows you better than your iPod. Where we fail, art succeeds in being our most accurate expression of emotion. They allow you to be sad and happy. Art covers the entire spectrum of human emotion.
Falling in love with Linkin Park made sense to me, especially as I began to consider their music as running parallel to my life. The genre they were mostly associated with, Nu Metal, was largely ridiculed by traditional metal fans. They created a niche for themselves in a market that constantly ridiculed them and explicitly told them they did not belong. Nu Metal was an agglomeration of multiple genre niches; mixing head-banging rock riffs, hip hop turntablism and drum beats with techno synths. Nu Metal was messy. It was a young teenager stumbling its way through life, making one mistake after another. It was trying to find the best way to do anything, to craft an identity, and Linkin Park was the best of it.
Linkin Park stood in contrast with the spit polished, highly refined bands of the 90s. Hybrid Theory, their debut album, was made for adolescents. It was presented perfectly for the pubescent. They were not a pretty boy-band, they lacked the charisma. All these factors made it remarkably accessible.
In one album the band ushered us through a musical journey of the worst parts of being a teenager. As cliché as it comes across, when lead singer, Chester Bennington, screamed “I need a little room to breathe… I’m one step closer to the edge and I’m about to break” he did it in a way we were unable to. I could not tell my teachers, parents or friends to “shut up” when I’m talking to them, but I could scream it along with Chester.
Generally speaking, Hip Hop and Rock Music elitists have always stood at odds with each other. A lot of big name Rock artists typically rejected Hip Hop as a musical genre during its rise in the 80s. The demographic of those that co-opted and consumed Rock were incredibly different from those of rap. Nu Metal was supposed to embrace the most recognisable of these genres and demanded that both sets of fans did so too. Consider “In The End”; a sweet melodic ballad style rap for the verses and a dark gritty metallic sound for the chorus. It was a contrast that broke through demographic barriers. This was a band with something for everyone. What is most amazing is they did not need to water down any of it to make it work. Many bands attempted to do this and failed horribly. Limp Bizkit came across as arrogant frat boys and KORN were perceived as being too dark. Linkin Park combined two generational sounds and communicated the concerns of their core fan base. An individual like myself who classes Big L and the Rolling Stones as some of my favourite artists of all time could not help but be drawn to them.
Music should be ecstatic and cathartic. And it is at this point that I must take you to the opening quote. If the said quote is true then you can imagine just how tiring life can be. If everything we experience is in fact completely unique and individual, there is only so much we can endure before we collapse. Hence why music must be cathartic. Music does not just become a means to communicate our truths and values but as a way to harmlessly release them. Music should allow us to reset so we can go right back to dealing with new nuances.
Linkin Park’s music was effective in being exactly that for me. I never spiralled down because I could always use them to cleanse myself. I, selfishly, however never considered the artists. I had the ironic luxury of seeing Linkin Park as a reflection of who I was and simultaneously dissociating the people behind the music from the music. To elaborate on this point I shall focus on Chester Bennington.
It was Chester’s recent suicide that inspired these ramblings. Chester wore the same mask as his audience. Our musical appetites and interests aligned perfectly with his. When he spoke candidly of his own struggles with drugs, mental health and sexual abuse he addressed taboos that we would traditionally avoid. He authenticated every single one of our dark experiences. His music, the emotion it evoked. The expert manner by which he explored all of self and the pathology of what makes us who we are. In Chester Bennington I found my catharsis and it will always haunt me that he never found his. Rest in perfect peace.