“Linkin Park became one of the most popular and most divisive bands of the new millennium because of their genre agnosticism and pop polish, but to listen to that debut single is to remember that they were also differentiated by a core of raw, convincing pain. It almost entirely came from Bennington.”
“He was arguably the purest font of angst—and inarguably one of the most powerful male voices—in mainstream music since 2000.”
““He sang like a fucking beast, the same way he sings now,” Linkin Park rapper Mike Shinoda recalled to Kerrang in 2008, describing Bennington’s 1999 audition for Shinoda’s new group that was looking to blend hip-hop and metal. Whether in Linkin Park or earlier bands like Grey Daze, Bennington could scream—really scream, in the way that vicariously makes the listener’s vocal cords hurt. But he also had a balladeer’s smoothness and sense of melody that showed his tastes as a listener. In 2014, he listed his influences on Twitter: “Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Misfits, Fugazi, Minor Threat, The Smiths, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, Ministry, x.””
“He also listened to a lot of grunge, and Bennington’s death inevitably and unfortunately shall now be linked to those of singers from that movement.”
“Grunge’s disaffection, though, was more self-indicting than the anguish Bennington aired. His sorrows were those not of the nihilist but of the aggrieved, someone deeply betrayed by an ever-present “you.””
“Linkin Park’s sound has always been omnivorous, and the band deserves more credit than it gets for the way it prophesied the current moment in which rock’s drama and pop sweetness and rap’s swagger seem to combine on more Hot 100 hits than not.”
“He was unapologetically a victim—the solace Linkin Park provided, with its techno-futuristic beats and energizing power chords and Shinoda’s stern boasts, was in turning victim into righteous superhero.”
“The band, experimental from the start, has pushed its sound a few different directions over the years—proggy and aggro on 2014’s The Hunting Party, EDM-adjacent prettiness for this year’s One More Light—and Bennington adapted to all of it. But his point of view didn’t waver much.”
“And Linkin Park’s most recent album’s title track will be playing a lot in the coming days, no doubt. “Who cares if one more light goes out,” Bennington sang. “Well, I do.””