I will be honest here I wasn’t a huge fan but something does need to be said about the tragic death of Chester Bennington. It is indisputable that Linkin Park ushered in a new era in heavy music and a whole ton of new fans consider Hybrid Theory to be the album that got them into Metal. For that alone we should be thankful. Being old school my gateway bands were Kiss, Judas Priest, Queen and Van Halen but I know many people who started with Nirvana and G ‘n’ R. I consider Linkin park to be another of those land mark bands that melted some young brains and I appreciate the influence they had on kids who would not have had their Metal genes activated without them.
Chester said some asshole stuff in the last few years. He made statements saying that Linkin Park saved metal and with the release of the new album he attacked his fans and said that they should be appreciating what he was doing rather than lamenting the fact that he was no longer doing what they wanted him to do. in my view the artist should be allowed to try whatever the fuck he or she likes. On the flip side the artist shouldn’t expect people to love it the same way as the artist does. The album didn’t get a lot of love but at the same time the advent of social media has allowed a lot of little dickheads to say a lot of really mean shit that they are not held accountable for.