With a band with such a huge catalogue, there are plenty of awesome songs to choose from.
- The Xero demo tape has "Reading My Eyes", so good that the group was swamped with requests to play it again, which they started doing in 2006 (including a live version on the LP Underground 6). This song is a good example of why, from the outset, Mike was respected by the hip hop community - his wordplay and rhythmic variation really carries the song.
- "Carousel" and "And One" from the Hybrid Theory EP - both very dark and with good storytelling - introduce the paranoid aspect that would characterise the Hybrid Theory album itself.
- Hybrid Theory:
- "Papercut" is creepy, frantic, and epic.
- "One Step Closer" is THE single that started it all, with its catchy riff, powerful voice and ansgty-like lyrics creating the foundations of the band's Nu Metal sound in the eyes of the public.
- "Crawling", for all its use in memes, is pretty badass and emotional, and a hell of an earworm.
- "In the End" has been used almost as much as "Crawling", and might be even catchier thanks to the memorable piano melody.
- Reanimation:
- The amazing remix of "My December", titled "My Dsmbr". Originally a stark piano ballad, it transforms the song into a gorgeous wintery electronica tune with backing vocals from Kelli Ali.
- "By Myself," while good, wasn't exactly their best song. But the remixes by Josh Abraham and Marilyn Manson are absolute improvements over the original, and end up being some of the best remixes on the album.
- Meteora:
- "Somewhere I Belong," a more controlled take on their Signature Style. If you'd never heard an early LP song before, this would be a perfect introduction to the sound that made them popular.
- "Faint" was actually originally planned to be a fairly slow song. It was later sped up to almost double the BPM (from about 70 to 135), to blood-pumping and awesome effect.
- "Breaking the Habit" is an early example of a fairly soft Linkin Park song and is very coolly melancholy, to the point where Chester was known to tear up while performing it.
- "Numb" proves that this band can be sad while still keeping the volume up on those guitars. It was also one of their first singles to better show off Chester's softer singing voice, showing that he was capable of more than just screaming.
- "Lost" is a song that nearly made it to the Album in 2003 but was cut. For the 20th Anniversary of Meteora, this lost song was updated and released as a single in 2023. With music that combined the Meteora era and their newer styles, "Lost" is an emotional rollercoaster featuring the haunting vocals of Chester Bennington.
- Collision Course, for being a collaboration with one of the greatest rappers alive. It was also instrumental in introducing black hip-hop fans to Linkin Park and white fans of Linkin Park to more straightforward rap music.
- "Jigga What/Faint," taking one of the band's fastest songs and giving it a slow build up by starting with the hook from Jay's track, and the payoff is incredible! Hearing Mike rap "Faint" over "Jigga"'s hook and Jay rapping "Jigga" over "Faint"'s hook feels like the best of both words bleeding into each other.
- "Numb/Encore," one of the all-time biggest hits for both acts, not to mention a decade-defining song for 2000s pop, and often considered to be better than both songs ever were individually!
- The Grand Finale of Hoova's most angry hit, "99 Problems," mashed up with two of LP's angriest songs, "Points Of Authority" and "One Step Closer." All three songs compliment each other to a tee and Mike doing Vocal Tag Team with Jay-Z is just too cool for words. Jay-Z himself liked this version so much that he usually has his band play it like this in concert.
- Minutes to Midnight:
- "Given Up," one of the band's few straight-up metal songs and it rocks!
- "Leave Out All the Rest," easily one of the best ballads that the band ever wrote, and while Chester was inevitably going to die one day, his too-early death now makes it a dignified "goodbye" song.
- "Shadow of the Day," the band's very first song to be written in a major key, and it's appropriately uplifting.
- "Hands Held High." One of the best protest songs of the Bush administration, and one which doesn't get the credit it deserves as such.
- "The Little Things Give You Away," a six-minute ballad that keeps building on itself by each minute and includes some of the best lyrics the band has ever written, an Epic Riff and a great harmonization between Chester, Mike and the guitarist Brad. It's a favorite amongst the fandom and even people who didn't like the album have claimed it to be one of their best songs.
- "New Divide" is reminiscent of "What I've Done" (though the pianos are replaced with a badass guitar line) and is more than awesome enough to deserve its inclusion in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen.
- A Thousand Suns:
- "Burning In The Skies" helps showcases Mike Shinoda's singing capabilities, and its lyrics serves as the first pillar for the rest of the album.
- "Iridescent" is among the best of the band's power ballads, and it showcases how broad the band's sound has become from the days of Hybrid Theory. The Transformers: Dark of the Moon version shortens the song for more drums, which drives its power ballad status further.
- Living Things: "Victimized" is easily among the heaviest of the band's songs, and short as it is, the heaviness really shows.
- "BURN IT DOWN" sounds both powerful and somber at the same time, with the song being about being betrayed by someone the singer believed they were close to and destroying the relationship with it.
- The Hunting Party:
- "Guilty All the Same", with its strong drums, powerful guitars and a well done rap by Rakim, a rapper commonly called a rap god, is a sure way for one to start if they want to know more about The Hunting Party.
- One More Light:
- "Heavy," perhaps the most earnest song Chester ever wrote. It's completely unambiguous and unapologetic in its extremely on-point description of living with depression and is all the better for it.
- "Sorry For Now" is probably the sweetest song the band ever made, where Mike sings about having to travel and leave his children behind, but they'll understand when they're older, and Chester joins in with a lighthearted rap about how much he looks forward to coming home to his own.
- "Invisible", a gorgeous song where Mike repents his past mistakes.
- "One More Light" is perhaps even more touching and earnest than "Breaking The Habit", and is quite an effective Tear Jerker.
- "Sharp Edges" is one of the band's most bittersweet songs. There's a tone of acceptance, but ultimately the song is one of regret for what happened during a troubled childhood. It's like it was designed to make you enjoy what you got.
