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Music / Linkin Park

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/linkinpark.jpg
Left to right: Brad Delson, Mike Shinoda, "Mr." Joe Hahn, Chester Bennington, Rob Bourdon, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell

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Linkin Park is a rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Since their formation in 1996, the band has sold more than 50 million albums and won two Grammy Awards.

The band was originated by members Mike Shinoda, Rob Bourdon and Brad Delson, all high school friends. After graduating, the three then recruited the other current members of the band with the exception of their lead vocalist, who was originally Mark Wakefield. Wakefield eventually left in the wake of tension among the band from their lack of success; Chester Bennington was chosen as his replacement, and his vocal chemistry with Shinoda revitalized the band.

The band's name upon formation was Xero, but it was changed to Hybrid Theory after Bennington joined. Upon signing with Warner Bros. Records in 1999, the label advised them to change their name to avoid confusion with the British electronic group Hybrid. The inspiration for the name they switched to, the one you know today, was Santa Monica's Lincoln Parknote ; while they originally wanted to use the park's name as was, they tweaked the spelling to secure the domain "linkinpark.com".

Linkin Park achieved mainstream success come the Turn of the Millennium as one of the most popular bands in Nu Metal, with their debut album Hybrid Theory and its follow-up Meteora receiving some of the biggest success the genre has ever seen. Nearing the end of the decade, as the genre started falling out of public favor, the band shifted sights to an Alternative Rock sound with electronic influences from Minutes to Midnight onward (though they did return to their metal roots with 2014's The Hunting Party). Their fanbase was continuously split as a result of this, but it never deterred the band from continuing to do what they wanted with their music, leading to reactions that were more predictable in their hysteria than whatever the band chose to put out next.

While their music has been featured in dozens of films, shows and video games, Linkin Park has a particularly strong association with the Transformers series. In addition to providing singles for the first three movies and the video game Rise of the Dark Sparknote , they collaborated with Steve Jablonsky and Hans Zimmer on the score for Revenge of the Fallen. They are also a popular music source for anime music videos, inevitably featuring shonen series like Dragon Ball Z (and occasionally not-so-shonen series, namely Neon Genesis Evangelion).

While they were immensely popular, a sizable group grew that wasn't keen on all the screaming and sadness, leading to the common stereotype and endless amount of memes regarding Linkin Park being the band du jour of "whiny, angsty teenagers with no good reason to be" the world over.

Or, at least, they were.

On July 20, 2017, Chester Bennington died from suicide shortly before the band was to start the North American leg of the tour promoting their then-latest album One More Light, leading to the tour being cancelled. The remaining members of Linkin Park did their first performance without him at a tribute concert for him on October 27, with guest performances and guest vocals from members of Yellowcard, blink-182, One Ok Rock, Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, System of a Down, Echosmith, Bush, No Doubt, A Day to Remember, Bring Me the Horizon and Sum 41, as well as Kiiara, Julia Michaels, Zedd, Alanis Morissette, Machine Gun Kelly, Steve Aoki, Bebe Rexha... and, of course, the fans.

By Mike Shinoda's own confession, he has intentions on continuing with Linkin Park, though he also noted that it will take time. He has leaned into solo music in the interim, with an EP-turned-albumnote  named Post Traumatic and several instrumental hip hop albums under his belt thus far. According to him, he released Post Traumatic, his first main solo project, under his own name because of the personal subject matter of the album, since it dealt with his grief and coping with the death of Chester.

In April 2020, Dave Farrell confirmed that the band had reunited and were working on new music; however, in 2022, Mike stated that they are not in fact working on anything and are still on hiatus. That said, whether they will find a new member or stay the way they are now is still unknown.

Members:

Current

  • Mike Shinoda - vocals (rapping and singing), rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizers, samples, programming (1996–present)
  • Brad Delson - lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–present), bass (2000)
  • Rob Bourdon - drums, percussion (1996–present)
  • Joe "Mr." Hahn - turntables, keyboards, synthesizers, samples, programming, backing vocals (1996–present)
  • Dave "Phoenix" Farrell - bass, backing vocals (1996–1998; 2000–present)

Former

  • Mark Wakefield - lead vocals (1996–1998)
  • Kyle Christner - bass (1998–1999)
  • Chester Bennington - lead vocals (1999–2017; died in 2017)

Discography:

Studio Albums

Non-Album Singles

Live Albums

  • Live in Texas (November 18, 2003)
  • Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes (November 21, 2008)
  • One More Light Live (December 15, 2017)

Other Releases

  • Hybrid Theorynote  (May 1, 1999note )
  • Reanimation note  (July 30, 2002)
  • Collision Course note  (November 30, 2004)
  • Recharged note  (October 29, 2013)
  • Papercuts note  (April 12, 2024)

TROPING IN MY SKIN!

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    Tropes A to F 
  • An Aesop:
    • "The Messenger" rambles about how important hope and love is in the face of evil and pain. The impact of the song is increased by the fact that it's on A Thousand Suns, an album mainly about how broken the world is.
    • "One More Light" pretty much states the reflection of losing someone you care about and how you still care for them in a world of a million, also reflecting on those who probably don't know said person but still caring for them as "one more light in a sky of a million stars". It's no surprise the song became its own tribute to Chester after his passing.
  • Album Filler: Mike Shinoda has said that "Runaway" was included on Hybrid Theory for this reason. They had given up on the song and wrote "One Step Closer" out of frustration. Because they couldn't use the planned song "She Couldn't" for sample reasons, nor did they want to include the re-recorded "High Voltage," they decided to go back to the Xero demo Stick N Move and re-used some of the melody lines to finish off "Runaway". The band regard "Runaway" as the worst song they ever wrote, although fans tend to disagree. At times they've said they don't want to play it live again, but did so anyway.
    • Lampshaded by Black Thought on "X-Ecutioner Style."
  • Album Title Drop: "The Requiem" and "The Catalyst" for A Thousand Suns.
    • Probably would have counted as Bookends if not for "The Messenger."
  • All for Nothing:
    • The second song of The Hunting Party.
    • "In the End" makes it explicit:
      I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter.
  • All Just a Dream: The video for "Somewhere I Belong."
  • Always with You: The last line in the chorus for "Leave Out All The Rest".
    Keep me in your memory,
    leave out all the rest…
  • And I Must Scream: The alien commander who gets enveloped by the blue tentacles at the end of the "Pts.OF.Athrty" music video.
  • Animated Music Video: "Breaking the Habit," "Pts.OF.Athrty," "FRGT/10," and "Guilty All the Same." They've become the go-to source for any Anime/Animated Music Video collage on YouTube, alongside Three Days Grace.
  • Animesque: The music video for "Breaking the Habit," though the "-esque" is questionable, as it was produced by Kazuto Nakazawa.
  • Ascended Extra: Mike Shinoda was the founder and original producer of the band and was its primary vocalist during the underground years; Chester Bennington, despite being the last member to join, is now popularly recognized as having been the frontman. However, the songs are primarily written around Shinoda's programming and continue to be so. Most of the other guys are this even post Chester.
  • Atomic F-Bomb:
    • Thanks to Chester's Metal Scream, the bridge of "Given Up" gets this treatment.
    PUT ME OUT OF MY FUCKING MISERYYYYYYYY!
    • When playing "A Place for My Head" live, Chester almost always ended it with a big "MOTHERFUCKER!"
  • Audience Participation Song: During live performances of "Bleed It Out", there was a chance of Chester and Mike initiating a singing contest between each other with the audience's help, such as on Road to Revolution. The audience was also encouraged to sing with Chester on "In the End."
  • Bar Brawl: One depicted backwards in the "Bleed It Out" video.
  • Big "NO!": The chorus of "Blackout". Emphasis on BIG
    • The bridge of "Faint" starts with one.
    • "The Catalyst" has four, but they're somewhat more subdued than the other examples.
  • Big "SHUT UP!": The (in)famous bridge of "One Step Closer" is packed with them courtesy of Chester.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Two of them on A Thousand Suns.
    • In "Jornada del Muerto", Mike sings, "Mochiagete tokihanashite" — Japanese for 'Lift me up, let me go.' The English translation appears on "The Catalyst" several songs later.
    • In the prelude "Empty Spaces" and in the bridge of "When They Come for Me", Brad can be heard yelling into a bullhorn in Spanish: "¡Escúchenme, toda la gente! ¡Presten atención! ¡Escúchenme ahora mismo!"
      All you people, listen to me! Pay attention! Listen to me now!
  • Bittersweet Ending: A Thousand Suns, which takes place during a nuclear war, has "The Messenger", a would-be Surprisingly Gentle Song if not for the Metal Screaming.
    When life leaves us blind, love keeps us kind…
    • Linkin Park and Friends at the Hollywood Bowl is this for the band itself, or just the Bennington era.
  • Boastful Rap: "Reading My Eyes", "Step Up", "High Voltage", "It's Goin' Down", "When They Come for Me", "I Have Not Begun", and (if Fort Minor's counted) "Remember the Name" and "Petrified".
  • Bookends:
    • "Krwlng", the last track of the remix album Reanimation starts with the same violin in "Opening", the opening track of the album.
    • The music video for "Castle of Glass" begins with a military man in uniform delivering word to a woman and her son that their husband/father has died in the line of duty. It ends with the boy, now a grown man and in the military himself, doing the same for a young girl.
    • The first song on Hybrid Theory is called "Papercut," and the closing song of One More Light is "Sharp Edges." The latter album may not be the group's last (at least for now), but it was Chester Bennington's.
  • BSoD Song: Their entire body of work are essentially songs dealing with angst and depression.
  • Call-Back:
    • "When They Come for Me" has a few, being a boastful rap that calls to mind the band's earlier hip-hop tracks "Reading My Eyes," "Step Up," and "High Voltage." He references "Points of Authority" by saying he's not the same guy that 'forfeit the game'. He also refers to the band's first album "Hybrid Theory" in the line "Once you have a theory of how the thing works, everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first." The vocals towards the end of the song are quite similar to those of the intro to the band's song "Carousel". The theme of the song is that Shinoda takes his own path and doesn't care what people say, and they can either keep up with him or be stuck behind.
    • It may be coincidental, but Living Things fifth track is "I'll Be Gone". The album straight before that, A Thousand Suns, had "When They Come For Me", which was also the fifth track. And what are some of the lyrics from the song "When They Come For Me"?
      Oh, when they come for me, come for me, I'll be gone.
  • The Cameo: Frontman Chester Bennington had small roles in the movies Crank, Crank: High Voltage, and Saw 3D.
  • Camping a Crapper: The climax of the "Heavy" music video shows Chester being attacked by a physical representation of his inner demons inside a wash room (in front of a mirror even, thus making it a literal and figurative example of a Mirror Match).
  • Car Cushion: In the music video for "Breaking the Habit".
  • Careful with That Axe: A Chester Bennington specialty. Good lord, that man could belt it out.
    • Especially "Given Up". Not many people could hold a one-breath, two-note long scream for 17 seconds. No wonder he had to split that scream into two when singing the song live.
  • Cement Shoes: The Protest Song "The Little Things Give You Away" implies an execution in this fashion.
    All you ever wanted
    Was someone to truly look up to you
    And six feet underwater
    I do
  • Chewing the Scenery: Par for the course for Chester.
    One Step Closer: SHUT UP WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT! UUUUUUUP! I'M ABOUT TO BREAK!
    • "Blackout" also counts. "FUCK IT, ARE YOU LISTENING?!"
      • BLACKOUT!!! BLOOD IN YOUR EYE!!!
    • "The Messenger." Metal screaming doesn't exactly go well with an acoustic number, though it still has it's charm.
    • WHERE OCEANS BLEED INTO THE SKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
    • I'VE! BECOME SO NUMB! I CAN'T FEEL! YOU! THERE! He was having a painful stomachache during the video recording.
    • "Keys to the Kingdom," "War," "Mark the Graves," "A Line in the Sand."
    • I WANNA SEE YOU CHOKE ON YOUR LIES! SWALLOW UP YOUR GREED! SUFFER ALL ALONE IN YOUR MISERY!
      • YOU DID IT TO YOURSELLLLLLLLF!
    • "Victimized" is one of the harshest ones, if not THE harshest one: VICTIMIZED! VICTIMIZED! NEVER AGAIN! VICTIMIZED!
  • Clip Show: The music videos for both "Points of Authority", "Talking to Myself", and "One More Light" feature the band in some of their tours/concerts. "Kyur4 Th Ich" is a montage of breakdancing competitions.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Early in their career, the band made a point to avoid swearing on the first two albums, but with Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns, they resigned themselves to getting parental advisory labels. However, Living Things stood out for not having profanity for the first time since Meteora.
    • The exact profanity count for each album:
      • Minutes to Midnight has eight uses of 'fuck': four on "Given Up", two in "Bleed It Out", and two in "Hands Held High".
      • A Thousand Suns has eight fuck (or fuck-related) words: seven motherfuckers on "When They Come for Me", and one 'fuck' in "Blackout." "Wretches and Kings" features three uses of 'shit'.
      • The Hunting Party features five uses of 'fuck': four on "Keys to the Kingdom"; one on "All for Nothing", which also drops two 'shit's in the outro.
      • Even One More Light sneaks in one 'fucking' in "Heavy", courtesy of Kiiara. There's also one 'bullshit', on "Halfway Right".
    • That being said, however, even during the cycles for the first two albums, Mike and Chester practically became Sir Swears-a-Lot on tour. Special mention goes to "A Place for My Head", which Chester almost always ended by screaming a big "MOTHERFUCKER!"
  • Combat Tentacles: In the animated music video for "Pts.OF.Athrty", an alien race invades a highly technified human outpost defended by robotic soldiers. When the aliens breach the perimeter, the humans activate a machine that causes an entire underground installation to rise up out of the ground and destroy the enemy forces with energy tentacles.
  • Concept Album: A Thousand Suns, about war, corruption and the atom bomb.
  • Concept Video: The videos that aren't Dress Rehearsal/Performance Videos.
  • Conflict Killer: The Kid Hero of the "From the Inside" music video unleashes his Psychic Powers to halt both the State Sec and La Résistance who are violently fighting each other.
  • Cover Version: In addition to covering "Wish" by Nine Inch Nails and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," they've also been known to play "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "My Own Summer."
  • Credits Gag: Usually with Joe in some of the liner notes for their albums:
    • For A Thousand Suns: "Thank you all! Love, Joe."
    • For Living Things: "Joe would like to thank whoever invented hot sauce. Also, to Heidi."
  • Dark Reprise: "Fallout" from A Thousand Suns is this to the album's third (technically first when not counting the preludes) track "Burning in the Skies," which features an ominous vocoded version of the chorus lyrics and serving as the prelude to "The Catalyst."
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • Joe "Mr. Hahn" Hahn was a key part of the band's appeal in the Hybrid Theory days, but since those days has stayed in the background. Part of the reason is his DJ scratching was a big thing in the Nu Metal days, but has gone out of fashion, and the band's musical style has generally moved to push it into the background as well. Hahn himself appears to have become more reclusive than he was, so this may be an intentional thing.
    • Mike Shinoda during Minutes to Midnight. Compared to Hybrid Theory and Meteora, where him and Chester were a near-equal Vocal Tag Team, his rapping there was largely replaced by guitars. Only three songs on the album ("Bleed It Out," "Hands Held High," and "In Between") featured Shinoda's rapping, and only "Bleed It Out" featured their once-signature Vocal Tag Team style. The rest was pure Arena Rock sung by Chester. He has been more prominent in the albums since, however.
    • Brad, Rob and Dave on One More Light, which was one of the main criticisms of that album.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The band's behind-the-scenes videos, LPTV, were filmed in black-and-white during the A Thousand Suns touring cycle to reflect the theme of that album.
  • Digital Piracy Is Okay: Members of the band have gone on record saying they really don't care if their songs are downloaded. This is especially notable considering the actions of their label.
    • When Minutes to Midnight was leaked, their only response was to advise people to listen to the tracks in order and ask that they buy the album anyway for all the non-musical stuff they put into it.
    • The band themselves downloaded the Xero demo tape from a fansite so that they could relearn "Reading My Eyes" and play it live.
    • In addition, Shinoda acknowledged that "She Couldn't" leaked back in 2009, and whilst he said he couldn't legally talk about it (at the time; the song was officially released in 2020, eleven years later), he didn't try to take the links down.
    • During the band's 2001 Rock am Ring set, Mike told the crowd they can download "High Voltage" from Napster if they don't have it.
  • Doomsday Clock: Minutes to Midnight.
  • Dress Rehearsal Video: About half of their videos.
  • Drugs Are Bad: The point of both "Crawling" (its Reanimation remix, "Krwlng" included) and "Breaking the Habit".
  • Due to the Dead:
    • The music video for "One More Light" is dedicated to Chester.
    Chester,
    You ignited a flame of passion,
    laughter & courage in our hearts forever.
    We miss you, brother.
    - Joe, Mike, Brad, Dave & Rob.
    • The "Linkin Park & Friends Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington" concert organized by the aforementioned people is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Dystopia: Both the "From the Inside" and "Shadow of the Day" videos feature Chester taking an Unflinching Walk through violent protests. Joining him in "From the Inside" are Mike and Chester's son Jaime.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The songs written when the band were known as Xero are more in an experimental hip-hop vein with metal choruses. It wasn't really until Chester joined that the group used sung verses in songs - which would become more prevalent as time went on.
    • Several songs from Hybrid Theory actually feature Chester rapping, most notably "Papercut" and "Forgotten". By the time Meteora rolls in, he would cement himself as the group's designated singer, with Mike handling all rapping duties from then on.
  • Emo Teen: The protagonist of the music video for "Numb". She's an outcast both at home and at school, and her only outlet is her artworks...
  • Epic Rocking: "A Line in the Sand" and "The Little Things Give You Away" each clock in at about six and a half minutes. Not counting the tracks from Reanimation, only "The Catalyst" and "Guilty All The Same" come close to that, each going beyond the five-and-a-half-minute mark.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: "Burn It Down".
    You told me yes,
    you held me high,
    and I believed when you told that lie.
    I played soldier,
    you played king.
    You struck me down when I kissed that ring.
    You lost that right
    to hold that crown.
    I built you up, but you let me down.
    So when you fall,
    I'll take my turn.
    I'll fan the flames as your blazes burn!
  • Fading into the Next Song: Every album except One More Light uses this, with Meteora, A Thousand Suns and The Hunting Party as the biggest examples. The exact countnote :
    • Hybrid Theory
      • "Papercut" → "One Step Closer"
      • "Cure for the Itch" was supposed to segue into Mike Shinoda's reprise version of "High Voltage" (included with the "One Step Closer" single and several special editions of Hybrid Theory), but the latter was cut from the album. However, "High Voltage" still has the segue from "Cure for the Itch".
    • Meteora
      • "Foreword" → "Don't Stay" → "Somewhere I Belong"
      • "Lying from You" → "Hit the Floor" → "Easier to Run" → "Faint"
      • "Figure.09" → "Breaking the Habit" → "From the Inside" → "Nobody's Listening" → "Session"
    • Minutes to Midnight
      • "Wake" → "Given Up"
      • "Leave Out All the Rest" → "Bleed It Out"
      • "Shadow of the Day" → "What I've Done"
      • "No More Sorrow" → "Valentine's Day"
    • A Thousand Suns (though concept-wise the band explicitly intended this for people to listen to the album as "a 45-minute-long song.")
      • "The Requiem" → "The Radiance" → "Burning in the Skies" → "Empty Spaces" → "When They Come for Me"
      • "Robot Boy" → "Jornada del Muerto" → "Waiting for the End" → "Blackout"
      • "Wisdom, Justice and Love" → "Iridescent" → "Fallout" → "The Catalyst"
    • Living Things
      • "Victimized" → "Roads Untraveled"
      • "Skin to Bone" → "Until It Breaks" → "Tinfoil" → "Powerless"
    • The Hunting Party
      • "Keys to the Kingdom" → "All for Nothing" → "Guilty All the Same" → "The Summoning" → "War" → "Wastelands" → "Until It's Gone" → "Rebellion" → "Mark the Graves"
      • "Final Masquerade" → "A Line in the Sand"
  • Fake Band:
    Baby, if you were my Iraq / I'd never pull out of you if you know what I mean.
  • Flying Seafood Special: The music video for "In the End" has a brief moment which shows a flying whale circling the statue/tower where the band is playing.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • "The Requiem", the opening track from A Thousand Suns, is an ambient, brooding version of "The Catalyst", the album's penultimate track, which also features the Album Title Drop. It also contains the piano track from "Waiting for the End" and the heartbeat-sonar ping combo sound heard in the start of "Jornada del Muerto". Shinoda has said that the track contains elements from every other song on the album.
    • A more subtle version comes in the track "Jornada del Muerto", which features Mike singing "Lift me up, let me go" in Japanese.
  • Four-Star Badass: Invoked by Mike as a form of Badass Boast in "All for Nothing".
    And no, I'm not your soldier; I'm not taking any orders
    I'm a Five-Star General, infantry controller

    Tropes G to O 
  • Genre Mashup: Their music has pretty much always been a mix of rock, hip-hop, and electronica. Which of these ingredients takes prominence depends on the song.
  • Genre Shift: Originally started as a Nu Metal outfit, before gradually shifting to the more experimental side of Alternative Rock.
  • Genre Roulette: Minutes to Midnight. If you need further proof, look at its track order. Within the span of three songs, you'll hear a political hip-hop song featuring a choir and piano, one of the heaviest songs the band ever wrote with Chester coming close to snarling most of the lyrics, and a light alternative ballad about a funeral.
  • Gray Rain of Depression: Happens during the "In the End" music video, specifically during the song's bridge ("I PUT MY TRUST IN YOU...").
  • Grief Song: Several, and the band achieved its legendary status for doing songs about dealing with angst and depression. But a special example is "Looking for an Answer", a song Mike wrote (and sang) about how he felt during the aftermath of Chester's suicide.
  • The Grim Reaper: The music video for "Good Goodbye" features one, played by NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
  • Hellbent For Leather: The band members are wearing an all-leather outfit in the "What I've Done" music video.
  • Hidden Track:
    • In Minutes to Midnight, "Shadow of the Day" fades into an ambient instrumental that ends with a backwards cymbal leading directly into "What I've Done". It's likely that this was meant to be the full intro to the latter song, and the band (or their label) indexed it there so that "What I've Done" would match the single version.
    • A Thousand Suns has separately indexed segues for almost every song.
    • The Hybrid Theory EP has an untitled instrumental following six minutes of static after "Part of Me" - this track was later reworked into "Session" and included on Meteora.
  • His Own Worst Enemy: "Given Up" has the line "I'm my own worst enemy".
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: In "Figure.09": "I think of how I shot myself in the back again."
    • "Lies Greed Misery" is all about looking forward to watching an adversary screw himself over.
  • Humongous Mecha:
    • The cover of Reanimation and some of their music videos, most notably 'Pts.OF.Athrty'. Their song "What I've Done" also appeared in Transformers (as well as several thousand Transformers: Armada Starscream AMVs).
      • The videos for "New Divide" and "Iridescent" feature the Transformers prominently.
    • The video for "Somewhere I Belong", include Gundam models owned by Mr. Hahn himself. Models include the Sazabi, the Wing Zero Custom and the GP-01 Zephyranthes.
      • Bandai-Namco returned the favor by featuring "The Catalyst" in Gundam Extreme Vs. In connection, a Linkin Park version of the HGUC [GP-01Fb] was included with the purchase of the A Thousand Suns Japanese edition.
  • Hypocritical Humor: On "Rnw@y", Phoenix Orion claims he "can't get with the hybrids". He raps this over an industrial rock track.
  • Instrumentals: Most of which show up on EPs released exclusively for the band's official fan club, Linkin Park Underground. These are the ones that don't:
    • Although it contains vocal samples (from sample CDs), Hybrid Theory's "Cure for the Itch" is considered an instrumental by the band and fans alike. It's used as the penultimate track of the album, before "Pushing Me Away".
    • "Session" from Meteora, which was actually nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental. This track also serves as the penultimate track of the album, preceding "Numb".
    • "Wake" from Minutes to Midnight. This track opens the album, and segues into "Given Up".
    • "Lockjaw", a piece Mike Shinoda and Rob Bourdon were commissioned to make by Digidesign to promote ProTools 8. Released exclusively to the Linkin Park Underground fan club.
    • "Issho ni", a charity track for the 2011 earthquake that devastated Japan.
    • "Tinfoil", from Living Things. It serves as the album's penultimate track (for the third time) and the intro to the album closure, "Powerless".
    • "The Summoning" and "Drawbar" (featuring Tom Morello) from The Hunting Party.
  • "I Want" Song: Pick any song from the first two albums.
  • Incredibly Long Note:
    • Chester's scream on "Given Up" lasts for 17 seconds. It's no wonder he almost always split it in half when he sang it live.
    • The LPU 4.0 live recording of "Wish" has a 16-second scream on the bridge.
  • The Invisible Band: The video for Lost in the Echo.
  • Kid Hero: The protagonist of the "From the Inside" music video, who is played by Chester's son.
  • Le Parkour: The "FRGT/10" music video features the protagonist being chased over rooftops doing this.
  • Let's See YOU Do Better!: The theme of "Step Up" and "When They Come For Me".
  • Licensed Game: 8-Bit Rebellion for the iPhone/iPod Touch. There was concern about the game being good, but fans were still looking forward to the new song and midi remixes of their previous hits included. Critic reviews were mixed.
    • LP RECHARGE, done in collaboration with Power The World/Music for Relief to help raise awareness and funds for sustainable energy and solutions to energy poverty, with certain purchasable in-game items counting as a donation. Unlike 8-Bit Rebellion, LP RECHARGE is a social Facebook game with an upcoming mobile version.
  • Lighter and Softer: The music on One More Light is far poppier and lighter than their earlier work, but their lyrical themes remain just as heavy.
  • Light Is Not Good: The lyrics for "Iridescent" have this to say:
    And in the burst of light that blinded every angel
    As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
    You felt the gravity of temper grace, falling into empty space
    No one there to catch you in their arms
  • Little Miss Badass: In the "Good Goodbye" music video, Chester was having a winning streak until a little girl appears during the climax. She proceeded to trash him.
  • Long-Runner Line-up: Type 2, from 2000 (when Dave "Phoenix" Farrell re-joined the band after leaving in 1998) to Chester Bennington's death in 2017.
  • Loudness War: All their albums, with Living Things being the most audibly affected.
    • Shinoda acknowledged the bad mixing of Living Things by releasing the Acapellas and Instrumentals for digital download from iTunes and Amazon, so that fans could remix it to how they liked it. He already had a great reputation for caring about fans but this increased it tenfold.
  • Lyrical Cold Open:
  • Lyrical Dissonance:
    • The song "What I've Done" sounds like a moody downer, but it's about facing the consequences of your actions and finding forgiveness.
    • "Bleed It Out" averts this by being actually about writing lyrics, and re-writing them again and again (instead of self-mutilation as many automatically conclude). Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda vented their lyric writing frustrations by writing more lyrics. This is lampshaded by the opening line "Yeah, here we go for the hundredth time…"
    • "Waiting for the End" sounds awfully upbeat for being a song about resigning yourself to your regrets.
  • Madness Mantra: On multiple songs, most notably "Given Up" and "One Step Closer". Also have a tendency to have an ending Punctuated! For! Emphasis!.
  • Metal Scream:
    • "THESE WOOOOOUUUUNNNNDS, THEY WIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLL NOT HEEEAAAALLLL"
    • "Given Up" contains a seventeen-second, two pitch scream while "Across the Line" has a prolonged scream lasting eleven seconds. "Wth>You" has a 9 second prolonged COME ON!!! at the beginning.
    • The chorus of "Blackout" also finds Chester giving his voice a serious work out.
    • "YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU TRY TO TAKE THE BEST OF ME! GO AWAY!"
    • "VICTIMIZED! VICTIMIZED! NEVER AGAIN! VICTIMIZED!!!!!"
    • "NO CONTROOOOOOOOOOL! NO SURPRIIIIIIIIIIISE!"
  • Mirror Match: Chester during the "Heavy" music video, illustrating his battle with his own demons. Bonus points for it taking place in front of a literal mirror.
  • Myspeld Rökband: The band's name refers to a Lincoln Park in which Chester resided in shortly after joining the band while he was briefly homeless. One of the band members reasoned that the name would also help forge a connection with fans, since there were many cities with a Lincoln Park in them. The name is misspelled not because it was "cool" — it was because lincolnpark.com was already taken.
  • New Sound Album: Every album since Meteora. Each album goes:
    • Hybrid Theory: Nu Metal, rap, and rock.
    • Meteora: Nu Metal, rap, and rock, with some electronics thrown in.
    • Minutes to Midnight: U2-esque Alternative Rock with almost no rap.
    • A Thousand Suns: A mix of electronic and experimental rock. More rap than Minutes to Midnight, but not as much as before.
    • Living Things: A combination of their electronics from A Thousand Suns and some elements from their earlier albums.
    • The Hunting Party: Back to Nu Metal, though with a bigger emphasis on Alternative Metal and Hard Rock than their first two albums.
    • One More Light: Straightforward Pop.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The video for "Iridescent" features Mike as a one-eyed serpent king with spikes growing from his shoulders in a post-apocalyptic world where the rest of the band imitates The Last Supper while the Autobots hang around.
  • Nobody Loves the Bassist: Phoenix has his share of Butt-Monkey moments:
    • The first time the band visited Japan, a fan handed him an envelop that was addressed "Dear Mike, Joe, Chester, Brad, Rob, and bass player man."
    • Mike, meanwhile, often pokes fun at Phoenix and his Twittering on his blog. He even made a banner that says "Blogging Totally Pwns Twittering" for fans of his blog to post on their websites in a response to one of Phoenix's Twitter posts.
    • He's not even credited on Hybrid Theory, due to having left the band before they started recording in order to fulfill a prior commitment to one of his older bands. He came back to Linkin Park in time for the start of the Hybrid Theory tour.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Referenced in Numb:
    But I know you were just like me, with someone disappointed in you!
  • Once per Episode:
  • Older and Wiser: Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns disposes of much of the angst of their earlier work, in place of it being deeper and with more meaningful messages and themes.

    Tropes P to Z 
  • Performance Video: "Faint", "Numb/Encore", "Given Up", and "Talking to Myself". Alternate videos for "Waiting for the End" "Until It's Gone" and "Talking to Myself" were their performances filmed by the audience themselves.
  • Perishing Alt-Rock Voice: Whenever Mike's singing.
  • Pop-Star Composer: Mike worked with Joe Trapanese, best known for helping Daft Punk on the score to TRON: Legacy, for the soundtrack to an Indonesian martial-arts film called The Raid.
  • Power Ballad: Most of their Surprisingly Gentle Songs can be considered this. "Powerless", "Waiting for the End", "Iridescent", "Heavy", "In the End", "Leave Out All the Rest", "Shadow of the Day", "My December", and "Numb" have been generally accepted by the critics as power ballads.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: The music video for "Pts.OF.Athrty" features the band members' heads being used as a power source for Humongous Mechas .
  • Protest Song:
    • "Hands Held High," "No More Sorrow," and "The Little Things Give You Away."
    • A Thousand Suns as a whole. It's a concept album dealing with war and nuclear power, as well as human fears of what's going to happen to the world.
  • Pun-Based Title:
    • The title of "Figure.09" is a play on "Figure O' Eight". It was simply the working title for the song and kept.
    • Hybrid Theory includes an instrumental track helmed by Mr. Hahn, with quite a great deal of vinyl scratching. Its name? "Cure for the Itch."
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
    • "Bleed It Out": "I'LL MAKE YOU FAAAAACE! THIIIIS! NOWWWWW!"
    • "Faint": "Don't turn your back on me! I WON'T! BE! IGNORRRRRRED!"
    • "A Place for My Head": "STAY! AWAY! FROM ME!!!"
    • "Qwerty": "LIES! You hide behind— LIES! You're lost inside that cold disguise. BEHIND! YOUR! LIES!"
    • "A Line in the Sand": "GIVE! ME! BACK! WHAT'S! MIIIIIINE!"
  • Rape as Drama: The protagonist of the music video for "Crawling" is heavily implied to be a victim of Parental Incest.
  • Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Overlaps with Author Appeal, as the female protagonists of most of their music videos tend to have these features (specifically "Crawling", "Numb", and "FRGT/10").
  • Rearrange the Song:
    • Just over half the songs on Hybrid Theory were rewritten compared to its original demo. The Xero-era tracks "Rhinestone" (heard on Xero's demo tape) and "Esaul" (heard on LPU 11) had substantially different lyrics to their final versions "Forgotten" and "A Place For My Head" respectively. The lyrics to "In the End" were almost completely rewritten compared to its demo "Untitled". Some of the lyrics in "Super Xero" (a leaked 1999 demo of "By Myself") were changed too. Entire sections were removed from "Points Of Authority" and "Crawling".
    • The Hybrid Theory EP tracks "Carousel" and "Part of Me" were remixed and revoiced for the purpose of including on a potential major label EP prior to the release of the Hybrid Theory album proper. This idea was scrapped early on, but two different proposed mixes of each can be heard on a couple of leaked in-house promos that predate the Hybrid Theory album (the later mix of "Carousel" was also used on "Hybrid Theory 20). These use the basic tracks of the originals, but with some sections changed. For example, the part about 2 minutes and 5 seconds into Carousel is completely different between the two, as is the middle 8 before the final chorus of "Part Of Me". "And One" also appears on the promos, but is the same version as the EP - the band did toy with a new arrangement of this song live, so it is possible they would have rerecorded it in this arrangement. Also, the track "Step Up [1999 Demo]" on the In The End single is the same recording as the Hybrid Theory EP but was remastered to sound slightly brighter than the original EP mix.
    • This was the entire point of Reanimation, with the songs rearranged as electronic hip-hop with guest rappers and at times new lyrics from Mike. The most surprising example was "P*5ing Me Away" which, in addition to having a completely new chorus, has additional refrains written by the guest musician Stephen Richards of Taproot. The band even played this version live (one such performance is on Live In Texas).
    • Mike noted that he rewrote the lyrics for "Bleed It Out" so many times that he just decided to make the song about his frustration with trying to come up with lyrics for it.
  • Record Producer: All their albums are produced by Mike, except for Hybrid Theory, produced by Don Gilmore. Gilmore returned to help him on Meteora, while Rick Rubin assisted him on Minutes to Midnight, A Thousand Suns, and Living Things. Mike and Brad produced The Hunting Party and One More Light themselves.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Heavily invoked by the chorus of "Leave Out All the Rest".
    When my time comes,
    forget the wrong that I've done,
    help me leave behind some
    reasons to be missed.
    Don't resent me,
    and when you're feeling empty,
    keep me in your memory,
    leave out all the rest…
  • Remix Album: Reanimation, a remix of Hybrid Theory plus its B-Sides.
  • Revisiting the Roots: 2014's The Hunting Party marked a return by the band to the sound they had on their first two albums, being made without producer Rick Rubin (who worked with the band on their prior three studio albums) and departing from the electronic rock and experimental sound they had on A Thousand Suns and Living Things.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Heavily invoked in "Burn It Down".
  • Rockers Smash Guitars: During the Meteora touring cycle, starting from the Summer Sanitarium 2003 Tour up until Projekt Revolution 2004, it became a frequent (though not always) tradition for Brad to smash his guitars after playing "A Place for My Head". In one notable show (chronicled in the Live in Texas DVD), Brad threw the Ibanez guitar he was playing after performing "A Place for My Head", but didn't actually break it like usual, so Chester went ahead and finished it.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Really, all of A Thousand Suns, but "Jornada del Muerto" stands out even in the middle of it. The album is about the threat of nuclear weapons. Jornada del Muerto was the site of the Trinity test, the world's first atomic explosion. In addition, Mike is singing "Lift me up/Let me go" in Japanese at the beginning of the song. Japan is the only country in the world where nuclear weapons were deployed offensively.
  • Sampling:
    • The band has sampled High and Mighty, Brand Nubian, Lamont Dozier, UNKLE and the first Pokemon movie, mostly on Reanimation. Conversely, they've been sampled by Krayzie Bone and Juicy J.
    • In their early days, they often didn't credit the samples. This led them to being banned from releasing the track "She Couldn't" (until 2020) because it got released on a promo without paying for the samples first.
    • Many of their samples weren't from pre-existing songs so much as pre-existing sounds, chopped and screwed into beats and ambient tones.
  • Samus Is a Girl: The masked protagonist of the "FRGT/10" music video turns out to be the sleeping woman in the opening scene.
  • Self-Titled Album: Double-subverted by the Hybrid Theory EP. It's not the band's current name, but it was at the time it was released.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: "In The End" sounds like a description of this trope.
    I tried so hard and got so far
    But in the end, it doesn't even matter
    I had to fall, to lose it all
    But in the end, it doesn't even matter
  • Shout-Out:
    • "Wretches and Kings" contains part of the immortal opening line from "Bring the Noise," which comes full circle in the HavocNdeeD remix which features Chuck D himself.
    • A few in "When They Come for Me", from name-dropping Lauryn Hill, Biggie, Chuck D and Big Daddy Kane to this:
    'Cause even a blueprint is a gift and a curse.
  • Shower of Angst: The protagonist of the music video for "Crawling" is seen doing this during the video.
  • Space Opera: The music video for "Leave Out All the Rest" takes place in a Cool Starship somewhere in the Milky Way.
  • Spoken Word in Music:
    • A phone call with friend of the band Lee Cadena is inserted into "High Voltage."
    • Speeches by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Mario Savio, and Martin Luther King Jr. appear on a few tracks in A Thousand Suns.
  • Step Up to the Microphone: When it comes to Mike...
    • Mike has "No Roads Left" all to himself, as well as most of the vocals in "In Between."
    • The later albums have a lot of tracks where Mike is singing lead instead of rapping, though Chester will usually still join in on the chorus.
    • "Invisible" from One More Light gives Mike lead vocals for the entirety of the song, with Chester only doing backing vocals.
    • Played completely straight in "Until It Breaks," where Brad actually sings after the third verse 'til the end.
    • Mike also occasionally played secondary guitar live, such as on this version of "From The Inside".
  • Studio Chatter: Collision Course opens with Chester jokingly complaining about a frappuccino he ordered that hadn't come in yet.
  • Stylistic Suck:
    • The infamous Mmm… Cookies EP for their fan club. It's just Mike and Chester dicking around in the studio while recording Minutes to Midnight.
    • One of the demos of "Crawling" has the song begin with Chester quoting the line "I hate you so much right now" from Kelis's "Caught Out There" released the previous year, which definitely contrasts the serious mood of the song.
  • Subdued Section: Quite a few times, most notably "In the End" and "The Catalyst".
  • Subliminal Seduction: Playing "Announcement Service Public" backwards yields Chester howling "YOU SHOULD BRUSH YOUR TEETH AND YOU SHOULD WASH YOUR FACE!"
  • Suddenly Shouting: Chester has done it at least twice: first was with his sudden "GO AWAY!" at the bridge of "A Place for My Head"; second was the "Lift Me Up!" line at the latter portion of "The Catalyst".
  • Surprisingly Gentle Song:
    • "My December", "Leave Out All the Rest", "Shadow of the Day", "Iridescent", "Blackbirds", "Castle of Glass", "Roads Untraveled", and "Final Masquerade".
    • "She Couldn't" is like a boyband ballad, which stands out particularly as the only song without any crunching guitars in it from the Hybrid Theory period. Unfortunately, this side of the band wasn't known for years because the song was never released until it leaked unofficially in 2009 before being officially released at last eleven years later. Mike Shinoda lampshades it when talking about the song after its official release, noting its difference from other songs from its era and how it became a foreshadowing on the band's later career.
    • One More Light is a surprisingly gentle album, although it's still quite depressing.
    • The king of them all must be Chester's rendition of the Weeds theme "Little Boxes," which is even softer sounding than "Leave Out All the Rest." Probably for this reason it remains soundtrack only.
  • Swapped Roles: Usually, Mike raps at the verse, while Chester sings for the chorus. One More Light has "Sorry for Now", in which Mike sang the majority of the song, while Chester rapped during the bridge.
  • Take That!:
    • "When They Come for Me" for the contingent of fans who still yearn for the Hybrid Theory days.
      • There's even a line in it where Mike outright says he's not "the same person telling you to forfeit the game," in reference to "Points of Authority".
    • "Step Up" addresses other rap-rock bands in a less-than-flattering fashion:
    Mike: Rapping over rock doesn't make you a pioneer, 'cause rock and hip-hop have collaborated for years. But now they're getting randomly mixed and matched up all after a fast buck and all the tracks suck.
  • Textless Album Cover: A Thousand Suns, The Hunting Party and One More Light.
  • They Killed Kenny Again: Chester was constantly killed off in the music videos.
  • Tired of Running: The song "Easier to Run" talks about how it is a lot easier to run from your problems instead of choosing to face them head on.
  • Tough Act to Follow: invoked Directly referenced by Mike in the song "When They Come for Me", referring to the mega-success of Hybrid Theory and Meteora where the majority of the band's fans were introduced to them.
  • Tropaholics Anonymous: Chester and featured artist Kiiara are attending one in the "Heavy" music video. Judging from Chester's own real-life issues, it's likely a support group for people with depression.
  • Tyke Bomb: The "From the Inside" video features Chester's young son Jaime as a walking sonic grenade.
  • Uncommon Time: The verses to "Powerless" are in 7/8.
  • Unstoppable Rage:
    • SHUT UP WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU! in "One Step Closer."
    • The chorus and bridge in "Lies Greed Misery:"
      I wanna see you choke on your LIES! swallow up your GREED! suffer all alone in your MISERY!
      (…)
      You did it to yourself! You did it to yourself! YOU DID IT TO YOURSELF!!!
  • Very Special Episode: The "Linkin Park & Friends Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington" concert repeatedly (and understandably) tackled how anyone should not let depression consume them and seek help.
  • Video Full of Film Clips: The aforementioned video for "New Divide." "What I've Done" may also count.
  • Vocal Tag Team: Chester and Mike. When Chester didn't do the lead vocals, Mike commonly rapped (or, on the later albums, sometimes sang) the verses while Chester did the chorus, or contributed a single verse in a song otherwise sung by Chester.
  • "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: "Numb" is this trope incarnate, with the music video and lyrics all focused around a depressed girl dealing with a mom who is policing and dictating her daughter's life so much that she's forcing the girl to be a carbon copy of her and the girl has given up hope of ever trying to please her and has now gone numb to emotion.
  • A Wild Rapper Appears!:
    • Done twice in The Hunting Party: Hip-hop legend Rakim in "Guilty All the Same", then a variation with Helmet's Page Hamilton in "All for Nothing."
    • Minutes to Midnight has a variation. After having nearly equal time with Chester in the first two albums, Shinoda was severely Demoted to Extra in Minutes to Midnight, which is pure Arena Rock with Chester on most of the vocals. So when, after three songs where only Chester sings, you get to "Bleed It Out" and finally hear Mike rapping, it has this feel.
    • The song "Burn It Down" has this feel too. The whole time it seemed like yet another Linkin Park song where Chester solos, which made it a bit surprising when Shinoda delivers a rap verse out of nowhere towards the end of the song.
  • Word Salad Lyrics: "High Voltage" has some pretty bizarre boasts.
  • Word Salad Title: Frat Party at the Pankake Festival, their first DVD. It documents the Hybrid Theory tour.
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz:
    • The track titles of Reanimation.
    • The band's name on two different occasions. They originally formed as Xero in their garage band days and their current name came about because they couldn't get lincolnpark.com as a domain.
  • You Are Not Alone: "Shadow of the Day", "Not Alone" (for obvious reasons), "Heavy" (quite literally in its music video), and "One More Light".
  • Zombie Apocalypse: The video for "Darker Than Blood" features Mike and Steve Aoki working with surviving scientists trying and failing to find a cure for a zombie virus that decimated the population. They succeed when their last attempt cures an infected little boy, and they send the cure out to the remaining survivors.
    • Artistic License – Medicine / Pharmacology: They're a couple of scientists handling incredibly dangerous tissue and blood samples, but unlike the surgeons in the OR, they're wearing no protective gear whatsoever.
Who cares if one more light goes out?
Well, I do.

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