RANKED: Every Linkin Park album
- Ben Blissett
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Forming 30 years ago and becoming one of the largest bands on the planet, LINKIN PARK have cemented themselves as one of the greatest metal bands in history, even after the passing of their legendary singer Chester Bennington, they have continued on the legacy with Emily Armstrong; This year they return to Download for the first time in 12 years so we thought it only right we have a retrospective on what led them to this point and rank all of their albums.
8 - ONE MORE LIGHT
Starting off the list, we have probably the least LINKIN PARK sounding album, as pioneers of the Nu-Metal sound, this album is a great deviance from the rest of their work; a lot of the guitars are dropped in place of poppy synths and a very mainstream sounding architecture to their music. That isn’t to say this album doesn’t have some incredible songs, as it holds possibly Chester Bennington’s farewell song, One More Light, a beautiful, slow, ballad about suicide. The song, in retrospect, is Chester’s way of telling others to carry on, to fight through the darkness; it’s a song that many consider LINKIN PARK’s greatest, a beautiful, poetic send-off for Bennington.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn’t come to close to the quality of said song, with LINKIN PARK struggling to evolve their sound successfully from rock to pop, with cliche sounding beats and nothing really new to the type of music they are making, which is a real shame as the album holds some genuinely phenomenal songs alongside the rest.
7 - FROM ZERO
Controversial as it may have been, In 2024, LINKIN PARK returned, with new members, Singer Emily Armstrong and Drummer Colin Brittain; somewhat dividing the fan base, the band took a new direction with the album with said members. From Zero for all its flaws and changes from the original style is an okay album, it really feels like an amalgamation of all of the bands previous work for a new sound, which works… somewhat, the band feel like they’re back tracking with this album, It’s a pretty normal rock-pop record, Emily’s vocals are strong but the lyrics, the overall heart of the album doesn’t feel present.
We’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt that this is a first try album with the lineup, and maybe the next one will be a lot stronger, as the seeds are there, there is a great album lying in there, that the band don’t really fully pull out. This album was a return to the heavy style with a new flair but it didn’t quite work.
6 - A THOUSAND SUNS
Another majorly divisive record for the band, their first concept album that was a real shakeup from anything they had made before, a lot more of the instrumentals were computer-based, there was a stronger sense of scope and purpose and a lot more dialled back singing from Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington; opting for more melodic cacophonies rather than aggressive metal compositions. The hits on this album are like anything they had done before, they took the more tame sound of the previous album and ran with it.
The songs definitely sound grander with songs like The Catalyst adding chanted choruses, layered vocals and epic guitars; it took LINKIN PARK’s strong status to the stratosphere as they it’s clear to see they engineered these songs for massive crowds.
5 - MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
The third LINKIN PARK studio album where the band took a far slower and melancholic approach to the music, which they then took further with next album A Thousand Suns, but this one still retained a lot of LINKIN PARK’s aggressive guitars, Chester’s utterly inhuman screams as seen by his 17 second belt on Given Up which became legendary within all of heavy music; songs like No More Sorrow kept that ball rolling while juggling the slower more melodic songs like Leave Out All The Rest.
For a solid beginning of an album there’s a severe dip in quality upon the second half, with toned down more emotional songs, coming off the back of the previous two albums, LINKIN PARK hadn’t quite mastered this art, as apart from Bennington’s vocals there really isn’t much to these songs.
4 - THE HUNTING PARTY
After 3 albums of slowing things down, LINKIN PARK returned to their roots, dropping a lot of the synthesised instruments for real ones to make an album that reintroduced that nu-metal sound they were so well known for, taking things to the next level they even integrated elements of hardcore on songs like War just to show how much they meant business on this album. Taking everything they had learned thus far and injected it into very lifeblood of this album, it really combined all producing elements of the previous albums and raised the bar for how a band can integrate a bands new and old style.
With features from Daron Malakian and Tom Morello, the guitars on this album absolutely rip, creating some of the strongest riffs the band has ever produced and using Chester’s vocals to take it to the very depths of how heavy the band could go; Chester’s singing and screamo are honestly just mental on this album.
3 - LIVING THINGS
The bands producing and technical prowess really show on this album, after the previous experimentation on A Thousand Suns, Joe Hahn put a shift in to make LIVING THINGS a brilliant comeback for LINKIN PARK; creating an incredible electronic album that brings back a lot of the heavy motifs from their early work, Chester screams harder, Mike’s bars are more intense, the whole band really comes together on this album.
This also the album they mastered the art of ballads, with the slow songs like Castle Of Glass and Powerless, hitting in hard in the emotional lyrics and delivering on the instrumental side. Although there is a heavier emphasis on the electronica here, it utterly fits where LINKIN PARK were at this point and made for an absolute sleeper pick of an album.
2 - HYBRID THEORY
The album that started it all, the peak of nu-metal, perfect lyrics, perfect composition, perfect performance; debut albums don’t get a lot better than this. This album was an instant hit and it absolutely deserved to be, sending LINKIN PARK straight into the big leagues after only being together 4 years at that point which is honestly astonishing, it sent them worldwide, gave them an instant huge and dedicated fan base and cemented them already in the music world as one of the greats.
From the second this album starts, it does not stop, taking you through a lot of exemplary nu-metal hits that we find to be universally loved, it showcases how great of a vocalist Chester Bennington is, how fantastic of a rapper Mike Shinoda is, how heavy Brad Delson plays his guitar, how well Dave Farrell’s Bass compliments that guitar, how technical and passionate the drums of Rob Bourdon are and how completely effortlessly Joe Hahn’s DJing and producing ties it all together.
It’s undeniable the lasting effect Hybrid Theory has had on the rock world, ask any metalhead if they know songs like In The End and One Step Closer they would never say no. It’s also quite full circle to see how a resurgence of nu-metal in recent years have had bands citing this album as their inspiration. Hybrid Theory is one of the greatest albums of all time no matter the genre.
1 - METEORA
See everything we just said about the last entry? Take that and amplify it up to 11. If you thought this band couldn’t improve on their already perfect debut, you’d be severely mistaken; this album only ever shows the world that Hybrid Theory isn’t even this band at their best, Meteora is, every single song is them building on the last album to provide a heavier, more emotional utterly perfect follow up.
From that first glass shatter on the track Foreward to that last drum cycle on Numb, there isn’t a single skip to be seen here, it’s a non stop 37 minute album that you just can’t put down, the peak of the genre and one of the best albums of all time. I think this album and the previous really do set the precipice for how great LINKIN PARK and nu-metal can be, there nothing much else to say but you can’t fault a single song, beat or lyric on this album.
Catch LINKIN PARK with headliners GUNS N' ROSES and LIMP BIZKIT at Donington Park this summer.
Words: Ben Blissett
Comments