Chester Bennington’s death was clearly untimely. He was only on the early side of forty and at the top of his game, but he’d clearly decided that it was time to go. I’ve seen a dozen think pieces pop up since word spread that he’d hung himself on Chris Cornell’s birthday. The reactions ranged from shock, to anger and sadness. Mine was sadness and surprise, but I wasn’t as surprised as I thought I would be. Anyone familiar with Linkin Park was aware, at least on a subconscious level, that its lead singer was a guy with inner demons. He sang about endings as beginnings, about feeling numb, about things that rippled under his skin begging to be set free. Everyone has demons. Most of us are fortunate to be able to overcome them, but not all of us can. Not all demons are equal.
What drew me Linkin Park was the emotion in their first two albums – the rage, the helplessness, the frustration that seeped through the foreboding electronica of Joseph Khan, the quiet, resolute anger of Mike Shinoda and most of all, the painful sonic howl that seemed ripped from Chester Bennington’s very soul. The band came out when “screamo” was starting to gain traction in the Top 40: Evanescence, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Fall Out Boy. It was the inevitable reaction to the uncompromisingly upbeat music of the late 90’s, the other side of that shiny happy coin. And Linkin Park, with its raw honesty, made music that sonically celebrated destruction and anger, but stopped just short of ripping your eardrums to shreds.
As strange as it sounds to anyone who does know me and my never-ending love of 90’s schlock, Hybrid Theory and Meteora were albums I related to. Just as the Backstreet Boys, et. al tapped into my nascent longing for love and romance, Linkin Park’s music spoke to my inner turmoil – the messy, negative emotions that come with teenage acne and swirling hormones. The rage at feeling misunderstood, the helplessness, feeling trapped – their music took that mass of negative feelings, and gave them an outlet, allowing me to be emotionally drained and ready to start again. It was therapeutic, the same way breaking plates, or a good crying jag is therapeutic. I connected with the way they confronted their issues, allowed their pain to show, and then went about figuring out what to do about it.
I’ve never mistaken admiration for personal connection, which is why my reactions when famous people die are muted. I don’t remember feeling much of anything when Princess Diana died, not even when a friend told me about it, crying. I wasn’t out lighting candles and creating shrines when Michael Jackson died. There was no emotional outpouring when Prince passed. It saddened me when Bertrice Small died, just as much as it saddened me when Robin Williams did. As detached as that sounds, I like to think these people made enough of a mark on the world, put enough of themselves out there long enough for us not to forget about them because they were brave enough to be themselves. They listened to the inner urgings of their creativity and came up with something that connected with an audience and was strong enough to make a mark and forge lasting memories.
So I celebrate them, the lives they lived and the worlds they created by revisiting their work – reading their books, watching their movies, putting on their music videos and listening to their albums. To me, that’s what immortality is – living on in the memories of those you left behind. I like to think they didn’t really do it for the money, or for the fame. I like to think they did it because they didn’t know how not to, and were fortunate enough to be recognized and rewarded for it.
If the self-imposed passing of Robin Williams, Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington is anything to go by, fame and fortune isn’t all it’s cut out to be. It doesn’t matter how much recognition, wealth or success one has amassed (although they of course make things easier). Speaking of easy, it’s always going to be easier to run than to stand your ground and decide to see what else life has in store for you. If you can’t manage to rise above your own demons and somehow find the strength to go on even when all seems lost, all the material things in the world are never going to be worth it.
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Author’s Twitter: @nikkajow
