Meteora - Linkin Park
On my 16th birthday one of my friends gave me this CD, purely because I had asked for it. I listened to it obsessively for a good many weeks. After that it mostly faded from my interest, until now. I pulled it out, put it on, and was pulled a decade back in time.
Like Evanescence, I mostly enjoyed Linkin Park for giving a musical voice to my depression and general teenage angst. Unlike Evanescence, I never had a chance to appreciate Linkin Park as an adult (or perhaps I just grew out of it.) Either way, it’s been hard for me to connect with this music as I did then, and part of me has reacted with a touch of shame that I ever felt so moved by its somewhat immature and simplistic lyrics. Songs that once rang so true in my heart are now cacophonously disingenuous, even to the point of delusion. Take Breaking the Habit, a song which once struck me as so profound that I briefly attempted to model my life after its words:
"I'll write it on the walls
'Cause I'm the one at fault
...
I don't know how I got this way
I'll never be alright
So I'm breaking the habit tonight"
See, I listened to these words and concluded that there was something wrong with me, that I was the source of all the conflict and discontentment in my life. That line, “I’ll never be alright,” is so typically adolescent and so typically delusional that it brings the whole song down in my opinion.
What hasn’t changed is that the music is quite enjoyable in spite of the words. Adventurous use of synthesized rhythms with a metalish edge keep the music driving forward; this is music constantly in motion, that never takes a break. The vocals are just screamy enough to communicate anguish and anger without being too hard on the ears for those who shy away from heavier metal.
Unlike Evanescence, and in spite of the above example, this album is mostly about anger focused outward, at some vilified other. Many of the lyrics are in second-person, ripping to shreds some unnamed “you” in return for selfishness, neglect, abuse, and ultimate responsibility for the speaker’s own terrible emotional scars. What I know about psychology and the effects of abuse and trauma on people’s long-term mental health is vividly explored in each of these songs. From Somewhere I Belong:
I want to heal
I want to feel
what I thought was never real
I want to let go of the pain I’ve held so long
From Lying from You:
I wanna be pushed aside so let me go
Let me take back my life
I’d rather be all alone
Anywhere on my own cause I can see
The very worst part of you is me
From Numb:
All I want to do
is be more like me
and be less like you
In the end, what I encountered in examining this album from an adult perspective is compassion. Not for the endlessly victimized persona of the narrator, but for the vilified other. Not because she is blameless, or falsely accused of all the harm and wreckage, but because so many villains begin as victims. Brief windows of empathy open up:
And I know
I may end up failing too
but I know
you were just like me
with someone disappointed in you
And through those windows the healing light can come through.
Next: Hybrid Theory
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