A few months ago, I had written about how Linkin Park’s music was changing, and how I was evolving along with it. Back then, the entire album – One More Light – had not been released and I couldn’t speak authoritatively. Now it has been, and I can say that it is every bit as “new” as I’d expected it to be. Actually, a lot more.
But this isn’t a review of the album, it’s about Chester, the lead vocalist of the band. He’s gone. Soon after the album was published, he chose to leave, forever. His issues and his decision have been the subject of the grapevine ever since, and along with the likes of Micheal Jackson, his passing will always be a matter of some controversy.
But it isn’t about the actual reasons. He had his reasons, and let’s leave it at that. Wherever he is, he is at peace now, and we should be at peace with his life. There is no foul play, and so let’s not drag up his ghost just to create gossip.
Instead, I want to talk about his impact. Having never imagined that a guy like Chester could leave, I was always expecting a new video or a new solo to come out. Maybe in a few months, maybe in a year. Chester would be there, and would lend his soulful vocals. Vocals filled with bitterness, pain and angst. But lately, also with peace and realization. Too many people have talked about how this meant he was finally approaching final peace, but let’s not speculate. What he did was evolve, and I would have looked forward to more evolution. Sadly, there will be none.
There will be no more of the binge listening that followed every release, the pain that resonated from the songs through my own soul. There would no longer be the complex feelings that came when one song shifted to another and the tough decision of whether to hit the rewind button or continue listening to the current song. It would no longer be possible to imagine my own life as a Chester melody, of pain, spiritual end and rebirth. There would be no more dissonant resonance, because the voice will be silent for ever now.
It’d be easy at this point to point to one song and say – this was what Chester was for me. But he was many things. He was Crawling in my skin/Wounds that would not heal, he was Sometimes I remember the darkness of my past, sometimes he was Leave out all the rest, and sometimes he was I didn’t realize that I was going too fast/I woke up riding my car.
Each album, each song has a different colour, it brought different images to my mind. Images that defined me, or made me aware of what I could not be, should not be. They gave me pain and allowed me to relate in verse what I felt in raw emotions. They allowed me to imagine situations -good and bad – and how I would deal with them. Not a line was extra, not a line was frivolous and useless. There would be songs that I would purposefully listen to on loop on some days, and there would be songs that I would avoid. not because they were bad, but because they felt like opening the damp door of a sarcophagus. Not disgusting, but scary nonetheless.
This is all gone now, and Chester, wherever you are, you deserve my thanks. Perhaps this will get drowned out in the hundreds that thank you, and express their love for you in ways I cannot. I never could attend a concert, hold your hand, or even see you in front of me. Never got an autograph, never got anything that would have told you I exist. But this isn’t about me. and this isn’t a competition, and I’m sure you know that. You never were one to fight for the top slots, but ended up there nonetheless. Perhaps that is what true talent and true emotions can do. Mine are true as well, and when I say there never will be another Chester, and another LP song that wrung my heart dry the way your songs did, mate, I mean it.
Rest in Peace, Chester.