I got Linkin Park’s album One More Light on vinyl for Christmas and I may or may not be sobbing like a big fucking baby listening to it right now and fuck okay.

One More Light is a farewell album. Whether they realized it at the time or not. It’s written like one, the lyric book is written like one, it’s sang like one.

Their sound here is just fundamentally older and wiser. It’s weary and tired. It sounds like the last rays of sunlight just before the sun sets on the last day of summer. It’s looking back at all the good times you had one last time before closing the door and moving on. It’s letting go and finding forgiveness.

I’m almost definitely reading too much into this but I’m a sad and tired 2000s emo kid who aged the same way their music did over the years. Through anger and angst and grief. And this album felt like finding peace. This album felt like finally finding peace after years of pain and angst. This album felt like goodbye.

WAIT I’m not done being sad about Chester Bennington. As absolutely cringy it is to say, Linkin Park’s music got me through some real dark stuff. And I’m not talking about “edgy emo teenage” stuff, I’m talking about having depression as a 7 year old. I’m talking about living out of a truck at age 8 and hearing Behind Blue Eyes on the radio and crying and you’re too young to really know why. I’m taking about being 9 years old and never seeing your dad because he has to work 12s to keep food on the table so you sit alone in your room with Meteora on a loop. Their music was like a vent of sorts when I had no one else to go to. My peers didn’t know my struggles, I was scared to be open about it with adults. Music, and their music as well, was like a hand out from the darkness that was like “hey it’s okay, you’re not the only one”

Okay now I’m done.

>comes out of room
>hears mom singing linkin park in the kitchen
>goes back into room