Top 20 Linkin Park Songs

No More Sorrow-Minutes to Midnight

This song can be both hypnotizing and thrashing, and knows just when to trade it off. The lyrics being sung by Chester shift from its calm reasoning to its gritty assertion. Simply put, Linkin Park doing what they do best and creating hybrids in all sorts of varieties.

Somewhere I Belong-Meteora

Ambiant electronics, a heavy rhythm section, and vocals swapping between Chester and Mike make up this laid-back headbanger.

The Little Things Give You Away-Minutes to Midnight

Minutes to Midnight's selection probably sounds the most foreign to what Linkin Park is known for, particularly the last four tracks. Though they bring the album to a stand-still for the most part, this final track comes right out of nowhere to end the album on a very eerie note. Little Things was written in response to Hurricane Katrina, but rather than sugar-coat the event with something hopeful, LP took it for just what it was-a tragedy. The music is soft and echoing and builds to a mournful wail by Chester, backed by Mike and-for the first time-Phoenix. Of all of LP's wide variety, I feel this is their most underrated song.

Papercut-Hybrid Theory

Fast-paced rapping by Mike and loud declaration by Chester backed by a rhythm and melody that's pounding you in the face could not make for a better first track to the debut of Linkin Park.

Roads Untraveled-Living Things

Another song that chooses to slow things down and step back, this song is a great representation of what the album Living Things is about-redemption and letting go of the past. The lyrics are soothing and heartfelt, and are followed by a driving melody and Chester and Mike's vocals intertwining yet again. As Pink Floyd's Great Gig in the Sky proved, sometimes words aren't powerful enough and you just have to wail.

From the Inside-Meteora

If there's one thing Linkin Park knows how to do, it's give itself breathing room between its choruses that pound in your hears like a hammer on an anvil. From the Inside displays both Chester's echoing melodics and his raging screams.

One Step Closer-Hybrid Theory

Just like From the Inside, Chester's voice gets bipolar and swaps off between soothing and rage-filled. What has long been their concert-ender, I personally preferred when they used it as an opener when they played at Milton Keyes in 2007. It's loud, in your face, and can get you hyped for what's to come.

Shadow of the Day-Minutes to Midnight

If Minutes to Midnight asserted anything, it's that Linkin Park can make some darkly beautiful creations. Shadow of the Day is just that as Chester takes a break from screaming his lungs out and showcases the other side to his vocals. The music backing him layers perfectly, building from a soft echo to a simple but ambient guitar solo from Brad.

A Place for my Head-Hybrid Theory

Of all the songs on Hybrid Theory, I'm surprised this one isn't more known. It's fast, it's angsty, and it features some of Chester's best screaming of the time. Another fine representation of the Hybrid Theory era.

By the way, when I saw LP in concert in 2011, Mike started rapping this part during Bleed It Out and it sounded AMAZING. Seriously, play the Bleed It Out riff in your head and rap the part just to hear how that sounds.

Iridescent-A Thousand Suns

Here's another song out of left field. A Thousand Suns featured some genuinely cheerful songs for the first time by Linkin Park. As foreign as it sounds, if anything it serves as a testament to how much the band-and its members-have developed. After hearing this, I found the angsty lyrics from previous albums to be immature. Not to say I found them them less appealing-not at all. But this song takes all of the aggression and pain of their old themes and, as the song states, "lets it go." It injects a newfound sense of joy and self-purpose both into themselves and into those who listen to the song.

And on a personal note, this was actually me and my high school girlfriend's song. We were each other's first loves, and it surprisingly represented how much we had fulfilled each other's lives at the time. But now that we've been broken up for some time now, it's taken on a new meaning for me. I can finally listen to this with the knowledge that not only have I been able to pick myself up from losing her, but I'm ready to strive into adulthood and make a life for myself. With all of that said, if I can call anything a testament to Linkin Park's music, it's how personal and appealing their lyrics are (to me personally, at the very least).

Castle of Glass-Living Things

Living Things seemed to combine the old style of Hybrid Theory and Meteora with the experimental era of Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns. Castle of Glass utilizes an industrial beat with the ambient (am I saying that word enough?) lyrics of putting the past behind you. And not only do Chester and Mike's lyrics create that amazing fusion again, but both Phoenix and Brad decide to jump in at the very end. Teamwork!

Numb-Meteora

Though the songs are still powered by the angst-filled driving style of the time, Meteora was where we first saw a shift in Linkin Park's lyrical content (albeit VERY subtly). Numb, for example, still sounds woeful and angry, but its lyrics address a problem and a desire to fix it rather than brood on about it. It tells about a desire to change, which makes for a great predecessor song going forth into Minutes to Midnight. With Chester's flip-flopping vocals, a steady rhythm section to back it, and one of their best known electronic melodies, Numb closes out the dark Meteora doing everything LP does best.

What I've Done-Minutes to Midnight

Though the song sounds the most out of place when you listen to Minutes to Midnight as a whole (albeit most of the songs are the most foreign-sounding for the band), this was still the song to usher in a new era of Linkin Park. And whether you love or hate the album or the new experimental style(s), people heard this song when it came out and got HYPED. To us fans, it was the first new LP song we had heard for a long time. But to the band, it was the first step away from being locked down in the nu-metal genre, and towards the vast broadening of their style (their "toolbox," as Mike once called it.).

Lost in the Echo-Living Things

With electronics and a trance-techno sound reminiscent of A Thousand Suns, Lost in the Echo surprised us with a return to Mikes fast lyrics and rhythms that pound you in the face. The lyrics further assert Linkin Park's maturity and longing to let go of burdens of the past (whether they be personal or with the band). To me, it was a step that helped me tremendously to move past one of the roughest experiences of my life, and it couldn't have been more fitting or come at a better time. This, if anything, is the staple that makes LP my all-time favorite band.

The Catalyst-A Thousand Suns

If you call yourself a fan of Linkin Park, love this or hate it, you should at least acknowledge just how big The Catalyst is. And this song BIG. A Thousand Suns had a motif of nuclear war, and this is the song that brought it all together. Though the lyrics are some of their most repetitive, it still asserts the question, "What do we do when the end comes?" It serves as a base for what I can only call an epic, and that's just what this song is. It starts simple with its eerie organ and from there it throws on one layer after another, from the beats to the vocals (from ALL of the band members), right down to the trance-techno melody. It knows just when to take a moment to breathe, but the song gradually layers and becomes bigger and heavier and more dynamic until you reach the wailing cries of, "LIFT ME UP, LET ME GO!!!" It finally crashes in climax and steadily starts to fade away, all the way back to the organ from the start (...did I just describe a song or sex?)

I will admit that when I first heard this song and how much tech was in it, I really wasn't sure of what to think. But I gave it another listen and I started to find it catchy. I finally decided I liked it by the third time, and it's gotten better every time since. So much went into this song that you may end up finding something new with each time you listen to it. I could go on for a while about The Catalyst (clearly this is one of my all-time favorites from LP), but as I said before, whether you love where LP went with their style or hate it, you at least have to admit this song is F%#KING BIG!

Crawling-Hybrid Theory

With another memorable electronic melody, Crawling is Chester's aria of Hybrid Theory. It emotes something we've all dealt with; a problem that we're convinced is controlling them and that doesn't go away no matter how hard we try. Personally, I prefer the Reanimation version of this song with its strings, echoey sound, and-you guessed it-just how damn ambient it is!

Bleed It Out-Minute to Midnight

This song, while experimenting with a more raw, alternative sound, does what Linkin Park has made a name for themselves for; thrashing. Despite its gruesome lyrics, Bleed It Out is fast, energized, and can get you hyped. In my opinion, nothing sounds better live from LP than this song, which expands itself with a longer runtime, a drum solo from Rob, and occasionally a quick collaboration of songs (which I was lucky enough to hear them do with A Place for my Head). It's often used now as their closer to either their main set or the whole concert, but by God, this is one hell of a last hurrah!

Breaking the Habit-Meteora

I mentioned before that Linkin Park's songs could be darkly beautiful. Breaking the Habit takes that statement and asserts it tenfold. The industrial sound of the music is both brooding and haunting, and I'm pretty sure it's the first time we hear LP use strings on an album (good call). All of this puts you back into the mindset of feeling powerless against a problem or quirk that gets in the way all of the time. But the icing on this cake is the lyrics. Though they are woeful and self-lamenting, the chorus smashes in with a declaration of change and to-need I even say it? Many of Meteora's songs share this as a similar theme, but Breaking the Habit does so in one of the most unique-sounding styles we have ever heard from LP.

Faint-Meteora

What differentiates Faint from songs like Numb and Breaking the Habit is its pace and energy. This is probably one of the most high-powered, thrashing, and spirited songs Linkin Park has ever written. The quickly-delivered rap lyrics by Mike express both problems and insecurity in oneself, but also asserts a sense of purpose and necessity. And then Chester, backed by the rest of the band, comes in declaring at the top of his voice, "I won't be ignored!" Within a vast selection of downtrodden songs, this is one of their most aggressively-positive (I wouldn't be surprised if this helped influence Living Things). It's an thrashing anthem and you guys have no idea how badly I wanted to just put this in the #1 spot. But I just couldn't.

In The End-Hybrid Theory

In the end (no pun intended), I had to go with Linkin Park's trademark song. And that's just what this is; their staple on pop culture. But what is it that makes this song stand out to this day? Well, let's take a look. It starts with staticky electronic background sounds followed by that all too recognizable piano melody. Then comes in Chester with his soft, melodic voice, followed by Mike's rapping backed by that heavy, steady rhythm. Chester continues to chime in until he finally takes control and the band cranks it up full force. The chorus is ambient yet it pounds in your face. Chester's voice is both melodic and gritty. The feel of the song is both dark and driving. Hybrids. Hybrids everywhere! That is what LP is truly known for, and In The End delivers this concept in spades.