Songoftheday 3/2/23 - One thing I don't know why It doesn't even matter how hard you try, keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme to explain in due time...

 

 

"In The End" - Linkin Park

from the album Hybrid Theory (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 30

 

Today's song comes from the "nu-metal" rock band Linkin Park, who started out as Xero in the Los Angeles suburbs in the latter half of the 1990's with schoolmates Mike Shinoda who sang and rapped and played rhythm guitar, Brad Delson on lead guitar, and Rob Bourdon on drums, adding drummer Dave Ferrell, singer Mark Wakefield, and DJ Joe Hahn. However after struggles getting signed, Ferrell and Wakefield left, with the latter being replaced by singer Chester Pennington, who became a positive force in the group and their music. At first changing their name to Hybrid Theory, to signify their rap/sung approach to vocals on songs, and released an EP independently, before being signed to Warner Brothers Records and settling on the name Linkin Park (a nearby location to their start in the Santa Monica mountains). 

 

In the autumn of 2000, the group released their first full-length album Hybrid Theory, with Delson doing most of the bass work on the record (Farrell would return to the band after its release). The lead single from the record, "One Step Closer", was a perfect encapsulation of their sound, which had the interplay between Pennington's singing and Shinoda's shout-rapping on the chorus, along with turned-to-eleven guitar crunch. Mind you, there were comparisons to another band that rapped and sung (but by one person), Limp Bizkit, who conveniently appeared really close in the alphabetical record store bins. However, Linkin Park rode heavier and angrier, and the public responded favorably. The song made the top ten on both the Mainstream (#4) and Alternative (#5) Rock radio charts, and slipped on to the "big chart", Billboard magazine's Hot 100, at #75 that following spring.

 

Their second single from the debut, "Crawling", made an even bigger impact, though while spending four weeks at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart, and peaked at #5 on the Alternative counterpart, it was a bit hard at the time for pop radio (that would change), and stopped at the lower quarter of the Hot 100 in August of 2001, although it spent a hefty 20 weeks on the list (the most it could before going "recurrent"). That song would go on to win a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance, and the Hybrid Theory album was also up for Best Rock Album, which U2 took home for All That You Can't Leave Behind, while the band was nominated for Best New Artist, losing to Alicia Keys.

 

That Grammy win was in February of 2002, as they were about to have the biggest hit of their career. The previous summer, the epic centerpiece of the album, "In The End", was being picked up by rock radio, and became a massive hit there. By the new year, pop radio had finally gleaned on to it, throwing away any inhibitions of the "roughness" of the rap-metal fusion genre. In the song written by the band, Mike Shinoda handles the verses done in rap style, instead of being just punctuation on Chester Bennington's singing. as they wallow in the pain of a breakup it seems, though it's vague enough to cover any abandonment issues. Bennington's seething deliver on "in the end, it doesn't really matter" really cuts to the coldness one experiences when this happens. The wall of sound provided by guitarist Brad Delson, drummer Rob Bourdon, and turntablist Joe Hahn feels like a storm swirling around them, and the music video (which includes returning bassist Dave Farrell) illustrates this with computer generated imagery (CGI) that wasn't as cheesy as it could've been at that point in time. The result was an emo masterpiece, and broke the band on mainstream radio for their highest-charting single...

"In The End" climbed all the way to the runner-up spot on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in March of 2002. After Bennington's tragic death in 2017, the song surged again, placing at #37 on the chart. On the radio, the song spent five weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, and #15 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format. On rock stations, it topped the Alternative list for five weeks, while taking four weeks at #4 on the Mainstream group. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Denmark (#3), Sweden (#3), Germany (#4), Australia (#4), Switzerland (#4), Italy (#5), Austria (#6), the United Kingdom (#8), Croatia (#8), and New Zealand (#10). It also hit the top-40 in the Netherlands (#11), Belgium (#12 Flanders/#26 Wallonia), Ireland (#16), and France (#40). The Hybrid Theory album, released in October of 2000, spent a month at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, but stayed on the list for a total of 286 weeks, going on to sell over twelve million copies and was in the top ten of the year-end albums sales charts in both 2001 and 2002. 

 

A fourth track from the album, "Papercut", was only promoted to rock radio as "In The End" was ruling pop radio (it was a bit hard for 'pop' stations still), where it rose to #32 on the Alternative Rock chart.  That was followed by "Runaway", which made both the Mainstream (#37) and Alternative (#40) rock airplay lists. Linkin Park will be back to the series.

(10/10)

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In 2002, Linkin Park released a remix album, Reanimation, that overhauled all the tracks on the debut, including this one, and they even shot a new video for it...

 

 

Here's the band live on tour in Texas in 2003...

Linkin Park performed at the Live 8 charity concerts event in 2005 at the Philadelphia location, and included "In The End" in their set....

 

 Jay-Z collaborated with the group on the Collision Course album in 2006, and put a Motown vibe on the song using the sample of the Jackson Five from his "I.Z.Z.O." single that sounds just weird...

 

Next up, in concert in Moscow's Red Square...

and finally, a cathartic show at the Hollywood Bowl after Chester's death with the audience screaming his parts...

Up tomorrow: British singer counts out the week.