Songoftheday 1/26/24 - When this began I had nothing to say, and I get lost in the nothingness inside of me...

 

 

"Somewhere I Belong" - Linkin Park

from the album Meteora (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #32 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 8 

Today's song comes from the rock group Linkin Park, whose debut album Hybrid Theory had sent the song "In The End" all the way to #2 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2002. The album went on to sell over twelve million copies, paving the way for a whole generation of hard rock to break into the mainstream pop world. While they were touring and playing festivals behind the album's long-running success, the band released a "remix" album (a rarity in the rock world) called Reanimation. The collection went to #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, with sales of over a million copies. One of the remixed tracks, "Points Of Authority" (renamed "Pts.OF.Athrty"), peaked at #29 on Billboard's Alternative Rock airplay chart in the summer of that year. 

A year after "In The End" crested on pop radio, the band returned with their second studio album Meteora. Produced by Linkin Park with Don Gilmore, who helmed their debut, the record delved deeper into their collective emotional turmoil while building on their "nu-metal" sonics. The lead single from the record was "Somewhere I Belong". The lyrics crank the angst to eleven, with rapper/co-lead Mike Shinoda starting from the get-go with a possible allusion to their success with "when this began I had nothing to say...and I let it out to find that I'm not the only person with these things in mind". Chester Bennington mirrors Shinoda in those two first verses before belting out the chorus starting with "I wanna feel", and it seems as though "fame" hasn't assuaged whatever pain they're gatekeeping. Chester's words are certainly more aspirational, hence the being "close to something real", but the song doesn't end with a conclusion, just a continuance of raw dark emotion. It's certainly a mood, and the music video full of special effects certainly darkens the atmosphere for their fans internally screaming in their rooms...

"Somewhere I Belong" returned Linkin Park to the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in May of 2003. On the radio, the song failed to reach the top-40 on Mainstream pop radio, but was a big success on rock stations, topping the Alternative Rock chart for five weeks and spending a week atop the Mainstream Rock counterpart. Internationally, the single went to #1 in New Zealand, hit the top ten in Canada (#3 sales), Hungary (#3), Ireland (#4), Croatia (#4), Czechia (#7), and the United Kingdom (#10). It also made the top-40 in Germany (#12), Norway (#12), Italy (#13), Australia (#13), the Netherlands (#14), Finland (#14), Switzerland (#15), Austria (#16), Spain (#17), Sweden (#19), Belgium (#23 Wallonia/#33 Flanders), and France (#32). The Meteora album, released in March of that year, landing their first #1 album on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to spend 155 weeks on the list and selling over seven million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, one of the album cuts, "Session", was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, losing to guitar icon Jeff Beck for "Plan B". 

Linkin Park and the Meteora album will be back to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's Linkin Park in concert from their first live album Live In Texas...

Next up, in from a show in Germany in 2012...

And lastly, a concert for iHeart Radio only months before Bennington took his life in 2017...

Tomorrow I'll have my top hits of this past week, then Monday SOTD will be back with an R&B newcomer taking a thrill ride.