Robbed hit of the week 5/20/24 - Linkin Park's "Faint"...

 

 

"Faint" - Linkin Park

from the album Meteora (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48 

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the nu-metal rock group Linkin Park, who had returned to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2003 with "Somewhere I Belong", the lead single from their second album Meteora.  The second single from the sophomore record was "Faint", written by the ban who also co-produced with Don Gilmore. The lyrics again have Chester Bennington and the boys wallowing in their own self-pitying angst, with no one understanding them and nobody faithful enough to stick aside. But the production is fast paced and rap-forward, with Mike Shinoda taking the lead from the start. It was a bit harsh for pop radio at the time, but the emo kids flooding rock radio ate this up, and the band found themselves with another hit....

While "Faint" spent six weeks at #1 on Billboard's Alternative Rock radio chart, and two at #2 on their Mainstream Rock counterpart, the song stalled just above the halfway point on the Hot 100 in September of 2003. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in Hungary (#3), Croatia (#8), the United Kingdom (#15), Spain (#18), the Netherlands (#20), Canada (#21 Sales), Australia (#25), Ireland (#26), Austria (#27), Italy (#29), Switzerland (#32), and Germany (#40). 

(6/10)

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Here's the band from their Live In Texas concert DVD in 2003..

The following year, on their collaborative album with rapper Jay-Z, they mashed up "Faint" with his "Jigga What"...

Next up, from the Rock Am Ring festival in 2007...

and finally, at a show in 2017, the year Bennington ended his life...