Songoftheday 7/25/24 - I'm tired of being what you want me to be, feeling so faithless lost under the surface...

 

 

"Numb" - Linkin Park

from the album Meteora (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 25

 

Today's song comes from the nu-metal rock band Linkin Park, whose returned to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2003 with the lead single from their second studio album Meteora, "Somewhere I Belong".  The follow-up single, "Faint", spent six weeks at #1 on the Alternative Rock radio chart, but stalled right above the halfway mark on the Hot 100 early that autumn. 

The third release from Meteora was "Numb", written by the group who also co-produced with Don Gilmore. The lyrics have lead singer Chester Bennington confronting a person vaguely close to themselves (in fact, it could be a counterpart to Simple Plan's dad-hating "Perfect" from yesterday). Throwing in words like "smothering" and "undertow" along with the soul-deadening repetition of "numb" makes the angst of feeling out of control potent. The production is tight and loud but melodic enough to break through with mainstream pop radio, with Mike Shinoda's gentle response asides a particular nice touch. The music video, directed by the band's turntablist Joe Hahn, casts the anger in a artistic young woman bullied at school to the point of inducing self-harm...

"Numb" stopped right under the top ten on Billboard's Hot 100 in March of 2003. On the radio, the song peaked at #5 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 chart and #31 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format. But its biggest success was at rock radio, spending twelve weeks at #1 on the Alternative Rock list and three atop the Mainstream Rock counterpart. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Greece and Hungary, and reached the top ten in Czechia (#3), Switzerland (#5), Croatia (#6), Latvia (#6), Canada (#7 Sales, #9 Airplay), Austria (#8), France (#9), Australia (#10), and Slovakia (#10). The track also made the top-40 in  Germany (#13), New Zealand (#13), the United Kingdom (#14), Ireland (#16), Italy (#18), Portugal (#20), Sweden (#23), and Belgium (#31 Wallonia/#48 Flanders). 

A year later, on the band's collaborative "mash-up" album with rapper Jay-Z, "Numb" would be mixed with Jay's "Encore" for a single that will be in this series...

(6/10)

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Here's the band performing on Jimmy Kimmel...

Next up, live in concert in Texas...

And lastly from their final tour in New York City in 2017 before Chester succumbed to his own demons...

Up tomorrow: This singer/songwriter comes up for air.