Linkin Park 2.0

Linkin Park concert at São Paulo, in 11/15/24 (Pic posted by @emilyarmstrong, on Instagram)

(My 30th attempt to write about the new phase of Linkin Park)

A lot to say about the new phase of Linkin Park.

  The first time I heard Emily sing with Linkin Park it was as if lightning had struck me: it was magnetic, electrifying, comforting. My husband was scrolling through his Instagram feed and started showing "Emptness Machine", which had just been released. At the first 10 seconds, I already knew: “Yes! That's right! That is in the right place!” Emily's voice sounded like an avatarization of Chester's voice. Like something that dies and is reborn with the same essence. Not Emily, not Chester, but Linkin Park's vocals.

Linkin Park is a band that was a portal for me. Watching the "Crawling" musicvideo on MTV was the milestone in my transition from childhood to teenage. I think my soul woke up there, my internal fire lit up (and I didn't even know I had one). That visceral feeling of adolescence. I listened very intensely and in a very intimately way to the albums "Hybrid Theory" and "Meteora", and then my musical taste took a different direction - heavier, then more progressive, jazz, blues, then I started studying esoteric knowledge, I had a revolution in musical tastes (and I got a little stuck in the search for positivity, not knowing what to listen to, not connecting with much...), then I became a mother and the selective journey of music increased, and it didn't help with the identity crises that I had just like all mother-who-dives-too-deeply-into-motherhood ends up having it.

The flame agne contained in Emily's voice revived Linkin Park. Listening to the renewed LP made me awaken to a very genuine part, a very pure source of the personal essence that emerges in adolescence, and that I was able to revisit with the songs sung now, with renewed fire. Now the verses that carry the same words as before mean different things. Firstly because we grew up, since we heard "Crawling", "In The End" or "Paper Cut" for the first time, so now as adults, we are able to process the old lyrics from another perspective. Secondly because now Emily sings. A woman. (And my friends make fun of me when I was a kid because I sang LP with a girl's voice) Hearing a woman screaming, avatarizing the feeling that Chester also conveyed in his old sounds, made me feel ownership of my voice singing LP. Yes, I can sing with my woman voice!!! (Of course, several wonderful vocalists, but we're talking about a band that had already been sung by a remarcable guy) And a notable factor is that, even though there is no gender described in the LP's lyrics, we have to admit that a woman singing "Shut up when I'm talking to you!!!" it is sensibly different from a man shouting those same words. It is as if by gaining a female vocal, LP gained a new range of significance for the old songs. The new songs are delicious, and connect with heavier rock, more metal (which I really like!); Emily, (who has a touch of Curt Cobain) adds a punk rock energy, which makes the flame of life shine! And then, man, listening to emptness machine for the first time made me light my inner flame. Because I remembered who I was, at 12 years old, listening to LP for the first time, the ignition of my flame.

And in this new encounter with LP, I see again myself in a portal, now of my own essence. I'm in love! By myself! For Linkin Park and the entire previous egregore, for the rebirth brought by the venus Emily, and for this new beautiful phase that begins in our lives. Do you understand what I say? It's not the band LP itself, it's what connects to them, the paths that open up, like a neural synapse, that enriches itself with the pulse of each one of us, energized by ourselves, alive with the flame of love that vivifies us.

Much love! So brilliant the new phase of the band and everything it provides! And other texts will come, because Mike Shinoda's multitalent needs to be discussed!

Gratitude to everyone in the band and production, the delivery has been out of this world! Gratitude to everyone connected to this Genki dama! I've never seen this before...