Essential Linkin Park Songs

10. "Don't Stay" (Meteora)
I recall the first time I heard this album was shortly after it's release when I was working as a Promotions intern. My boss took me out to lunch in his truck and he was giddy about his new sound system, so maybe the lunch trip was his excuse to show it off. He cranked up this song, which was the opening track, and I recall it rattling my noggin. While I'm not really too attached to the rap-rock that was all over the radio in this period of my life, Linkin Park was definitely a step beyond their peers.

9. "In The End" (Hybrid Theory)
Linkin Park's smash single "One Step Closer" was a great angsty rocker that seemed to take the rock world by storm, much like Nirvana opened up a whole new world with "grunge" rock. Linkin Park weren't the first to break through in the nu metal genre, though they seemed to be the most successful as they merged hip hop and rock with two front men- Chester and Mike. What hooked me more were the follow-up singles, "Crawling" and "In The End", which seemed to really place them further away from their peers.

8. "Final Masquerade" (The Hunting Party)
While Linkin Park's first two albums are relatively similar, every album after seems to be another reinvention of the band. 2014's The Hunting Party brings back the aggression from their early records, yet turns it up to 11. There's still room for a melodic anthem in the vein of "In The End" though, and this one is really good.

7. "Lost In The Echo" (Living Things)
Living Things is my favorite album by the band, yet I honestly have a hard time placing any of its tracks in my top 10. That may sound like a strange viewpoint for the album, but I just like the band's sound on this album, as they seem to have taken their past albums and mixed them in a blender. "Lost In The Echo" is a great opening track that I love to crank up.

6. "Somewhere I Belong" (Meteora)
Maybe this is just another example of how I prefer the melodic tunes over the balls-to-the-walls rockers. This song also takes me back to when my sister was discovering rock music, with Linkin Park becoming her favorite band. She even joined the fan club for consecutive years, saw them in concert, and owned a few band shirts, too.

5. "Bleed It Out" (Minutes To Midnight)
This is a really fun song, and its obvious because it sounds like they left the microphone on the guys while they were partying the studio.

4. "When They Come For Me" (A Thousand Suns)
The lead-off single for A Thousand Suns was "The Catalyst" and it was not good. I liked Linkin Park expanding and maturing on their previous album but maybe this was too much change. I'm glad I went beyond just that first sample of the album because there are some really good songs.

3. "Waiting For The End" (A Thousand Suns)
It's nearly impossible to put these top 3 Linkin Park songs in order, especially when they're so varied. It's like I could just say 1-A, 1-B, and 1-C.

2. "New Divide" (Transformers soundtrack)
Just a really cool song, that's all. Nuff said. I really disike the Transformers movies but at least I got this song out of it.

1. "What I've Done" (Minutes To Midnight)
I was tiring of Linkin Park before their third album was released- the rap/rock combo was overcooked and I didn't care for the Jay Z collaboration either. Yet just when the band had lost me, they brought me right back and even stronger than before with Minutes To Midnight. The elements of their style that were wearing thin were actually a little subdued for their third album, in favor of a more mature "alternative rock" sound. I feel like this album, and this song especially with its haunting piano, remains their best work to date.