A new era for Millennial favorite, Linkin Park

It’s been just over 7 years since Linkin Park vocalist, Chester Bennington’s death on the eve of what would’ve been Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman, Chris Cornell’s 53rd birthday, roughly 2 months after losing him. The two presented us with more gifts than any other leads over the last 30 years. Fight me on this.

For any of you that have lost friends, or family members – there is one commonality that I think we can all agree upon and it is that there is never a proper time, place, or fashion to move on. Maybe moving on becomes less of a goal and continuing to move at all is a more reasonable expectation. Whichever way suits you, you’ve obviously done something right if you’re sitting here reading this.

Now, fancy yourself less of an individual struggling with grief and… say… you’re more of a 6-person group that captured lightning in a bottle under the Warner label for 21 years, defined yourself alongside an entirely new genre for which you helped coin – Alternative Nu Rock Metal Electronic Rap – all whilst anthem-izing (yes, it’s a word – I just decided) and expounding the teen years of virtually every millennial alive. Big task, in and of itself, right? Rewind to 2017 and now you’ve lost your lead vocalist, team captain, and face of a generation – how do you grieve? Do you move forward? What’s next?

Well, we almost found out. Out of respect for everyone out there (fellow LP’r here) who’s fallen for this group in one way or another over the last 21 years – I think 7 years feels right, and apparently whoever runs LP’s social media did as well. Earlier this week, we were gifted a 100 hour countdown clock that was to detonate in all of our faces on Wednesday. (Easssy. It’s a metaphor, they were commonplace about 15 years ago before free-speech was frowned upon.) Well, not only were we led astray, but senior teenagers (Millennials) everywhere were quite bemused when the countdown clock appeared to glitch and began counting upwards upon hitting 0. What kind of Eras Tour mystery bullshit was this? We all thought Mike Shinoda was above mind games – though some people noticed he was trolling in the chat of the countdown clock with the “peek-a-boo eyes” emoji everyone of us has seen when we miss the fucking point of a text.

Fans had (hybrid) theories that the countdown was nothing but cyber breadcrumbs to a new lead singer announcement spotlighting Bonnie Fraser of Stand Atlantic as the clear popular vote. Some cheeky fans even pointed a finger at Avril Lavigne’s ex-husband Deryck Whibley – for whom I had absolutely zero idea had a “Y” in his name until now, and for the life of me, I wouldn’t have placed it there. Derek with a Y has since confirmed this is not true, although he was a decent singer at one point, he’d be in over his head with this one.

I myself was hoping for a more “caution to the wind” approach and half-expected Mike Shinoda to announce a partnership (of sorts) with aging boomer Rick Springfield for the newest superband of 2024 – aptly coined and trademarked from this point forward – “Parks and Rick.”
I have no such luck, unfortunately. Still holding out.

However, we were hit with one big clue that attentive LP’rs have highlighted – 09/05 seems to be a time that was important during the countdown glitch, and we have roughly a week left until this date (depending when this article is posted) – I’m ready for a new era of Linkin Park – and I think I can say the same for all of you? We’ll be at every show in 2025, new vocalist or not, Mike – so long as you promise to play one round of Jessie’s Girl.