Chester Bennington’s Issue With Linkin Park’s ‘In the End’

Few classic rock songs from the 2000s were as impactful or famous as Linkin Park’s “In the End.” Interestingly, Linkin Park looked to the producer of another band to make “In the End” work. Chester Bennington didn’t want to put out the song for a very specific reason. However, his attitude toward the song was different from that of the public.

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During a 2020 interview with Loudersound , Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda discussed his band’s approach to “In the End.” “We chose [Good Charlotte producer] Don Gilmore to produce because he had proven through his recent releases in the last couple of years at that time that he could make a really polished-sounding alternative record,” he said.

Linkin Park did not want to exclusively release angry music. “We didn’t want to write about, ‘Punch you in the face and I’m so mad,'” said Shinoda. “A lot of that stuff was in the ether, but we counterbalanced it with introspection and other stuff about ourselves.” While “In the End” is an angry song, Bennington’s issue with the song had nothing to do with its anger.

Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington once said he hated the song

Shinoda  recalled Bennington’s view of “In the End.” “He was such an entertainer, in an interview he might say something that he felt would get a good reaction out of you,” laughs Shinoda. “You’ll hear him say everything from, ‘I like the song but I never wanted it to be a single,’ to ‘I hated the song.’ He’s on record with all those different things. Everyone liked the song but he had reservations about it being a single because it was softer.”

“In the End” might have sounded too soft to Linkin Park, as they were a metal band. However, to the average pop fan in the early 2000s, “In the End” was harder than hard. Metal rarely gets played on the radio. At the time, the hardness of “In the End” felt new to many people, particularly younger people who had never heard any metal. With this in mind, the band’s concerns about the song seem misguided and comical in retrospect.

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‘In the End’ was exactly what the United States wanted to hear

“In the End” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 . The tune was one of three Linkin Park singles that reached the top 10 of the charts in the United States. The other two were “What I’ve Done” and “New Divide.” Of the three songs, “In the End” is likely the most popular and well-known today.

“In the End” appeared on the album Hybrid Theory . That record peaked at No. 2 and lasted 338 weeks. It was the band’s biggest hit. Linkin Park and Jay-Z collaborated on an EP of mashups called Collision Course . That EP included a combo of “In the End” and Jay-Z’s “Izzo.” That EP is one of the oddest moments of rock ‘n’ roll history, and it shows how much rock and rap overlapped at a certain point in time.

Bennington was hesitant to release “In the End” as a single but the tune changed everything for Linkin Park.