In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Meteora, Linkin Park's second album, the band have unearthed Lost, a previously unreleased track from the time of the record's recording. Ho Kin Yunn gives it his appraisal, as well as providing some reflections on a crucial album in the discography of one of the most important bands of their era.
The worst that could happen, I thought to myself before hitting play, was that I would get to listen to Meteora again in its entirety. The release of Lost commemorates the 20th anniversary of the beloved Linkin Park album, so listening to it would be under pretext of contextualisation, but more truthfully because it is simply an album worth returning to. And in keeping with truth and simplicity, I did thoroughly enjoy listening to Meteora again, the experience affirming my sentiment that Lost is a semi-competent but not unwelcome addition to Linkin Park’s beloved third outing (I will never not consider Reanimation to be their outstanding sophomore effort).
In seeking solidarity with the parent(s) who orphaned it, Lost finds itself sticking to expected Linkin Park song structures (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus) and making use of familiar scratches and stabs used in other Meteora tracks; the little arpeggiated twin-notes beginning at the 00:41 mark, are reminiscent of those from ‘From the inside’ (beginning 00:38). These samples serve more than mere nostalgia. They constitute one of Linkin Park’s ‘unique selling points’—as disgusting as the band themselves would probably consider the term—which were its turntablist-computatronic infused sonics, courtesy of Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn, the latter responsible for instrumental breakbeat masterpieces such as Cure for the Itch (alongside its arguably superior counterpart Kyur4 Th Ich), and Session. Linkin Park’s ascension beyond blunt nu metal angst is in no small part a result of these conglomerate-defying, big-label-disobeying hybridizations of genres and styles. If anything, Lost’s homage to these defiances is a reminder of the band’s own reverence toward this central aspect of their genesis, preceding two decades of ______ success. You fill in the blank.
Other reviews have echoed the emotional weight burdening fans as they realize there are only a finite amount of lost tracks and undiscovered B-sides (with Chester’s vocals) remaining. To me, the delayed release of Lost also discloses its reasons for being left behind. Chester sounds as crisp and immediate as ever, with fine execution of a neatly melodic chorus, though the rhyming of “illusion” and “confusion” seems rather unimaginative, if not uninspired. The prolonged bridge also feels incomplete, relying, understandably, on repeated/chopped vocals. I’d refer readers to the irreproachable 16-second bridge of Faint, but that’d be unfair, as it would be to compare Lost with any other pre-2004 Linkin Park track backed by the dormant fire of millennial teenage history. That said, give ‘Lost’ a couple of replays; it does get better.
Fans, and I suppose people in general, have the freedom to bear whatever weight they wish. To anyone still reading, might I suggest bearing the wonderful weight of Linkin Park’s discography, immutable and un-ignorable, and in listening to Lost, accepting that the band’s impact on our collective histories is a memory-laden excursion worth revisiting—and straying off-course from—over and over.
Edited by: Ali Glen
Photo courtesy of Linkin Park's Instagram. Video courtesy of Linkin Park's YouTube.
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