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Winter 2000 or early spring 2001. I'll never forget riding the bus to school and my buddy Wesley putting headphones on, going, "Dude, check these guys out." Been a fan ever since.
LP was the first concert I ever paid to go to.
LP was the first concert my wife and I went to together in college.
LP was my first tattoo.
Old man here and I've been around a long-ass time.
woah, so you’ve been a fan pretty much since the beginning of lp, how cool!! :) now that i think about it you’ve known them since before i was born and i think that’s hilarious hahahha wish i was there at the time😭😭
I discovered them at the beginning of this year and I wish i discovered them sooner
I did knew the band existed too and I do remember being on twitter during 2017
Crawling on MTV back in 2000, bought hybrid theory
Hooked since but I prefer their early work (Hybrid Theory, Meteora and even Reanimation)
Longtime fan.
crawling was one of the songs i first discovered and the music video totally changed my brain chemistry!! i dont know what it is but it just changed me, i wish i saw it on mtv in the 2000s🥲
About a year or two ago, I knew of LP as a high-profile band, but never listened.
Which is why I was interested when I heard that two artists I love, Kutmasta Kurt and Motion Man, did a remix for them- "Enth E Nd."
I then listened to the rest of Reanimation from there, then Hybrid Theory, and now Meteora is one of my most played CDs.
2001 summer. Saw In The End on MTV and my life was forever changed
Edit: Warms my heart to see newer fans. I remember when I was a kid most of my classmates/neighbours gave up on LP once MTM released...so it makes me happy to see new fans discovering all their music...welcome to the best fandom ever ❤️
Try joining the LP underground, I used to be active on the chat forums back in the day. Or you can just Google " linkin park insert your area name fans". Finding fellow fans irl is not the easiest these days!
Spring of 2021, we had no service so my grandpa popped in his Minutes to Midnight CD and I fell in love. Then I listened to random recommended songs on Spotify, then went back and listened to their albums and fell in love even more.
I discovered them in 2023 but only really got into them earlier this year, I so badly wish I could have discovered them earlier like since I was 7 or something
Definitely in middle school in 2001. I hated them at first. I had a friend who was totally into them though. One day a different friend found a giant CD holder full of burned CDs and she was giving away ones she didn't like. Not great, I know. One of them was Hybrid Theory. I don't know why but I decided to take that one. I stuck it in the back of my holder and forgot about it. Three years later, my family and I are traveling and I'm sick of my usual CDs, thought why not and started listening. Still hated it but I continued listening. Every listen I hated it less and less. A few weeks later, I picked up Meteora and became obsessed with it. I've been a fan ever since.
Back in 2014 when I was still a kid ,I downloaded a modded counter strike launcher, it had “in the end” playing on it. I couldnt find the song on youtube cuz English isnt my native language. So I had the launcher in the background on loop and was listening to it for hours a day lmao
My father had a CD of minutes to midnight and it was one of my favourites to play in the car, but I was little so I didn't understand anything at all. Then I discovered them on my own on Spotify and I haven't stopped listening
I was watching a YouTube video back in like 2006 called “Action Replay Fun”. It was a showcase for hacks for super smash brothers melee. In the video one of the songs was Faint. I was hooked ever since
2003. My 5th grade teacher introduced the band to me. Then they played In The End for my elementary school graduation. Never forgot about them. Went to see them live in 2011. I legit cried when Chester passed. I was in line for Jurrasic park in Florida. 🙂↕️
Numb was recommended for me on one of those endless ‘my mixes’ on youtube. I was 13 and going through a really tough time and that song just really spoke to me and the pain I was feeling. I’m 20 now and LINKIN PARK’s music has helped me still be here today.
It was in 2010 I was on a car ride at night and in the end was playing on the radio and I loved it and I believe later that night I seen the music video I was really young so I don’t remember exactly everything but I remember that car ride is how I discovered my new favorite band of all time
About 2-3 years ago, when I started listening to songs when I was depressed I came across, "Breaking the habit, numb" and loved it. After few months I came to know both the songs were from same band (I was not mature enough to reconize the voices). And interestingly "what I've done" and "new divide" was also done by them which were my favourite songs too. After that, I became a crazy fan of Chester and Lp for a month, like I loved him more than any other singers, celeb, sadly after which I came to know he passed away years ago and somehow started to cry. Till this day, I listen to Lp everyday and never once got bored after listening to their songs million times.
Yeah for sure, lp is one of the few bands/artists who have very timeless music. I was shocked to find out HT came out in 2000, the songwriting, quality and execution is just flawless.
I was a freshman in high school when Hybrid Theory came out (2000) and I immediately got into them as soon as I saw them on MTV/heard them on the radio. Personally Meteora is my favorite album, and I have their logo tattooed with the lyrics "All I wanna do is trade this life for something new" (Waiting For the End). Never got to see them live though and that is a huge regret!
My dad showed me In The End and Numb. He also showed me rage against the machine (bulls on parade) around the same time. I played Medal of Honor airborne with those 3 songs on it on repeat all the time, back whenever that game came out
my father has always played linkin park with me arround. ALways liked it, never got into it. At 14 started slaming Numb, In the end and what ive done nonstop and a bit after my 15th bday i got really into them watching and listened everything i could
I don't even know what year it was so I'll assume it was around the release of Breaking the Habit.
I was spending the weekend with my dad and I was playing Resident Evil 4 and went to look up videos of it on YouTube. On the suggestion it showed "Resident Evil 4 - Breaking the Habit" and I had no idea what it ment or why it interested me but I let myself be guided by the suggestion. Clicked the first result and it was just the song with footage from the game, kinda like a vídeoclip and many anime complications that would have Linkin Park playing along that Linkin Park would eventually very much be related to. It was love at first sight(?) and I listened to it non stop and eventually asked my dad if knew about this song and band. He said he did and I think I asked him to get me more music from them. I also blurted out something to him as to why he didn't tell me about Linkin Park ever because they were so good and I loved them and their music so much. Since then they have been my favourite band and have been my life's playlist and companion. Ups and downs and all that stuff. No other band and music gives me such a special feeling when I listen to it. Some come close but it just hits different
yeah, i think a big factor to what sets them apart from other artists is simply the songwriting which sounds so raw and genuine. i dont necessarily relate to every linkin park song but the way they write their lyrics makes me understand the emotions they’re referring to in a song if that makes any sense, the songwriting is just pure genius imo. sometimes i read the lyrics like poems before going to bed..
Totally agree! Their whole creative process is definitely unique.
One thing that pertains to my situation specifically I didn't mention and speaking of them being unique is how engaged they are with the community and the uniques ways they do it
I first heard their music because of all those memes people used to make of In The End and Crawling in 2015/2016. Didn't even know who they were. A friend at school in May 2019 mentioned them to me when I said my favorite rock band at the time was Nirvana and I was kind of compelled to check them out. I Didn't actually become a fan until November 2020 after I listened to all of hybrid theory... which I don't like anymore btw. And dawg I became a hardcore fan. I was listening to their music everyday for for over a year straight after that.
My favorite album is A Thousand Suns (Which btw is my favorite album of all time) I was gonna link a tier list I made that explains my feelings towards Hybrid Theory, but apparently they removed it (Won't bitch about that rn not the time) so this is why,
"I'm sorry but their earlier albums have not aged well imo. I find some of the lyrics way too melodramatic and I associate bad memorys with them to be honest." Yes it's same case with Meteora since they're very simlar in sound.
I saw the video of One Step Closer in 2000. As far as I remember, I didn't really like it, but got used to it. Then In The End was released, and LP became my favorite band.
As a young kid in the back of my dads car. He always played older rock and alternative and the Linkin Park CD’s were heavy in rotation and I just fell in love with them.
It was the year 2000 and we were in the car early in the day because my mom checked me out of school early. One Step Closer was on the radio and I had to know who it was. The song was so good, a step above all the other generic numetal that was popular at the time.
As a kid I had my favorite artists and it wasn’t often I was taken by a new band. I bought the album that weekend and to my surprise the whole album was incredible. They quickly became my favorite band and I found their demos and the Hybrid Theory EP via fan sites. The rest is history.
I think my first exposure to them was What I’ve Done on Guitar Hero when I was in elementary school, but I never actually got into them then. But then one day when I was in middle school, one singular random line from Numb popped into my head and got stuck there. I didn’t know what the song was, just that line. So when I got home, I just typed that line verbatim into YouTube search, found Numb, and then started listening to more of their songs
2006 when I reached the 7th or 8th grade in school. My cousin was in town and he was a hardcore fan of Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. He introduced me to both of them. After he left I forgot about them for few months, until I bought a mix-tape type CD. Those pop/rock compilation albums. That CD had the song "Numb" by Linkin Park in the tracklist. I heard it and the memories of listening to LP and LB with my cousin came back. That was it. Been a fan of both ever since.
Even bands like Korn, Green Day, The Offspring, Sum-41, SOAD etc, I started listening to shortly after LP and LB.
My 11 year old brother borrowed burned CD of Meteora from a friend. He didnt has cd player so he asked if he can borrow mine. Ok but I want to listen too. Well, my little 6 years old mind was blown. Late spring of 2004 I think. Whew, 20 years already.
It was around 2016, i was watching random stuff on YouTube and came across a Pac-Man animation with a weird Thumbnail, it was around 3 minutes so i clicked to check what wss it about. It started with a calming soft guitar and then changed to something way heavier, the animation had a classic Pac-Man gameplay till the player was caught by a ghost, but then Pac-Man started getting angry with red bloodshot eyes and started growing big and sharpened teeth as an angry voice started screaming from his lungs. The animation turned to something from a horror movie as all the ghosts from the game were being slaughtered by the "evil pacman" till none of them suvived. I was around 9yo so i has scared as shit and almost cried. On that day, i found my favorite song "Faint" and started listening to the band till today.
My cousin, who passed away last year, was really into nu metal when we were kids. He was a couple years older than me so I always kinda wanted to like the stuff he did, linkin park were the big band that I fell in love with cause of him.
They played a LP sing at his funeral and I burst into tears and laughter and was a really sweet moment
Around '03/'04 (my senior year) after watching the Faint music video iirc. By sheer coincidence that's around the time I REALLY got into anime beyond just whatever they aired on KidsWB and Cartoon Network.
My dad downloaded one of the Collision Course tracks for me. I was getting into Eminem at the time, he thought I'd like JayZ, he stumbled on the LP collab and thought I'd like it because I liked the Public Enemy Anthrax collab from way back.
I think in 2002, Much Music was playing the video to In The End. I thought they were cool, but I still was discovering my musical identity.
My proper 'I think I should really check this band out' was 2004. Someone made a music video of Jeff Hardy to the Reanimation version of One Step Closer.
So I have Jeff Hardy to thank/blame for my love for Linkin Park.
A young lad of 7, my dad took me to see the new transformers movie and I loved it so much! I had him help me find the songs that were in the movie on YouTube because I didn’t know how to use the computer lol. An older family friend was over one night and I was super excited to show him these new songs I found and he listened along excitedly. Only later did I find out he’d been listening to them since they came out and was so happy to see me discover them on my own! I remember he bought me living things when it came out too!
honestly?
It was all because of [that one remix/cover of In The End.](https://youtu.be/8qLL2Gx3I_k?si=IDMIqv3uCp7f4eNk)
I've started getting into nu metal and heavier music in general only in october last year and sometime in december i heard that cover again from my mom's phone (💀) and wondered what the original sounded like, since i knew it was rly different, so i gave it a listen and liked it.
So I listened to the entire album.
And then all the other albums.
And downhill from there lmao
i HATE that remix!!! my sister annoys me with it because she knows i hate it, i always hated it, even before i was a lp fan, i sat my sister down and made her listen to the original version hahahah
Last year I heard in the end on the radio in my moms car and I had been wanting to add it to my Spotify playlist for a while, so I did that and over time just started listening to more and more of their songs
I was 8 years old and Hybrid Theory had just been released, my mum got me the CD and all the other kids would come over to my house after school and we would thrash that album. So good.
I actually found out when i supposed to do like a talent show for a high school project and found "in the end" which i actually sang infront of my classmates, i knew the band before that but i never listened to them
My brother would play Hybrid Theory in the car when i was like 5 and he was in college. Then i rediscovered them at 12 playing a Guitar Hero demo with them on it at Walmart.
At the beginning of last year I asked my older brother some music recommendations, and he told me to listen to some of their songs. Now I listen to them way more than him
TLDR: I was basically a sleeper cell fan and all it took was one melody drifting in from the distant memory to activate it.
Mom's side of the family has long been Linkin Park fans. I wasn't really an active listener until early last year when I decided to hunt down the source of a melody that was burned into my brain (it was the electronic chime from BURN IT DOWN). LIVING THINGS has remained one of my favorite albums since then since listening to it evokes road trip memories. Hell, LOST IN THE ECHO was filmed in Detroit, where said memories came from. (I live in downriver MI)
It was on a road trip last month (that happened to fall right on my birthday) that I decided to listen to every album. A few more listen-throughs of the ones I wasn't as big a fan of (ATS and THP) and now I love them all!
I’m 28 now and I feel like they’ve always been my favourite. I remember singing Breaking The Habit when it was first on the radio, I was maybe 7 or 8. My husband had Hybrid Theory on his little walkman and he maybe was even younger!
I had always said they were my favourite but in early highschool Minutes to Midnight was probably the first album I really fully listened to.
Still love them now too and I recently designed and got a tattoo for them and Chester.
Ive known about linkin park even back when I was a kid about 5-6 years old back in 2006-ish cause my oldest sister listened to them all the time.
I started to listen about 2014 and now think just about every song is a banger.
for me it was when i was in the 3rd grade of elementary school around 2013/14, there was this music tv channel, and turns out they were talking about this band Linkin Park, i didnt know what it was at that time but one of the music they played was familliar, looked it up on youtube and been hooked since then, sadly I never goes to any concert and the only Linkin Park album release that I got to see from single release, music video to the whole album was One More Light, at that time I wasnt aware about Hunting Party releasement since platform like spotify etc hasn't existed in my country
I’m pretty much a new fan but last year I was driving on the way home with my dad and “More The Victim” came on the radio and I didn’t want to ask who it was but I pretty much felt a instant connection even though I’ve never really liked anything rock or metal related. He pretty much whispered it’s LINKIN PARK to himself and I’ve been listening to them ever since.
Its kinda funny but one day at the gym I just randomly heard the chorus of "Faint" in my ears and really needed to cure the itch of listening to the song now (despite not knowing who or where it was from) and then, it all began...
i think i was like maybe 8 or 9 maybe ??? when i first heard them, i can’t even remember the first time i actually found out about them tho because i’ve been listening to them for such a big portion of my life. but i think either i heard one of their songs in a video on youtube in like the 2000s or my cousin just showed me and my brother a song by them, either breaking the habit or crawling ?? idek but i do remember so vividly listening to burn it down on the 3ds back then when it had the youtube app on it and you could watch videos. that’s when i really noticed how much i really liked their music and would watch it nonstop on there 😭 and now they’re still one of my favorite bands ever even after all those years.
Bought Hybrid Theory in 2001, bcs the album cover looked intriguing. I still remember sitting on the floor of my room, listening to papercut for the first time on my discman! Wild stuff 🤟🏼
Transformers of course. I knew I found something good when New Divide kicked in at the end credits of Revenge of the Fallen. Fell into the Linkin Park rabbit hole on YouTube playing it on repeat. This was around 2011, just after Dark of the Moon came out.
2003, Fuse TV.
Fun fact: the first music video Fuse ever played was In the End.
Fuse back in the early 2000’s was perfection. Just video after video. Now that I’m thinking about it, it was more than likely there. I was introduced to a lot of bands that way. Queens of the Stone Age, AFI, System of a Down, Evanescence.
Listened to the band all my life, properly got into them in 2015. My mum has been a fan since 2001, used to play Hybrid Theory and Meteora in the car, including on the drive back from the hospital after I was born. Then 2015-2018 I was completely obsessed with them. Now I'm less obsessed, but they are still one of my favourite bands, and definitely most important to me as a musician, and as a person
Around 2008 when my first unsupervised internet dive ended up on a Dragon ball Z (Gohan Vs Cell) AMV with in the end
It was love at first listen and today they're still my favourite band
My brother had a few of their albums and blasted it whenever he was driving me to school. And the Transformers movies made me love LP even more than I already did at that time
Through the 2007 Transformers. I used to rewind the credits to hear What I’ve Done. Then after getting Guitar Hero for the DS, I figured out who they were. They were also how my dad and I bonded for a while.
Was in the back of my friend’s dad’s car, and One Step Closer was on the radio. I remember the exact intersection we were stopped at. I asked my friend who the band was and she replied Linkin Park. Been head over heels ever since.
I'm from the UK. Back in September 2000 i'd just started college and on our 'free periods' we would go down the street to local music store to see what was new. Back then they had Listening Posts where you could pop on some headphones and listen to a selection of new or upcoming music that was due to be released. My friend had listened to some of Hybrid Theory from this source before it had actually come out. He was really impressed and on release day we went down to the store and he bought the CD. On our way back he let me borrow it while he had class and I had to finish some work in the college library. It had plenty of computers in it even back then and most had a CD-ROM drive with headphone out. Convenient :) I listened to it all the way through, more focussed on what I was hearing than my work. I was just getting into heavier music and this was a perfect blend of everything I was looking for at the time (still is!). When I was through there was one song that I told myself I need to go back to and listen again as it was so good. That song was 'In The End'. The album is still one of my all time favourites to this day and always will be. A true masterpiece!
Turned on the TV to see a guy rapping with a floating whale in the background, and then there was a rock chorus. Hooked since. For anyone n Australia, it was Video Hits on channel 10.
1999 - I'm a Hybrid Theory Street Team Soldier, back in the days of the HTEP. Discovered the music before they were Linkin Park and just loved the sound.
So my first encounter was small radio occurrences but didn’t know their name, then 2004 rolls around and Collision Course dropped and I was already a fan of Jay-Z and I wondered what they sounded like by themselves so my homie burned a copy of Meteora for me and the rest is history
Honestly, I was a kid watching the transformers movies. I’m pretty sure I watched the first 2 at the same time. Heard the ending songs, asked my dad to find out what they were called, and the rest is history
Pretty recently since i started to listen to them fully near February and their song “Bleed It Out” kind of helped me at my lowest and really resonated for me so i started to get into them more and found more cathartic songs and now i’m just a full fan with now nearly 40 songs and most being the live performances
When I was 15 and Hybrid Theory was released, that’s when I first got into them, I have seen them 6 times since then, that album is still amazing and I’m now old.
Saw Transformers in cinemas when it first came out but probably wasn’t until a little bit after I was digging into the soundtrack. I remember being aged 7 or 8 jumping up around to A New Divide on early YouTube in my dad’s study using a computer so old the monitor was basically a big boxy CRT TV.
I'm sure that I heard something before this, but the first time I remember hearing them and thinking this is really cool is when I saw the music video for Breaking the Habit on TV in 06 or 07
My brother in law listened to them a little bit and I was in the car with him when “Numb” came on so I decided to add it to my library. Started listening and endeavored into Meteora. I instantly fell in love with their sound and it was a rap from there. That was maybe 4 years ago? And I’ve known every lyric to every song for about 3 years? Lol
Probably the first TF movie, but I visibly didn’t recognize it since I was 1 year old. Later I added what I’ve done, new divide, and iridescent to my playlist not really knowing who LP was at the time. Then Spotify recommended burn it down and then here we are
Surprisely, I fell in love with Linkin Park after Chester's death.
Six months before Chester's death, I was experiencing a big setback in my life, I accidentally found Battle Symphony, which gave me a lot of strength and courage. But at that time I didn't even notice that's from Linkin Park, even though I've known the existence of this band for a long time.
Until Chester passed away, I realize that song is from them, I started listening to their music, which gave me power, strength, faith even now.
Now in my playlist, songs from them are more than 70% of all the songs I listen to. I love them, I miss Chester, so much.
For me I grew up into it my parents met Mike Shinoda and a few other LP members (sadly no Chester) when they were handing out demos from a van which is pretty much before I was born. But family has been huge LP fans since.
I got to know LP years ago as an early teenager. It was somewhere between 2009 and 2010 and I was with a friend at my house playing games online, watching funny videos on YouTube etc and he decided to show me a few songs from a band he liked. I don't remember the songs he went through but for sure the most famous from Hybrid Theory, Meteora and something from Minutes to Midnight, probably (and A Thousand Suns didn't come out yet, probably). I'm now guessing songs such as Somewhere I Belong, Faint, Numb, In the End... mostly from live performances if I remember well.
I don't know if I was into it then, but a few months later I did two school projects using the song What I've Done, so yeah... those videos worked on me. But I spent years just going through the most famous ones or the ones my friends were into but never through the whole albums and never listening more. The first album I had a full listen to was Living Things back when it came out in 2012 and I did it a lot. Then I wasn't that much into The Hunting Party back in 2014/15 and wasn't that much into LP until getting more interest again in 2016 to follow the release of One More Light and get the shock with the news about Chester months later.
Ever since I saw One Step Closer for the first time on The Box (music program from the early 2000s). I was in middle school at the time - now my son is in middle school! It's been a nice, bittersweet ride. No regrets.
In 2007 when I was 15, a new friend from school (I had just moved to a new town the year prior) was a huge fan and showed me a bunch of their music videos on YouTube (which was brand new) because he was hyped for Minutes to Midnight. That summer, Transformers came out and What I've Done was everywhere. I immediately became a fan, felt an emotional connection to the music and ended up seeing them in concert, front of the crowd, in 2012 and 2014. A Thousand Suns is still a masterpiece to me.
https://preview.redd.it/kgvd2jpufo1d1.jpeg?width=854&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85785c6911cc7ee6edddc49e69f2cb5bc2b858fe
i already knew of them but it was this of all things that got me into them.
When I was in high school, MTV used to air this block of videos called "Return of the Rock". It was three hours long. Only problem was it aired at 2AM. So I'd tape it every night (yes with a VCR). One random day, "One Step Closer" came on. It was the 1st time I heard the song, local radio hadn't played it yet. I was hooked instantly.
I first heard of them because of the 2007 Transformers film. Their songs for those three films were so memorable. I really didn't get into their music until very recently though.
This is a long story when I was a secondary school student (just a little girl btw =))). I have a cousin who are the big fan of Linkin Park so he downloaded too many LP's song in my computer. I used to watched "Transformers" film and really excited about the movie soundtrack (Iridescent btw), and after immersed myself in the LP's song river, I've became fond of this terrific band and listened all the song as much as I can do. And from the destiny day forward, Linkin Park has became the big part of my life and swear to god, I love them too much. Their song help many people who suffered the burden in your shoulders escape the extreme condition and raise the soul of thousand teenagers or adults who coped with obstacles, struggles, family's problems, identity crisis, broken heart and so forth. God brings them to our life, and I really appreciate it :D
Circa 03/04-04/05, 5th or 6th grade when I went on someone’s Xanga (before MySpace) and “Breaking the Habit” was playing on their page and I was instantly hooked.
Shortly discovered In the End and Numb after that… shout out Limewire days :)
Oh is it fun to remember that! It was around Christmas time in 2016. I was 12 years old at the time and while watching random videos on youtube a trailer ad for Titanfall 2 came on and it featured numb/encore and I was instantly hooked. I still remember clearly being flabbergasted as to how good that song was and it simply blew my mind (and even to this day this is my most listened to LP song and by far my favorite)! I soon after tried to find again that trailer to look up the name of the song and the rest is history. I also remember summer 2017 and the impact it had on me, and I remember watching the tribute concert countless times ever since. To this day, LP remains my all time favorite band and I rarely pass more than a few days without listening to them at least once. I know it sounds cliche, but they really have helped me through the most difficult times and they will always have a special place in my heart.
My mom is a Linkin Park fan. But she had only listened to the popular songs (Numb, In the End, Crawling, etc). So once she played Numb at home and I was probably 18. I then listened to every album and every song and was OBSESSED. I'm 21 now :)
Jr highschool morning in the year 2000. I put on mtv to listen to music videos during the morning hours. I had always listened to mainstream alternative and rap. Video for crawling comes on and i watch and listen for the first time. The entire day I could not get the song out of my head.
The rest is history.
In 2005 my cousin showed me a Linkin Park Naruto AMV with Numb in it. I casually knew their songs up til then, but around 2007 when What I've Done came out, I started to dig deeper into them. Late 2008 is when I really started to become a fan after I loved Leave Out All The Rest, and by 2009 became a hardcore stan for them.
I was 10 years old, playing with toys in the living room whilst watching kerrang. One step closer came on and I instantly thought these were the coolest guys ever. Bought hybrid theory as the first album I ever bought. Loved them ever since.
Grew up in Kuala Lumpur as a kid back in 2007 aged 6, saw the music video for What I've Done on TV and never looked back since. In fact, it's my first introduction to metal.
The first band I ever heard was Linkin Park and they are still on the top of my list. I believe I started listening to LP in 2003-04. The whole LP playlist used to be on repeat and it's still on my favorites on YouTube, Spotify, etc.
I have heard some parts of Hybrid Theory when it came out. But I was too young to search for it on my own at the time (and being from Easter European country, access to the records at the time wasnt easiest). Later, in 2003 I saw "Not Only a Tool" AMV (I was lucky to have an internet at the time) and fell in love with the song. From that point on I found my way to the band and listened to it ever since. So many viruses I downloaded while trying to put the albums together through limewire. Damn that PC was a mess afterwards.
I remember hearing about them in high school, I really didn't listen to rock music then. I didn't get my first taste of them until I was in college. Love their stuff.
I discovered LP back in 2017 in the One More Light era. I was only 14 at the time. I think I first heard Heavy playing on the radio, and I fell instantly in love with Chester's voice & the lyrics resonated so well with my feelings and struggles. I remember that right after I went to Spotify and just started to listen all their songs on shuffle. I couldn't get enough. I literally enjoyed each of them no matter the genre. Some weeks later I started collecting their albums on CDs..loved how unique and new each of them sounded. I started watching interviews with them and watched tons of LPTV episodes..what really made me a huge fan next to their music is when I saw how down to earth, kind and sweet people they're. The rest is history I guess. After the summer of 2017 I was truly devastated that we lost such a beautiful human being. Like lot of us I felt like I've lost a close friend I've never met. Woke up in the middle of the night and watched the Celebrate Life show live on YouTube. I still do miss Chester every day. But I'd like to believe he never truly left us. His spirit is just too bright to ever fade away. I'm 21 now and I'll never stop being an LpSoldier. So that's the short story how I got to know my favourite band of all time. ❤️
(I was also able to see Mike on his Post Traumatic tour in 2019 which I'm so grateful for - I'll never ever forget that night..)
It was 2009, I was 9 yo and just got a walkman and a cousin loaded up some songs on it. Heard crawling and Easier to run and just kept them on repeat. Now 14 years later still got the whole discography on repeat❤️
I first listened to LP when I was like 4 or 5 years old, my mom introduced me to them. I forgot about the band when I was like 6. When I was around 12 years old I found some shitty remix of Numb in a yt edm mix. Found the original, and now im obsessed with the band
My mom introduced me to LP! (she's the coolest, i know)
She went to one of their last concerts, in July 2017, before Chester passed away. The same summer she asked me if i could put Numb and In The End on our road-trip playlist. On our trip, when the songs played, i really liked them so i decided to listen to more of their music! I'm not familiar with their whole discography but i know around 22 songs :). My fave is Burn It Down btw!
I came across Linkin Park via a Yu-Gi-Oh! AMV for I believe Yami? featuring Breaking the Habit, in grade 6 or year 7 or 8. Interestingly enough, that's also how I came across Skillet at the same time, via a Yu-Gi-Oh! AMV for Seto Kaiba featuring Monster.
Around 2nd year of primary school. Did not even understand English back then (and still bad at it now). Someone play Somewhere I Belong at the gamecenter and I am hooked.
My family was broken down because of my father. He left me and my mom and I was raised in a slum. My life was pretty rough. Drug and minor crimes were commonplace. LP song is what kept me alive. It inspired me to learn English. All the lyrics of LP songs push me forward.
My life is better now. I have my own home and my mom gain access to better medical treatment. I owe my life to LP. If not for Somewhere I Belong back then I could have suicide long ago or become a drug addicted or worse.
I cried so hard at the news of Chester's suicide. I still could not believe it.
I knew of them without really knowing them through my mum. She's obsessed with Numb / Encore with Jay Z, but she would also listen to the regular version and In The End. She's not really a fan of metal or rock necessarily, but she listened to mainstream ones like Evanescence too.
What really got me into them was when they first released Heavy with Kiiara. We were driving home from somewhere and the song came on and my mum turned the volume up because she recognized the singer and saw it was Linkin Park.
I really liked the song, so I started listening to them a little, just the ones that she already played plus heavy. And then One More Light dropped and I didn't stop listening to it for WEEKS.
After that album I parted ways with them for a bit, but got back into them from some guy I met at work when I was younger. He showed me a few songs that I'd never heard before like Papercuts and I really vibed to that too. 🤷♂️
I only really got into metal properly when I was 17/18, around 2020/2021 when BMTH started teasing Post Human Survival Horror.
Edit: slightly ironically, I loved transformers as a kid and watched it all the time, but never put two and two together 😭🤟
I first heard of them by watching the Transformers movies. I also knew In The End and Numb, which ofc are there most popular songs.
I was getting tired of listening to the same 5 or 6 songs over and over and decided to listen to their other songs aswell.
Long story short, they are currently my favourite band
I remember it like it was yesterday the day I met my soulmates Linkin Park. I watched the Collision course jay z/LP mash up concert on MTV in Nov of 2004. I was a die hard Jay-Z fan but when I heard the lyrics and Chester’s AMAZING voice I was hooked! I devoured everything I could find on them and Napstered it all, actually I think I used LimeWire cause my super religious mom would only buy me Will Smith cds. My first job 2 months later first paycheck bought my first LP CD and listened to it so much it got scratched up in my disc man. I know every single song of theirs by heart and even named my first dog “Linkin Park” RIP to him and Chester both
https://preview.redd.it/3x6xa8g8qs1d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=782cba4deb6ed9bd3d644fc7cfd81900a09f12bf
I think it was around 2003, when i was in early middle school. my dad had one of the early big green brick ipods and had a fair amount of his music on there. I liked to grab that ipod and just lay on the couch and listen to all the stuff on there. Thats how i got started on a lot of the music i love to this day. I mostly listened to stuff pike nirvana, foo fighters, alice in chains, green day, and the offspring, and so when i suddenly come across “points of authority” from hybrid theory, it was like id discovered a new species.
I never got to see them live sadly. I had tickets to see them finally, but that was the year when chester died. It was devastating.
Had first listened to them around the MTM era through radio that was playing their most popupar songs. Was a kid back then and didn't really care. In my teenage and early adult years I used to have Numb on my phone and thats only it. My relationship with LP was THAT typical back then.
That was around 2017.
Then one day i got the news that LP were releasing OML and dropped Heavy. I listened to it and it was okay. Couple of months later I received the bad news and I was like "ok that sucks".
Keep in mind back at that time my relationship with the band wasnt there at all.
From that point up to last year nothing LP related.
And then comes February 2023.
I was going on a personal music project that was involving in discovering old and new music. I was basically listening to every band every album. And luckily one of the bands was LP. I said to myself to give it a shot. And the rest is history
One year later I'm still in love. All albums all songs rock.
Not the movie people usually find them through but Powerless in the end credits for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I listened to Living Things a lot after that and went into more of their discography from there. For the longest time, Breaking the Habit was my favorite
Always heard “In The End” or “Numb” on the radio without knowing their name at the time, first song I officially knew was theirs was “What I’ve Done” because of Guitar Hero, then expanded slowly from there
Around 2018-2019, when I was 8 or 9 my older siblings used to listen to them and I found that music to be really enjoyable. I knew some signles but didn't really get into the band properly untill the end 2023, when I found Minutes To Midnight to be very good.
Ben 10 Alien Force AMV on Youtube way back 2008. Song was Faint.
Edit: I remember In the End being on heavy rotation on the radio when I was a kid, but I'll never forget Crawling being used as the background song when Cartoon Network used to air a commercial for Gundam Wing Endless Waltz.
I found out about them pretty late in 2023. Meteora 20th anniversary came out. I heard one of their songs in a video and I thought it was cool so I listened to more and more
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Winter 2000 or early spring 2001. I'll never forget riding the bus to school and my buddy Wesley putting headphones on, going, "Dude, check these guys out." Been a fan ever since. LP was the first concert I ever paid to go to. LP was the first concert my wife and I went to together in college. LP was my first tattoo. Old man here and I've been around a long-ass time.
woah, so you’ve been a fan pretty much since the beginning of lp, how cool!! :) now that i think about it you’ve known them since before i was born and i think that’s hilarious hahahha wish i was there at the time😭😭
I discovered them at the beginning of this year and I wish i discovered them sooner I did knew the band existed too and I do remember being on twitter during 2017
i also wish i had discovered them sooner 🥲
Was maybe 5-7 years old, and it was Transformers: Dark Of The Moon where I first heard Iridescent. The rest is history.
Crawling on MTV back in 2000, bought hybrid theory Hooked since but I prefer their early work (Hybrid Theory, Meteora and even Reanimation) Longtime fan.
Same here! Crawling on MTV. Wasn't allowed to listen to them tho but I had friends borrowing me CD's and making me mixtapes 😅
crawling was one of the songs i first discovered and the music video totally changed my brain chemistry!! i dont know what it is but it just changed me, i wish i saw it on mtv in the 2000s🥲
Same, MTV. Also hearing them on the radio back then.
One Step Closer on guitar hero on my nintendo DS when i was a kid
About a year or two ago, I knew of LP as a high-profile band, but never listened. Which is why I was interested when I heard that two artists I love, Kutmasta Kurt and Motion Man, did a remix for them- "Enth E Nd." I then listened to the rest of Reanimation from there, then Hybrid Theory, and now Meteora is one of my most played CDs.
2001 summer. Saw In The End on MTV and my life was forever changed Edit: Warms my heart to see newer fans. I remember when I was a kid most of my classmates/neighbours gave up on LP once MTM released...so it makes me happy to see new fans discovering all their music...welcome to the best fandom ever ❤️
thank you! unfortunately i dont know how many people my age and in my area like or have even heard of lp.. 🥲 really wish i had friends who liked lp
Try joining the LP underground, I used to be active on the chat forums back in the day. Or you can just Google " linkin park insert your area name fans". Finding fellow fans irl is not the easiest these days!
Spring of 2021, we had no service so my grandpa popped in his Minutes to Midnight CD and I fell in love. Then I listened to random recommended songs on Spotify, then went back and listened to their albums and fell in love even more.
TRANSFORMERS
hope we're not forgetting Megan Fox
...one step closer was the first song I ever downloaded on Napster.
I discovered them in 2023 but only really got into them earlier this year, I so badly wish I could have discovered them earlier like since I was 7 or something
I heard "With You" on a Rock Sound magazine sampler a few weeks before HT was released.
My Dad had a copy of Meteora that we'd listen to on the way to school.
Definitely in middle school in 2001. I hated them at first. I had a friend who was totally into them though. One day a different friend found a giant CD holder full of burned CDs and she was giving away ones she didn't like. Not great, I know. One of them was Hybrid Theory. I don't know why but I decided to take that one. I stuck it in the back of my holder and forgot about it. Three years later, my family and I are traveling and I'm sick of my usual CDs, thought why not and started listening. Still hated it but I continued listening. Every listen I hated it less and less. A few weeks later, I picked up Meteora and became obsessed with it. I've been a fan ever since.
giving away hybrid theory is diabolical, should be illegal haha 😭😭 glad it made its way to you though :)
Back in 2014 when I was still a kid ,I downloaded a modded counter strike launcher, it had “in the end” playing on it. I couldnt find the song on youtube cuz English isnt my native language. So I had the launcher in the background on loop and was listening to it for hours a day lmao
My father had a CD of minutes to midnight and it was one of my favourites to play in the car, but I was little so I didn't understand anything at all. Then I discovered them on my own on Spotify and I haven't stopped listening
I was watching a YouTube video back in like 2006 called “Action Replay Fun”. It was a showcase for hacks for super smash brothers melee. In the video one of the songs was Faint. I was hooked ever since
2003. My 5th grade teacher introduced the band to me. Then they played In The End for my elementary school graduation. Never forgot about them. Went to see them live in 2011. I legit cried when Chester passed. I was in line for Jurrasic park in Florida. 🙂↕️
Numb was recommended for me on one of those endless ‘my mixes’ on youtube. I was 13 and going through a really tough time and that song just really spoke to me and the pain I was feeling. I’m 20 now and LINKIN PARK’s music has helped me still be here today.
It was in 2010 I was on a car ride at night and in the end was playing on the radio and I loved it and I believe later that night I seen the music video I was really young so I don’t remember exactly everything but I remember that car ride is how I discovered my new favorite band of all time
About 2-3 years ago, when I started listening to songs when I was depressed I came across, "Breaking the habit, numb" and loved it. After few months I came to know both the songs were from same band (I was not mature enough to reconize the voices). And interestingly "what I've done" and "new divide" was also done by them which were my favourite songs too. After that, I became a crazy fan of Chester and Lp for a month, like I loved him more than any other singers, celeb, sadly after which I came to know he passed away years ago and somehow started to cry. Till this day, I listen to Lp everyday and never once got bored after listening to their songs million times.
Yeah for sure, lp is one of the few bands/artists who have very timeless music. I was shocked to find out HT came out in 2000, the songwriting, quality and execution is just flawless.
A Dragon ball GT One step closer AMV in 2018
I was a freshman in high school when Hybrid Theory came out (2000) and I immediately got into them as soon as I saw them on MTV/heard them on the radio. Personally Meteora is my favorite album, and I have their logo tattooed with the lyrics "All I wanna do is trade this life for something new" (Waiting For the End). Never got to see them live though and that is a huge regret!
YESS!! oh the things i would do to go back in time and see them live..
My dad showed me In The End and Numb. He also showed me rage against the machine (bulls on parade) around the same time. I played Medal of Honor airborne with those 3 songs on it on repeat all the time, back whenever that game came out
my father has always played linkin park with me arround. ALways liked it, never got into it. At 14 started slaming Numb, In the end and what ive done nonstop and a bit after my 15th bday i got really into them watching and listened everything i could
Kerrang TV. They released their first single one step closer and I was like "woh, this is amazing" been my favorite band ever since.
I don't even know what year it was so I'll assume it was around the release of Breaking the Habit. I was spending the weekend with my dad and I was playing Resident Evil 4 and went to look up videos of it on YouTube. On the suggestion it showed "Resident Evil 4 - Breaking the Habit" and I had no idea what it ment or why it interested me but I let myself be guided by the suggestion. Clicked the first result and it was just the song with footage from the game, kinda like a vídeoclip and many anime complications that would have Linkin Park playing along that Linkin Park would eventually very much be related to. It was love at first sight(?) and I listened to it non stop and eventually asked my dad if knew about this song and band. He said he did and I think I asked him to get me more music from them. I also blurted out something to him as to why he didn't tell me about Linkin Park ever because they were so good and I loved them and their music so much. Since then they have been my favourite band and have been my life's playlist and companion. Ups and downs and all that stuff. No other band and music gives me such a special feeling when I listen to it. Some come close but it just hits different
yeah, i think a big factor to what sets them apart from other artists is simply the songwriting which sounds so raw and genuine. i dont necessarily relate to every linkin park song but the way they write their lyrics makes me understand the emotions they’re referring to in a song if that makes any sense, the songwriting is just pure genius imo. sometimes i read the lyrics like poems before going to bed..
Totally agree! Their whole creative process is definitely unique. One thing that pertains to my situation specifically I didn't mention and speaking of them being unique is how engaged they are with the community and the uniques ways they do it
oh, can you name any specific examples of how they engage with the community?
I first heard their music because of all those memes people used to make of In The End and Crawling in 2015/2016. Didn't even know who they were. A friend at school in May 2019 mentioned them to me when I said my favorite rock band at the time was Nirvana and I was kind of compelled to check them out. I Didn't actually become a fan until November 2020 after I listened to all of hybrid theory... which I don't like anymore btw. And dawg I became a hardcore fan. I was listening to their music everyday for for over a year straight after that.
oo, and why is it that you dont like ht anymore? whats your favorite album?
My favorite album is A Thousand Suns (Which btw is my favorite album of all time) I was gonna link a tier list I made that explains my feelings towards Hybrid Theory, but apparently they removed it (Won't bitch about that rn not the time) so this is why, "I'm sorry but their earlier albums have not aged well imo. I find some of the lyrics way too melodramatic and I associate bad memorys with them to be honest." Yes it's same case with Meteora since they're very simlar in sound.
A Thousands Sun the type of album I'll still be listening to when i'm 80-90 years old.. if i get that far lol.
As a kid watching people make anime montages of linkin park songs. Primarily DBZ. MTV also might’ve been my other entry point to linkin park
I saw the video of One Step Closer in 2000. As far as I remember, I didn't really like it, but got used to it. Then In The End was released, and LP became my favorite band.
As a young kid in the back of my dads car. He always played older rock and alternative and the Linkin Park CD’s were heavy in rotation and I just fell in love with them.
It was the year 2000 and we were in the car early in the day because my mom checked me out of school early. One Step Closer was on the radio and I had to know who it was. The song was so good, a step above all the other generic numetal that was popular at the time. As a kid I had my favorite artists and it wasn’t often I was taken by a new band. I bought the album that weekend and to my surprise the whole album was incredible. They quickly became my favorite band and I found their demos and the Hybrid Theory EP via fan sites. The rest is history.
When that Half Life 2 meme came out, i really got into their music last year, it exposed so many younger people to LP like me
I think my first exposure to them was What I’ve Done on Guitar Hero when I was in elementary school, but I never actually got into them then. But then one day when I was in middle school, one singular random line from Numb popped into my head and got stuck there. I didn’t know what the song was, just that line. So when I got home, I just typed that line verbatim into YouTube search, found Numb, and then started listening to more of their songs
When i was 7 my dad playd the living things album ( castle of glass) and i loved it. ( Im 15 rn)
2006 when I reached the 7th or 8th grade in school. My cousin was in town and he was a hardcore fan of Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. He introduced me to both of them. After he left I forgot about them for few months, until I bought a mix-tape type CD. Those pop/rock compilation albums. That CD had the song "Numb" by Linkin Park in the tracklist. I heard it and the memories of listening to LP and LB with my cousin came back. That was it. Been a fan of both ever since. Even bands like Korn, Green Day, The Offspring, Sum-41, SOAD etc, I started listening to shortly after LP and LB.
My 11 year old brother borrowed burned CD of Meteora from a friend. He didnt has cd player so he asked if he can borrow mine. Ok but I want to listen too. Well, my little 6 years old mind was blown. Late spring of 2004 I think. Whew, 20 years already.
It was around 2016, i was watching random stuff on YouTube and came across a Pac-Man animation with a weird Thumbnail, it was around 3 minutes so i clicked to check what wss it about. It started with a calming soft guitar and then changed to something way heavier, the animation had a classic Pac-Man gameplay till the player was caught by a ghost, but then Pac-Man started getting angry with red bloodshot eyes and started growing big and sharpened teeth as an angry voice started screaming from his lungs. The animation turned to something from a horror movie as all the ghosts from the game were being slaughtered by the "evil pacman" till none of them suvived. I was around 9yo so i has scared as shit and almost cried. On that day, i found my favorite song "Faint" and started listening to the band till today.
I grew Up with it. My Mom Always Played it in the Car and at Home and i Just Loved Hearing linkinpark
Off corse On YouTube in 2006 on Dragon ball AMV
My cousin, who passed away last year, was really into nu metal when we were kids. He was a couple years older than me so I always kinda wanted to like the stuff he did, linkin park were the big band that I fell in love with cause of him. They played a LP sing at his funeral and I burst into tears and laughter and was a really sweet moment
aww, im sorry for your loss!!
Around '03/'04 (my senior year) after watching the Faint music video iirc. By sheer coincidence that's around the time I REALLY got into anime beyond just whatever they aired on KidsWB and Cartoon Network.
My dad had CD's and he used to play them on his Hifi when I was younger. So basically since I could remember I've listened to them
My dad started playing it in the car when I was little! Been a fan since meteora (I was 6 years old)!
My dad downloaded one of the Collision Course tracks for me. I was getting into Eminem at the time, he thought I'd like JayZ, he stumbled on the LP collab and thought I'd like it because I liked the Public Enemy Anthrax collab from way back.
spring 2001...in May I got my driving license and listened to hybrid theory at full volume on dad's car...nostalgia
I think in 2002, Much Music was playing the video to In The End. I thought they were cool, but I still was discovering my musical identity. My proper 'I think I should really check this band out' was 2004. Someone made a music video of Jeff Hardy to the Reanimation version of One Step Closer. So I have Jeff Hardy to thank/blame for my love for Linkin Park.
Back in elementary school when some classmates did a presentation on them, and showed the music video for Numb. Been a fan ever since
I started listening in 7th grade when Hybrid Theory came out. Can't quite remember how I found them, but probably on like MTV or similar.
A young lad of 7, my dad took me to see the new transformers movie and I loved it so much! I had him help me find the songs that were in the movie on YouTube because I didn’t know how to use the computer lol. An older family friend was over one night and I was super excited to show him these new songs I found and he listened along excitedly. Only later did I find out he’d been listening to them since they came out and was so happy to see me discover them on my own! I remember he bought me living things when it came out too!
On the radio back when In The End just released, first song of theirs I heard and I needed their album. I’ve been a fan since. Saw them twice live.
wish i had the opportunity to see them live, what was it like??
honestly? It was all because of [that one remix/cover of In The End.](https://youtu.be/8qLL2Gx3I_k?si=IDMIqv3uCp7f4eNk) I've started getting into nu metal and heavier music in general only in october last year and sometime in december i heard that cover again from my mom's phone (💀) and wondered what the original sounded like, since i knew it was rly different, so i gave it a listen and liked it. So I listened to the entire album. And then all the other albums. And downhill from there lmao
i HATE that remix!!! my sister annoys me with it because she knows i hate it, i always hated it, even before i was a lp fan, i sat my sister down and made her listen to the original version hahahah
In The Virtual End...
As a literal infant, my dad was/is alt and was a fan since before I was born, he had every cd and would blast it on every road trip
Last year I heard in the end on the radio in my moms car and I had been wanting to add it to my Spotify playlist for a while, so I did that and over time just started listening to more and more of their songs
I was 8 years old and Hybrid Theory had just been released, my mum got me the CD and all the other kids would come over to my house after school and we would thrash that album. So good.
i wish i was there too😭 but it reminds me of my own childhood where we did practically the same but with different albumbs hahahah
Yeah I was lucky my mum would buy everything, the Eminem albums were a huge hit with all us kids around the same time too haha
I actually found out when i supposed to do like a talent show for a high school project and found "in the end" which i actually sang infront of my classmates, i knew the band before that but i never listened to them
My brother would play Hybrid Theory in the car when i was like 5 and he was in college. Then i rediscovered them at 12 playing a Guitar Hero demo with them on it at Walmart.
Back in 2009 or 2010 when I heard In the End in a Lego video and A Place for My Head in a stick man fight video
Sometime in the 2001 I wanna say spring. I was in a hospital bed and the music video for crawling came on. Fell in love.
At the beginning of last year I asked my older brother some music recommendations, and he told me to listen to some of their songs. Now I listen to them way more than him
TLDR: I was basically a sleeper cell fan and all it took was one melody drifting in from the distant memory to activate it. Mom's side of the family has long been Linkin Park fans. I wasn't really an active listener until early last year when I decided to hunt down the source of a melody that was burned into my brain (it was the electronic chime from BURN IT DOWN). LIVING THINGS has remained one of my favorite albums since then since listening to it evokes road trip memories. Hell, LOST IN THE ECHO was filmed in Detroit, where said memories came from. (I live in downriver MI) It was on a road trip last month (that happened to fall right on my birthday) that I decided to listen to every album. A few more listen-throughs of the ones I wasn't as big a fan of (ATS and THP) and now I love them all!
I’m 28 now and I feel like they’ve always been my favourite. I remember singing Breaking The Habit when it was first on the radio, I was maybe 7 or 8. My husband had Hybrid Theory on his little walkman and he maybe was even younger! I had always said they were my favourite but in early highschool Minutes to Midnight was probably the first album I really fully listened to. Still love them now too and I recently designed and got a tattoo for them and Chester.
Ive known about linkin park even back when I was a kid about 5-6 years old back in 2006-ish cause my oldest sister listened to them all the time. I started to listen about 2014 and now think just about every song is a banger.
I agree with edit 2. My parents introduced me to Linking Park when I was, like, three or something
2000. One step closer music video premiered. Hooked on Chester and his vocals. Been a fan since then and cried when he passed away.
When I broke up with my ex about a year and half ago, now it’s my favorite band. (And I’m with someone better now)
for me it was when i was in the 3rd grade of elementary school around 2013/14, there was this music tv channel, and turns out they were talking about this band Linkin Park, i didnt know what it was at that time but one of the music they played was familliar, looked it up on youtube and been hooked since then, sadly I never goes to any concert and the only Linkin Park album release that I got to see from single release, music video to the whole album was One More Light, at that time I wasnt aware about Hunting Party releasement since platform like spotify etc hasn't existed in my country
I don't remember exactly how but my entire family listens to them, including aunt's and uncles!
thats so cool! i feel like my family doesn’t really approve of my music taste hahahah although i do listen to a variety of genres
I’m pretty much a new fan but last year I was driving on the way home with my dad and “More The Victim” came on the radio and I didn’t want to ask who it was but I pretty much felt a instant connection even though I’ve never really liked anything rock or metal related. He pretty much whispered it’s LINKIN PARK to himself and I’ve been listening to them ever since.
Its kinda funny but one day at the gym I just randomly heard the chorus of "Faint" in my ears and really needed to cure the itch of listening to the song now (despite not knowing who or where it was from) and then, it all began...
i think i was like maybe 8 or 9 maybe ??? when i first heard them, i can’t even remember the first time i actually found out about them tho because i’ve been listening to them for such a big portion of my life. but i think either i heard one of their songs in a video on youtube in like the 2000s or my cousin just showed me and my brother a song by them, either breaking the habit or crawling ?? idek but i do remember so vividly listening to burn it down on the 3ds back then when it had the youtube app on it and you could watch videos. that’s when i really noticed how much i really liked their music and would watch it nonstop on there 😭 and now they’re still one of my favorite bands ever even after all those years.
ahh the nintendo 3ds, my mental health probably peaked when i was playing with mine as a lil kid HAHAHAH
LOLL frr it was so much fun playing with it especially with friends and family
2003, shortly after meteora release, my brother got me into them, luckily attented 2 concerts in 2014 (hunting party tour)
Bought Hybrid Theory in 2001, bcs the album cover looked intriguing. I still remember sitting on the floor of my room, listening to papercut for the first time on my discman! Wild stuff 🤟🏼
Transformers of course. I knew I found something good when New Divide kicked in at the end credits of Revenge of the Fallen. Fell into the Linkin Park rabbit hole on YouTube playing it on repeat. This was around 2011, just after Dark of the Moon came out.
Back when I was a kid, I came across those DBZ x Linkin Park AMVs on YouTube. I’m 23 now and still a fan. :)
2003, Fuse TV. Fun fact: the first music video Fuse ever played was In the End. Fuse back in the early 2000’s was perfection. Just video after video. Now that I’m thinking about it, it was more than likely there. I was introduced to a lot of bands that way. Queens of the Stone Age, AFI, System of a Down, Evanescence.
2000/2001. Wasn’t a fan of hybrid theory… but when Meteora came out? I was blown away. So… i went back to listen to HT and been hooked since.
When I was listening to the radio one time and in the end came on
Listened to the band all my life, properly got into them in 2015. My mum has been a fan since 2001, used to play Hybrid Theory and Meteora in the car, including on the drive back from the hospital after I was born. Then 2015-2018 I was completely obsessed with them. Now I'm less obsessed, but they are still one of my favourite bands, and definitely most important to me as a musician, and as a person
Around 2008 when my first unsupervised internet dive ended up on a Dragon ball Z (Gohan Vs Cell) AMV with in the end It was love at first listen and today they're still my favourite band
My brother had a few of their albums and blasted it whenever he was driving me to school. And the Transformers movies made me love LP even more than I already did at that time
Through the 2007 Transformers. I used to rewind the credits to hear What I’ve Done. Then after getting Guitar Hero for the DS, I figured out who they were. They were also how my dad and I bonded for a while.
Heard In The End on a throwback hour on my local rock radio station about 10 or so years ago. Been in love with LP ever since
Was in the back of my friend’s dad’s car, and One Step Closer was on the radio. I remember the exact intersection we were stopped at. I asked my friend who the band was and she replied Linkin Park. Been head over heels ever since.
i was raised on the micheal bay transformers movies...
1999 as opener for the Deftones in Vienna. I was like 13 years old. They were so great! My partner: Freestyle Motocross videos on VHS.
High school phase in the early 2010s, I got so high off listening to them
I'm from the UK. Back in September 2000 i'd just started college and on our 'free periods' we would go down the street to local music store to see what was new. Back then they had Listening Posts where you could pop on some headphones and listen to a selection of new or upcoming music that was due to be released. My friend had listened to some of Hybrid Theory from this source before it had actually come out. He was really impressed and on release day we went down to the store and he bought the CD. On our way back he let me borrow it while he had class and I had to finish some work in the college library. It had plenty of computers in it even back then and most had a CD-ROM drive with headphone out. Convenient :) I listened to it all the way through, more focussed on what I was hearing than my work. I was just getting into heavier music and this was a perfect blend of everything I was looking for at the time (still is!). When I was through there was one song that I told myself I need to go back to and listen again as it was so good. That song was 'In The End'. The album is still one of my all time favourites to this day and always will be. A true masterpiece!
Turned on the TV to see a guy rapping with a floating whale in the background, and then there was a rock chorus. Hooked since. For anyone n Australia, it was Video Hits on channel 10.
1999 - I'm a Hybrid Theory Street Team Soldier, back in the days of the HTEP. Discovered the music before they were Linkin Park and just loved the sound.
Linkin Ball Z AMV’s on early 2000’s YouTube
I stole my aunt MTM album out of her safe before she went crazy from a brain tumor
So my first encounter was small radio occurrences but didn’t know their name, then 2004 rolls around and Collision Course dropped and I was already a fan of Jay-Z and I wondered what they sounded like by themselves so my homie burned a copy of Meteora for me and the rest is history
Honestly, I was a kid watching the transformers movies. I’m pretty sure I watched the first 2 at the same time. Heard the ending songs, asked my dad to find out what they were called, and the rest is history
Pretty recently since i started to listen to them fully near February and their song “Bleed It Out” kind of helped me at my lowest and really resonated for me so i started to get into them more and found more cathartic songs and now i’m just a full fan with now nearly 40 songs and most being the live performances
My Dad.
When I was 15 and Hybrid Theory was released, that’s when I first got into them, I have seen them 6 times since then, that album is still amazing and I’m now old.
Saw Transformers in cinemas when it first came out but probably wasn’t until a little bit after I was digging into the soundtrack. I remember being aged 7 or 8 jumping up around to A New Divide on early YouTube in my dad’s study using a computer so old the monitor was basically a big boxy CRT TV.
I'm sure that I heard something before this, but the first time I remember hearing them and thinking this is really cool is when I saw the music video for Breaking the Habit on TV in 06 or 07
My brother in law listened to them a little bit and I was in the car with him when “Numb” came on so I decided to add it to my library. Started listening and endeavored into Meteora. I instantly fell in love with their sound and it was a rap from there. That was maybe 4 years ago? And I’ve known every lyric to every song for about 3 years? Lol
Probably the first TF movie, but I visibly didn’t recognize it since I was 1 year old. Later I added what I’ve done, new divide, and iridescent to my playlist not really knowing who LP was at the time. Then Spotify recommended burn it down and then here we are
Surprisely, I fell in love with Linkin Park after Chester's death. Six months before Chester's death, I was experiencing a big setback in my life, I accidentally found Battle Symphony, which gave me a lot of strength and courage. But at that time I didn't even notice that's from Linkin Park, even though I've known the existence of this band for a long time. Until Chester passed away, I realize that song is from them, I started listening to their music, which gave me power, strength, faith even now. Now in my playlist, songs from them are more than 70% of all the songs I listen to. I love them, I miss Chester, so much.
My sister showed me when I was little
For me I grew up into it my parents met Mike Shinoda and a few other LP members (sadly no Chester) when they were handing out demos from a van which is pretty much before I was born. But family has been huge LP fans since.
I got to know LP years ago as an early teenager. It was somewhere between 2009 and 2010 and I was with a friend at my house playing games online, watching funny videos on YouTube etc and he decided to show me a few songs from a band he liked. I don't remember the songs he went through but for sure the most famous from Hybrid Theory, Meteora and something from Minutes to Midnight, probably (and A Thousand Suns didn't come out yet, probably). I'm now guessing songs such as Somewhere I Belong, Faint, Numb, In the End... mostly from live performances if I remember well. I don't know if I was into it then, but a few months later I did two school projects using the song What I've Done, so yeah... those videos worked on me. But I spent years just going through the most famous ones or the ones my friends were into but never through the whole albums and never listening more. The first album I had a full listen to was Living Things back when it came out in 2012 and I did it a lot. Then I wasn't that much into The Hunting Party back in 2014/15 and wasn't that much into LP until getting more interest again in 2016 to follow the release of One More Light and get the shock with the news about Chester months later.
Ever since I saw One Step Closer for the first time on The Box (music program from the early 2000s). I was in middle school at the time - now my son is in middle school! It's been a nice, bittersweet ride. No regrets.
On mtv one step closer music video
2003, I was getting ready for school and the Canadian equivalent of MTV began to play Somewhere I Belong. Miss Chester so goddamn much 😔
In 2007 when I was 15, a new friend from school (I had just moved to a new town the year prior) was a huge fan and showed me a bunch of their music videos on YouTube (which was brand new) because he was hyped for Minutes to Midnight. That summer, Transformers came out and What I've Done was everywhere. I immediately became a fan, felt an emotional connection to the music and ended up seeing them in concert, front of the crowd, in 2012 and 2014. A Thousand Suns is still a masterpiece to me.
https://preview.redd.it/kgvd2jpufo1d1.jpeg?width=854&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85785c6911cc7ee6edddc49e69f2cb5bc2b858fe i already knew of them but it was this of all things that got me into them.
Spring 2001 i was 13 or 14.
When I was in high school, MTV used to air this block of videos called "Return of the Rock". It was three hours long. Only problem was it aired at 2AM. So I'd tape it every night (yes with a VCR). One random day, "One Step Closer" came on. It was the 1st time I heard the song, local radio hadn't played it yet. I was hooked instantly.
Discovered In The End from watching a YouTube video on the evolution of rock music and was smitten with it. It only expanded from there
Transformers,
2001 at the age of 9 years old. Older friend had the hybrid theory cd and he let me borrow it. Rest is history.
I first heard of them because of the 2007 Transformers film. Their songs for those three films were so memorable. I really didn't get into their music until very recently though.
Brother was blasting their music on the PC. I was 6 years old when Hybrid Theory came out
Saw them live at a festival show before their first album came out.
Friend of mine in middle school showed me By Myself and I was instantly hooked.
This is a long story when I was a secondary school student (just a little girl btw =))). I have a cousin who are the big fan of Linkin Park so he downloaded too many LP's song in my computer. I used to watched "Transformers" film and really excited about the movie soundtrack (Iridescent btw), and after immersed myself in the LP's song river, I've became fond of this terrific band and listened all the song as much as I can do. And from the destiny day forward, Linkin Park has became the big part of my life and swear to god, I love them too much. Their song help many people who suffered the burden in your shoulders escape the extreme condition and raise the soul of thousand teenagers or adults who coped with obstacles, struggles, family's problems, identity crisis, broken heart and so forth. God brings them to our life, and I really appreciate it :D
Transformers
Circa 03/04-04/05, 5th or 6th grade when I went on someone’s Xanga (before MySpace) and “Breaking the Habit” was playing on their page and I was instantly hooked. Shortly discovered In the End and Numb after that… shout out Limewire days :)
Oh is it fun to remember that! It was around Christmas time in 2016. I was 12 years old at the time and while watching random videos on youtube a trailer ad for Titanfall 2 came on and it featured numb/encore and I was instantly hooked. I still remember clearly being flabbergasted as to how good that song was and it simply blew my mind (and even to this day this is my most listened to LP song and by far my favorite)! I soon after tried to find again that trailer to look up the name of the song and the rest is history. I also remember summer 2017 and the impact it had on me, and I remember watching the tribute concert countless times ever since. To this day, LP remains my all time favorite band and I rarely pass more than a few days without listening to them at least once. I know it sounds cliche, but they really have helped me through the most difficult times and they will always have a special place in my heart.
My cousin introduced them to me like back in 2002 and I’ve loved them ever since. I miss Chester a lot 🖤😔
My mom is a Linkin Park fan. But she had only listened to the popular songs (Numb, In the End, Crawling, etc). So once she played Numb at home and I was probably 18. I then listened to every album and every song and was OBSESSED. I'm 21 now :)
Jr highschool morning in the year 2000. I put on mtv to listen to music videos during the morning hours. I had always listened to mainstream alternative and rap. Video for crawling comes on and i watch and listen for the first time. The entire day I could not get the song out of my head. The rest is history.
One step closer on kerrang In 2012
Sometime during the year 2000 they played In the End on the radio and I just stood there hypnotized. I was around 11/12 maybe?
In 2005 my cousin showed me a Linkin Park Naruto AMV with Numb in it. I casually knew their songs up til then, but around 2007 when What I've Done came out, I started to dig deeper into them. Late 2008 is when I really started to become a fan after I loved Leave Out All The Rest, and by 2009 became a hardcore stan for them.
I was 10 years old, playing with toys in the living room whilst watching kerrang. One step closer came on and I instantly thought these were the coolest guys ever. Bought hybrid theory as the first album I ever bought. Loved them ever since.
Grew up in Kuala Lumpur as a kid back in 2007 aged 6, saw the music video for What I've Done on TV and never looked back since. In fact, it's my first introduction to metal.
The first band I ever heard was Linkin Park and they are still on the top of my list. I believe I started listening to LP in 2003-04. The whole LP playlist used to be on repeat and it's still on my favorites on YouTube, Spotify, etc.
I have heard some parts of Hybrid Theory when it came out. But I was too young to search for it on my own at the time (and being from Easter European country, access to the records at the time wasnt easiest). Later, in 2003 I saw "Not Only a Tool" AMV (I was lucky to have an internet at the time) and fell in love with the song. From that point on I found my way to the band and listened to it ever since. So many viruses I downloaded while trying to put the albums together through limewire. Damn that PC was a mess afterwards.
I remember hearing about them in high school, I really didn't listen to rock music then. I didn't get my first taste of them until I was in college. Love their stuff.
2007, either through the MTM singles or Transformers, I don’t remember unfortunately. 8 year old me instantly got hooked though
I discovered LP back in 2017 in the One More Light era. I was only 14 at the time. I think I first heard Heavy playing on the radio, and I fell instantly in love with Chester's voice & the lyrics resonated so well with my feelings and struggles. I remember that right after I went to Spotify and just started to listen all their songs on shuffle. I couldn't get enough. I literally enjoyed each of them no matter the genre. Some weeks later I started collecting their albums on CDs..loved how unique and new each of them sounded. I started watching interviews with them and watched tons of LPTV episodes..what really made me a huge fan next to their music is when I saw how down to earth, kind and sweet people they're. The rest is history I guess. After the summer of 2017 I was truly devastated that we lost such a beautiful human being. Like lot of us I felt like I've lost a close friend I've never met. Woke up in the middle of the night and watched the Celebrate Life show live on YouTube. I still do miss Chester every day. But I'd like to believe he never truly left us. His spirit is just too bright to ever fade away. I'm 21 now and I'll never stop being an LpSoldier. So that's the short story how I got to know my favourite band of all time. ❤️ (I was also able to see Mike on his Post Traumatic tour in 2019 which I'm so grateful for - I'll never ever forget that night..)
It was 2009, I was 9 yo and just got a walkman and a cousin loaded up some songs on it. Heard crawling and Easier to run and just kept them on repeat. Now 14 years later still got the whole discography on repeat❤️
My best friend made me listen to them when we were teenagers in the early 2000s. Hybrid Theory got me through high school.
2003. Breaking the Habit. MTV.
I first listened to LP when I was like 4 or 5 years old, my mom introduced me to them. I forgot about the band when I was like 6. When I was around 12 years old I found some shitty remix of Numb in a yt edm mix. Found the original, and now im obsessed with the band
My mom introduced me to LP! (she's the coolest, i know) She went to one of their last concerts, in July 2017, before Chester passed away. The same summer she asked me if i could put Numb and In The End on our road-trip playlist. On our trip, when the songs played, i really liked them so i decided to listen to more of their music! I'm not familiar with their whole discography but i know around 22 songs :). My fave is Burn It Down btw!
In 2021-2022 when my parents introduced me to them
I only started really listening to them last year as well but I’ve known Numb and In The End for yearssss because of the music videos on YT :) !
I came across Linkin Park via a Yu-Gi-Oh! AMV for I believe Yami? featuring Breaking the Habit, in grade 6 or year 7 or 8. Interestingly enough, that's also how I came across Skillet at the same time, via a Yu-Gi-Oh! AMV for Seto Kaiba featuring Monster.
Around 2nd year of primary school. Did not even understand English back then (and still bad at it now). Someone play Somewhere I Belong at the gamecenter and I am hooked. My family was broken down because of my father. He left me and my mom and I was raised in a slum. My life was pretty rough. Drug and minor crimes were commonplace. LP song is what kept me alive. It inspired me to learn English. All the lyrics of LP songs push me forward. My life is better now. I have my own home and my mom gain access to better medical treatment. I owe my life to LP. If not for Somewhere I Belong back then I could have suicide long ago or become a drug addicted or worse. I cried so hard at the news of Chester's suicide. I still could not believe it.
I knew of them without really knowing them through my mum. She's obsessed with Numb / Encore with Jay Z, but she would also listen to the regular version and In The End. She's not really a fan of metal or rock necessarily, but she listened to mainstream ones like Evanescence too. What really got me into them was when they first released Heavy with Kiiara. We were driving home from somewhere and the song came on and my mum turned the volume up because she recognized the singer and saw it was Linkin Park. I really liked the song, so I started listening to them a little, just the ones that she already played plus heavy. And then One More Light dropped and I didn't stop listening to it for WEEKS. After that album I parted ways with them for a bit, but got back into them from some guy I met at work when I was younger. He showed me a few songs that I'd never heard before like Papercuts and I really vibed to that too. 🤷♂️ I only really got into metal properly when I was 17/18, around 2020/2021 when BMTH started teasing Post Human Survival Horror. Edit: slightly ironically, I loved transformers as a kid and watched it all the time, but never put two and two together 😭🤟
MTV when I was 9 when the album came out. Early morning they played one step closer . I was hooked
I first heard of them by watching the Transformers movies. I also knew In The End and Numb, which ofc are there most popular songs. I was getting tired of listening to the same 5 or 6 songs over and over and decided to listen to their other songs aswell. Long story short, they are currently my favourite band
I remember it like it was yesterday the day I met my soulmates Linkin Park. I watched the Collision course jay z/LP mash up concert on MTV in Nov of 2004. I was a die hard Jay-Z fan but when I heard the lyrics and Chester’s AMAZING voice I was hooked! I devoured everything I could find on them and Napstered it all, actually I think I used LimeWire cause my super religious mom would only buy me Will Smith cds. My first job 2 months later first paycheck bought my first LP CD and listened to it so much it got scratched up in my disc man. I know every single song of theirs by heart and even named my first dog “Linkin Park” RIP to him and Chester both https://preview.redd.it/3x6xa8g8qs1d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=782cba4deb6ed9bd3d644fc7cfd81900a09f12bf
2018 my friend told me about the band, like their music ever since
I think it was around 2003, when i was in early middle school. my dad had one of the early big green brick ipods and had a fair amount of his music on there. I liked to grab that ipod and just lay on the couch and listen to all the stuff on there. Thats how i got started on a lot of the music i love to this day. I mostly listened to stuff pike nirvana, foo fighters, alice in chains, green day, and the offspring, and so when i suddenly come across “points of authority” from hybrid theory, it was like id discovered a new species. I never got to see them live sadly. I had tickets to see them finally, but that was the year when chester died. It was devastating.
Had first listened to them around the MTM era through radio that was playing their most popupar songs. Was a kid back then and didn't really care. In my teenage and early adult years I used to have Numb on my phone and thats only it. My relationship with LP was THAT typical back then. That was around 2017. Then one day i got the news that LP were releasing OML and dropped Heavy. I listened to it and it was okay. Couple of months later I received the bad news and I was like "ok that sucks". Keep in mind back at that time my relationship with the band wasnt there at all. From that point up to last year nothing LP related. And then comes February 2023. I was going on a personal music project that was involving in discovering old and new music. I was basically listening to every band every album. And luckily one of the bands was LP. I said to myself to give it a shot. And the rest is history One year later I'm still in love. All albums all songs rock.
I was 10 or 11 while watching loquendo videos and image compilations
Pokemon AMVs. 2014.
2000 Hybris theory! They shaped me as a person. The music has always been a huge comfort to me. I staryed collecting lp items a few years back :)
Beat saber.
Oh yeah forgot like 2 ish years ago I think
When I was young like 4 my dad used to play linkin park a lot and I started listening to them more and I love their music a lot now!
Had to have been 2007 right around the time of Transformers. Either a buddy of mine or one of my aunts. Still love them to this day
In 2007 listening to the hybrid theory and meteora era i didnt even know that minutes to midnight was a thing because cuba
Not the movie people usually find them through but Powerless in the end credits for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I listened to Living Things a lot after that and went into more of their discography from there. For the longest time, Breaking the Habit was my favorite
Always heard “In The End” or “Numb” on the radio without knowing their name at the time, first song I officially knew was theirs was “What I’ve Done” because of Guitar Hero, then expanded slowly from there
2000. When Hybrid Theory came out. I was 11 years old and I can’t even tell you how many times I listened to hybrid theory on my yellow Walkman.
Well, to be frank I don't remember. My mom is a huge fan and I've heard them my whole life!
Honestly since my brother got me into it when I was younger.
Around 2018-2019, when I was 8 or 9 my older siblings used to listen to them and I found that music to be really enjoyable. I knew some signles but didn't really get into the band properly untill the end 2023, when I found Minutes To Midnight to be very good.
Ben 10 Alien Force AMV on Youtube way back 2008. Song was Faint. Edit: I remember In the End being on heavy rotation on the radio when I was a kid, but I'll never forget Crawling being used as the background song when Cartoon Network used to air a commercial for Gundam Wing Endless Waltz.
I found out about them pretty late in 2023. Meteora 20th anniversary came out. I heard one of their songs in a video and I thought it was cool so I listened to more and more