Seven years after the tragedy of Chester Bennington’s death, Linkin Park has returned with a new lead singer and new music — and fans’ reactions are rife with controversy. 

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A staple of nu metal, Linkin Park launched their path to success with the release of their first album, Hybrid Theory, the best-selling album of 2001. After finding commercial success, the band continued to make their mark on the world by releasing six other studio albums, including the highly influential Meteora and Minutes to Midnight, three live albums, four compilation albums, two remix albums, three soundtrack albums, four video albums and a slew of EPs and singles. 

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Everyone knows Linkin Park, even if they don’t. Songs like “Crawling,” “Numb” and “What I’ve Done” are so firmly cemented in the canon of early 2000s music that trying to plead ignorance of this monumental group is near impossible. 

But then, tragedy struck. Chester Bennington, one of the band’s lead singers and perhaps the most iconic voices of the genre, committed suicide in 2017. 

Following the tragic death of Bennington, the band went on hiatus for the next six years. They put out a few unreleased singles, remixes and 20th-anniversary editions of Hybrid Theory and Meteora. Regarding the band’s future without Bennington, Linkin Park rapper Mike Shinoda made his position clear: 

“It’s not my goal to look for a new singer. If it does happen, it has to happen naturally. If we find someone who is a great person and a good stylistic fit, I could see trying to do some stuff with somebody. I would never want to feel like we are replacing Chester returning to live shows,” he said in a 2019 interview. 

Still, rumours began circulating earlier this year about the band’s return with a new, woman singer as the band released a compilation album, Papercuts, along with other singles. These rumours proved to be true when on Sept. 5 of this year, Linkin Park announced their comeback with Emily Armstrong — a former vocalist for the band Dead Sara — as a lead singer and Colin Brittain as the drummer — replacing co-founder Rob Bourdon, who “wanted to put some distance between himself and the band,” according to Shinoda. 

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At the same time, Linkin Park released their first new song in seven years, “The Emptiness Machine,” and announced their first full-length album since One More Light, titled From Zero.