actors & performers
Linkin Park reform with a new singer – three other bands that have successfully done the same
Glenn Fosbraey, University of Winchester
Linkin Park 2024
Linkin Park have announced that they are reforming, seven years after disbanding due to the death of lead singer Chester Bennington.
Along with the announcement of a six-date international tour and the promised release of new music, it was also revealed that Emily Armstrong, formerly of the Los Angeles group Dead Sara, would be joining founding member Mike Shinoda on co-lead singer duties.
One of the most successful bands of the streaming age, and the only band to feature in Spotify’s top ten most-streamed albums of all time, Linkin’ Park’s legion of fans are divided on Armstrong’s appointment. Many are simply happy to see them return, but others have been critical of the decision to keep using the band name in the absence of Bennington.
Linkin Park are by no means the first band to enter a second phase after the loss of their lead singer. Here are three other notable examples.
1. Queen
How do you replace a singer who many believe is the greatest of all time? That’s the conundrum Queen faced when they decided to continue following the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991.
The surviving band members had a taste of performing with a different frontman during the following year’s Concert for Freddie Mercury, where George Michael’s performance of Somebody to Love stealing the show. After that, they had a go at trying to do it in-house, with Brian May and Roger Taylor sharing the vocals on the 1997 single No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young).
Then, after losing another quarter of the original lineup when bassist John Deacon called it a day, Paul Rodgers took on mic duties between 2004 and 2009.
Adam Lambert became the latest to fill Freddie Mercury’s Adidas high-tops in 2011 – a position he still holds today. Though the band has always performed as Queen + Paul Rodgers or Queen + Adam Lambert, never fully taking the plunge to officially “replace” Freddy.
2. New Order
Post-punk purveyors of gloom Joy Division may have ceased to exist following the death of frontman Ian Curtis – but it didn’t signal the end of the surviving band members’ creative output.
Rising phoenix-like from the ashes of their old group only a few months later as New Order, guitarist Bernard Sumner was recast as the lead singer. Gillian Gilbert turned the trio back to a quartet when she joined the ranks to play guitar and keyboards.
Gradually morphing from their post-punk roots to reinvent themselves as a dance and electronic act, with the release of Blue Monday in 1983, they made the move from indie darlings to bona fide superstars. Forty-four years on from their (re)birth and still going strong, New Order’s story is one of both survival and revival.
3. AC/DC
Following the death of original singer Bon Scott in February 1980, AC/DC acted swiftly to appoint new vocalist Brian Johnson in time to begin recording new material in April that year.
With 50 million units sold and the title of biggest selling rock album of all time, the resulting album Back in Black undoubtedly marks AC/DC’s commercial high point.
The five albums released with Scott at the microphone are often more celebrated by the critics but with 11 studio albums under his belt – and the last three reaching number one in many countries around the globe with multi-platinum sales – it’s hard to see Johnson’s tenure as anything but a massive success. Though the argument about which singer is better continues to rumble on with fans.
Moving on
In the case of the reformed Linkin Park, Shinoda has spoken about feeling empowered by the new lineup, seeing it as the beginning of a new chapter in the band’s history rather than “erasing its past” – an accusation some critics have levelled at him.
We’ll never know what Bennington himself would think, of course, but these words from an interview with Kerrang Radio shortly before his death might reassure Shinoda that he’s doing the right thing: “What matters is that you took the chance to do something that you felt was important to you and that’s what being an artist is all about.”
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Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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