Soundtrack of My Life

Song: Faint

Artist: Linkin Park

Album: Meteora

Everyone has an angry song. This is one of mine and I needed it today.

Take your ideas about Nu-Metal or Rap Metal or whatever the hell you want to call it and piss off because Linkin Park is far more than the genre they were dumped into upon their debut. These guys are more than just posers like Fred Durst or kooks like Jonathan Davis of Korn. These guys are musicians, vocalists, an emcee's emcee and all together wicked. Accept it.

Faint pulls it all together and throws it at the world from the jump with a crashing drum beat courtesy of Rob Bourdon and crunching guitars that hit hard and fast and loud. It's vintage LP and it's fan-damn-tastic!

There aren't many vocalist on the male side that I like more than Chester Bennington and that is saying a lot. Dude just puts everything into every lyric, every song and every performance and that is part of what works here. Chester booming out the chorus at the top of his lungs with the passion and conviction he does not only fits the song to a tee, but convinces you that he isn't just singing a song. These are words he believes, 100%.

And then there is my man Mike Shinoda. Because Chester is so powerful and so forceful on every track, Mike S often is unfairly overshadowed. I say unfairly because if anyone was smart enough to go out and pick up his group Fort Minor's outstanding album The Rising Tied, then you know that the LP MC is pretty damn talented in his own right.

Factor in that everyone - EVERYONE - has felt like the lyrics of this song convey at one point or another:

I am a little bit of loneliness a little bit of disregard
Handful of complaints but I can’t help the fact that everyone can see these
scars
I am what I want you to want what I want you to feel
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you, to just believe
this is real
So I let go, watching you, turn your back like you always do
Face away and pretend that I'm not
But I'll be here 'cause you're all that I got

I am a little bit insecure a little unconfident
Cause you don't understand I do what I can but sometimes I don't make sense
I am what you never wanna say but I've never had a doubt
It's like no matter what I do I can't convince you for once just to hear me out
So I let go watching you turn your back like you always do
Face away and pretend that I'm not
But I'll be here 'cause you're all that I've got

When you've had a rotten day - and I had a rotten day today - coming home, clicking on this track and letting it just belt on repeat is all that I need.

Oh yeah, the mash-up version with Jay Z from the Collision Course album, "Jigga What / Faint" is equally bad-ass, so you might want to go check it out too.

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One other song was in strong consideration... "My Ass Fell Off" by Dan & The Tobins.