"A rap-rock outfit with a jones for DEPECHE MODE? Is this a glitch in the matrix?" That's how ROLLING STONE greeted LINKIN PARK's debut album 17 years ago. What RS missed, what anyone could have missed, is that Linkin Park was entirely *about* glitches in the matrix. Screaming metallic vocals as legit pop hooks. Soaring anthems made of angst and anguish. (I can't begin to tell you how many times I saw the word "angst" in headlines on Thursday.) Songs about numbness that left you feeling everything. JAY-Z mashups executed with religious sincerity. Telling its own fans to f*** off if they weren't feeling what the band was feeling in 2017. By which time the band was beginning to sound like an actual glitch in this actual MATRIX. And through it all there was the forever loud, forever catchy and forever anguished voice of CHESTER BENNINGTON, telling us he was "waiting for the end to come," that he'd "become so numb I can't feel you there" and then, Thursday morning, in a video the band released on his close friend CHRIS CORNELL's birthday, something about "mistakes" that "might cost you everything." Bennington's closeness to Cornell has been well chronicled, and on the day Cornell committed suicide two months ago, he poured out his emotions in a heartbreaking note on TWITTER. He, too, fought addiction, openly and seemingly honestly. Talked about it, sang about it, reached deep into millions and millions of hearts with it. I've written too many times in the past couple of years that it's impossible for most of us to know why someone would take their own life, no matter how much we think we know about that life. It's impossible to explain unexplainable angst, unexplainable anguish, unexplainable pain. Except, of course, Chester Bennington did explain it, over and over again, through one of the great 21st century rock careers. That's what we know. That's all we can know. Besides the fact that he took his life on Chris Cornell's birthday, a sunny LOS ANGELES day, and it's way too dark out here. MusicSET: "Chester Bennington's Screaming Life"... P.S. I don't care what everybody says, he was a fully credible temporary replacement for SCOTT WEILAND in STONE TEMPLE PILOTS... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from TYLER THE CREATOR, LANA DEL REY, NINE INCH NAILS, DAPHNI's FABRICLIVE mix, ROMEO SANTOS, STANTON MOORE, DIZZEE RASCAL, NICOLE ATKINS, NAV & METRO BOOMIN, MEEK MILL, CHILDHOOD, SARA EVANS, LE'ANDRIA JOHNSON, IN THIS MOMENT, STEVE AOKI, FOSTER THE PEOPLE, BILLY OCEAN, AVEY TARE, CORNELIUS, DED, DECLAN MCKENNA, DAMIAN MARLEY and CHRIS ROBINSON BROTHERHOOD... The FYF FEST in LA, featuring BJÖRK, MISSY ELLIOTT, FRANK OCEAN, NINE INCH NAILS and more, is streaming on Twitter all weekend starting at 6 pm PT today.