American rock band Linkin Park have had a huge and illustrious career over the course of almost two decades and with that repertoire, they've provided the world with some of the most well-known rock anthems to date. One of their most prolific releases from sophomore album, Meteora, is Numb, which has just become the most viewed rock music video in YouTube's 14-year history. Guns N' Roses' November Rain previously held this title but has been overtaken by Numb with more than 2 million more views at the time of writing and is top of only three rock videos to surpass a billion views.
The video only broke the billion views threshold in November of last year and at the time of writing currently has 1,229,715,320 views.
Numb spent a combined 12 weeks topping the Modern Rock chart between 2003 and 2004, showing its influence and captivating not just existing Linkin Park fans, but garnering a much larger audience because of its universally relatable lyrics atop Linkin Park's distinctive mashup of hard rock and electronic instrumentals. The hard-hitting lyrics of the song immediately captivate and relate to the listener right from the opening line, "I'm tired of being what you want me to be" to the last and helps succinctly address the feelings of identity, failure and personal struggles.
The song would go on to attract more fame and attention when it was used in Linkin Park and Jay Z's 2004 mashup album, Collision Course. The 2004 release debuted at No. 1 and Numb/Encore went on to become a top 20 Hot 100 hit and took best rap/sung collaboration at the 2006 Grammys, where it was mashed up again with Yesterday in a live performance featuring Sir Paul McCartney.
In MTV's The Ride with Linkin Park, Bennington fondly reflects on the performance, stating, "The coolest moment was when we were standing there at the end. We all had our arms around each other, and I remember looking out and there's like, all these super legendary people there. Everybody stands up." Guitarist Brad Delson adds, "It had to be, for me, one of the more incredible moments of our career and it's just one of many that I'm just really proud I've been able to experience with my friends."
However, in 2012, Spin released exclusive footage of the band performing a special rendition of the song backstage. The video also includes clips of the two frontmen [Bennington and Shinoda] expressing their feelings on how the band is perceived by newer fans as being angsty and serious, a stark contrast to the laid-back and comical performance in the video.
Bennington comments, "We're just dudes from Agoura and Calabasas and Phoenix and we like to make music and we happen to be in a band that has done really well for itself. We're stoked about it, but we still joke around and we like to have fun and interact like everybody else. We just happen to capture all that stuff and so our really serious fans, they know that we have a sense of humour."
No one can deny the influence that Linkin Park has had and will likely continue to have over the years, but Numb is seemingly in a league of its own. The sheer amount of views and likes the video has amassed over the years goes to show the impact that it's had on people, with people sharing stories of what the song means to them in the comments. Linkin Park's music has a way of getting to the heart of people and Numb is one of the best examples of this. It will undoubtedly continue to gain views and leave its impact on so many others, as their music transcends generations.
In a live acoustic performance from 2017, Shinoda comments on this, saying, "We were playing the Hollywood Bowl in LA and I looked out and I saw a dad with his daughter standing on the seats. The dad was singing along, and you could see, when we were playing the older stuff, he's elbowing his daughter like, 'This is my jam!' The daughter would do the same thing when we played the newer stuff. It's so cool to be in a position where there's this multigenerational fan aspect, but it's also cool to have this multigenerational artist aspect."
In an interview with Artist Direct, Bennington said of Meteora, "I think Meteora was a really good step for us in terms of our ability to write the kinds of songs we were going to be capable of writing. I look at Hybrid Theory and Meteora in a really strange way. We knew what we wanted, and we knew how to execute to a certain degree. However, we were also just going for it. We didn't really care about what anybody else was doing. We also didn't care whether or not the songs fit together stylistically as a whole or a collection of songs." He continues, "It was more like, "This riff is sick!" Then, we'd just scream over it, and the next song would be a mid-tempo ballad and you'd sing the way that song needed to be sang. We were testing. We were students in college. We were in the lab, and we happened to stumble across something everybody liked, and it worked. I think Meteora was an extension of that."
To date, Meteora has sold 27 million copies worldwide and continues to hold a special place in many LP fans' hearts as it hosts not just Numb, but other beloved and well-known singles such as Breaking The Habit and Faint.