One More Light by Linkin Park

One More Light, Linkin Park's seventh studio album, arrived on May 19, 2017, through Warner Bros. and Machine Shop, and it finds the band that once welded hip-hop to heavy metal swapping the riffs for pop polish. Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson ran the production through sessions that stretched from September 2015 to February 2017, and they opened the door to pop's professional songwriters: Julia Michaels, Justin Tranter, J. R. Rotem, Ross Golan, Andrew Goldstein, Blackbear and Eg White all had a hand, with Pusha T, Stormzy and Kiiara stepping up as guests. Kiiara shares the lead single, "Heavy". It's also the first Linkin Park record with a title track, a song the band considered its heart.

Critics were split, and the sellout charge stung Chester Bennington enough that he fired back angrily. It still opened at number one in several countries and became the band's fifth Billboard 200 chart-topper. Bennington died by suicide two months after its release, making it the final album with him and with drummer Rob Bourdon, who chose not to come back when the band re-formed in 2024.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.