“Somewhere I Belong” by Linkin Park

"Somewhere I Belong" was the first thing the world heard from Linkin Park's second album, Meteora, sent to American radio on February 24, 2003, and it's built on the push and pull at the band's heart: Chester Bennington's raw-throated wail and Mike Shinoda's clipped raps trading lines over a wall of guitars. It sits third on the album.

Don Gilmore produced and recorded it with the band, and Andy Wallace mixed it, and every element is polished to a hard sheen. Brad Delson's guitars crunch, Rob Bourdon's drums hit with machine precision, and the whole thing is built for the moment the chorus breaks open and Bennington lets rip. The whole band shares the writing credit, and it sounds like a group effort, every part clicking into place.

It went top ten on several charts and all the way to number one in New Zealand in April 2003. Its life didn't end with radio, either: in March 2026 it became the seventh Linkin Park song to pass one billion streams on Spotify.

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