Just finished re-listening to Linkin Park’s 2007 album Minutes to Midnight for the first time in over a decade. It was quite a departure in style to what came before it in Hybrid Theory and Meteora (two of my favorite albums of all time) that I don’t know that I ever really gave it a fair shake. I mean, I liked it when it came out and always thought it was a good album, but man… what a phenomenal album.

It is definitely the most political album that I have heard from the band, and it really captures the zeitgeist of the my friends and I near the end of the Bush era. There are songs about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina, and the corruption of the political class. So it’s weird to listen to it nearly 20 years later and still feel the same tension and gravity of each song as it expresses a sense of lament, rage, and the betrayal of broken promises.

To me, it feels timeless. Not because of some nostalgic sentiment, but because listening to songs like Hands Held High, Shadow of the Day, and No More Sorrow really can fit in any of the administration from Bush through the present day.

Meanwhile songs like What I’ve Done, Leave Out All the Rest, Given Up, and Valentines Day point to the inner struggles we all face as the chaotic world around us does its thing. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m genuinely impressed and don’t know how I’ve been sleeping on Minutes to Midnight for so long without recognizing how deep it is. Must just finally be its time for me. It’s definitely worth a listen.