Linkin Park Brings Pusha T and Stormzy To Unruly Track 'Good Goodbye'

We've only had high praises for Linkin Park's latest sound with One More Light, and this next tune is no different. It's not the same emotionally heavy song like 'Heavy' or the same uplifting tone of 'Battle Symphony,' but it's definitely going to stir something up within you. Linkin Park's new unruly track 'Good Goodbye' recruits Pusha T and Stormzy to help deliver some riotous vibes.

'Good Goodbye' has a lot of familiar things going on in it. When looking at the band's discography, it's the most familiar track of the bunch. With Mike Shinoda's thrashing verse, slaying his competitors and forwarding his strength like in past tracks 'Lost In The Echo' and 'Victimized' from Living Things, and the spiraling synths in the backgrounds of each verse that slowly build behind them add a dimension to the track that makes it feel like a hip-hop version of 'Powerless' with a Fort Minor backbeat.

As far as the verses go, there's definitely a hierarchy within the track. Unsurprisingly, Mike Shinoda reigns supreme at the top of the track with his vicious lyrics, his verse immediately kicking off with "Enemies trying to read me / You're all looking highly illiterate / Blindly forgetting if I'm in the mix / You won't find an equivalent / I've been here killing it / Longer than you've been alive, you idiot," completely destroying whoever he's talking about.

Stormzy's verse is the next best verse, his grime flow offering up a different tone to the track as he speaks of going from the bottom to the top so quickly with his recent success. Lines like "Let me say goodbye to my demons / Let me say goodbye to my past life / Let me say goodbye to the darkness / Tell 'em that I'd rather be here in the starlight" stand out with a powerful statement, but a few lines do seem a bit out of place: "Mandem we're linking tings in parks" and "And now I'm inside with my bro bro's" are a bit too much coming to an American crowd who isn't too familiar with his sound. That idea aside, it does come off as a bit too forward for my taste. Coming off Gang Signs & Prayer, however, perhaps he deserves the praise he's giving himself. He just needs to watch that he's not getting too big for his boots.

Pusha's verse feels like the weakest. The message of 'Good Goodbye' goes two ways: one interpretation is that the song is about the feeling of getting kicked out of a basketball game, and the other is about getting out of a toxic relationship. Pusha seems to stay closer to the second theme (which is fine by me), but his lines feel a bit empty. He compares a toxic relationship to getting out of a jail sentence, which sounds great in theory, but when the verse begins with "A period is after every sentence," you can help but feel something a lot better could have gone there. Other lines like "Every day was like a hail date / Every night was like a hailstorm" also have this same idea - something stronger just could have gone in the place of a lot of his lines and made him stronger. It feels like a missed opportunity.

Beyond that, 'Good Goodbye' still brings the heat. It's a great track that will keep you hyped up no matter where you're at. If you're at the climax of a basketball game and this song is rolling, you better believe the entire arena will be going wild. Or, if you're in a poisonous relationship, this song can give you the strength to get out of it. Linkin Park, Pusha T, and Stormzy all provide the keys you need to get rolling, and helps make the wait for One More Light a little more tolerable.

Rating: 86 / 100

Buy or listen to 'Good Goodbye' here: