Music / Post Traumatic

Post Traumatic is the name of an EP and solo studio album of Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, released on January 25 and June 15, 2018, respectively. Like The Rising Tied, the album was distributed by Warner Bros. and Shinoda's independent label, Machine Shop.

Following the death of Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington in July 2017, Mike Shinoda began work on a solo project, which would later turn out to be the EP. Given the personal nature of the songs, Shinoda released them under his own name rather than that of Fort Minor, although the EP and album are successors to the sounds of that project.

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Tracklist:

1. "Place to Start"
2. "Over Again"
3. "Watching as I Fall"
4. "Nothing Makes Sense Anymore"
5. "About You" (featuring Black Bear)
6. "Brooding" (Instrumental)
7. "Promises I Can't Keep"
8. "Crossing a Line"
9. "Hold It Together"
10. "Ghosts"
11. "Make It Up as I Go" (featuring K. Flay)
12. "Lift Off" (featuring Chino Moreno and Machine Gun Kelly)
13. "I.O.U"
14. "Running from My Shadow" (featuring grandson)
15. "World's on Fire"
16. "Can't Hear You Now"

Bonus tracks

1. "Prove You Wrong"
2. "What the Words Meant"

Tropes

• Captain Obvious: In "Over Again", the bulk of the people who talked to Mike after Chester's passing said to him, "must be really hard to figure what to do now." He's very blunt about how insensitive and stupid this remark is in his next verse "Well, thank you, genius, you think it'll be a challenge?"
• Creator Breakdown: invokedInvoked in "Over Again". In the song's second verse, Mike laments that, in addition to the trauma that he Never Got to Say Goodbye to Chester, there was a ton of pressure on Mike to perform well at the tribute show. And now that the show is passed, Mike sarcastically claps back at people who say it must be hard to figure out what to do next, since it's "only my life's work hanging in the fucking balance".
• Fading into the Next Song: "Brooding" → "Promises I Can't Keep"
• Hand Puppet: The music video for "Ghosts" has tube socks with eyes drawn on them. Their names are Boris and Miss Oatmeal.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: "Over Again" has Mike lament over the fact that he never got to say goodbye to Chester.
• One-Word Title: "Brooding" and "Ghosts", the former is an instrumental and Shinoda sings in the latter.
• Performance Anxiety: It's briefly touched upon and downplayed in "Over Again." Mike is a seasoned performer, and he and the other surviving members of Linkin Park performed Chester's memorial concert with grace and resilience. The anxiety stems from the fact that the grief would overwhelm him in the middle of the show. Per his Genius Verified Annotation:
  Mike: I had an intense fear of doing that show, because I thought... I could get overwhelmed by what had happened and wouldn’t be able to continue. There were... millions of people watching; I didn’t want to let everyone down.
• Revisiting the Roots: Post Traumatic goes back to Mike Shinoda's hip-hop roots, similar to that of The Rising Tied, although, like Rising Tide, guitars and other instruments are used here.
• Rhyming with Itself: "Place to Start" started off as a demo track for One More Light; Shinoda later repurposed the track to reflect his frame of mind after Chester's passing:
  I don't have a leg to stand on
  Spinning like a whirlwind, nothing to land on
  Came so far, I never thought I'd be done now
  Stuck in a holding pattern waiting to come down
  Did somebody else define me?
  Can I put the past behind me?
  
• Shout-Out: "I.O.U." has 2.
  • "A huge act man like I'm known for being Logan, X-23 I'm keen to leave 'em with a femur broken.
  • "Father like Francis, Anakin or John Misty"