Album Review: Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory

Oh joy, another band in the rap metal genre. Thankfully Linkin Park is actually a good band that I actually grew up with, unlike P.O.D. who I've already talked about. This album was technically a request, well I say technically since she picked it out for me, so thank you for that.

Hybrid Theory was the band's debut album released in 2000, I have done a whole lot of albums from this decade, damn. It topped the New Zealand Albums Chart and reached the second position on the Billboard 200 and four other charts, it also made number 5 on the Canadian Albums and reached its lowest on the French charts reaching number 17.

I really do have to say that the opening tracks are really good, with "Papercut" showing off the good rap part of the band and "One Step Closer" Showing off the Hard Rock aspect of the group. "One Step Closer" was the first single off the album and had some good chart success reaching Number 5 on the Modern Rock Tracks, Number 4 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks and it even reached Number 75 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Papercut" also had some chart success being the third single from the band, but not a whole lot.

It really does seem to me that Linkin Park put the best stuff on the album as singles, because the other single "Crawling" is also really good, even if it is a bit whiny. Seriously, find anybody who grew up in the 2000s and see if they can recognize "Crawling". The song itself is slower and clearer than most of the album, which is fine as it offers a bit of variety but the other slow songs like "Runaway" are just, meh really.

I think most songs on this album were gave me a "meh" reaction, the only one I didn't really like was "By Myself" and that is mostly because I can't separate that from other rap metal crap, like P.O.D. or and please don't kill me when I say this but... Limp Bizkit. I feel so dirty for typing that.

"In The End" is debatably the best song on the album as it perfectly showcases both Mike Shinoda's talents as a rapper, and Chester Bennington's abilities as a vocalist. It is also the most successful topping the US Alternative Songs Chart and reaching on a whole lot of others which I did not write down in my notes, so here I guess.

It was by the last song that I got tired of this album, so I'm just going to skip it and talk about the previous track "Cure for the Itch" which has an opening that sounds like Daft Punk's rejected album filler scraps, I also feel dirty for typing that Daft Punk had Album Filler.

Overall, I have heard worse and it is clear that Linkin Park put their best songs on the album as singles, but I don't really think this album offers a lot on its own other than the four songs which aren't even my favourite Linkin Park Songs. I do think this album is worth listening to, but if you are expecting a lot of great career defining tracks that helped shape the music industry of the 2000s, well you'll get four of them.

I give it a 6/10.