Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
 

Hybrid Theory - by Linkin Park
(Warner Bros. Records, 2000)

After releasing two demo tapes and struggling to land themselves a record deal, Linkin Park finally signed a deal with Warner Bros. Records in 1999. Next year, they burst into the nu metal scene with their debut album, Hybrid Theory, which would go on to sell 27 million copies worldwide, more than any other debut album in the 21st century.

Hybrid Theory is one of the most solid debuts I have ever listened to, containing hard rock masterpieces such as the lead single "One Step Closer" and "Crawling", but also excellent rap metal tracks like "Papercut" and "Points of Authority". Singers Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda's voices work in harmony throughout the whole album, with Bennington singing the rock/metal parts, and Shinoda covering the rap portions.

On "Points of Authority", we can see the teamwork of Bennington and Shinoda better perhaps than anywhere else on the album, with Bennington singing most of the song, but Shinoda swinging in for multiple rap pieces, without ever feeling like an interruption to the song.

"One Step Closer" is a straight-up hard rock/metal song, relying on Bennington's loud and powerful voice to drive the song.

On song "In the End", a fan favorite 15 years later, Linkin Park even brings some beautiful piano to the album, a nice addition to the album as a whole and this power ballad.

"Forgotten" is a song buried into the last few tracks of the album, but is not one to be overlooked or forgotten, with decently fast rhymes by Shinoda in the verses, and Bennington and Shinoda swapping back and forth rapidly during the chorus.

The best guitar moment of the album is definitely "A Place for My Head", with an addictive guitar riff creating an excellent intro continuing throughout most of the song.

The weakest point of the album is "Cure for the Itch", a fortunately short song (at 2:37). "Cure for the Itch" is a session for Linkin Park's turntablist, Joe Hahn, who runs through a few samples after we listen to people sniffle, cough, and some cat meows. This is the only track on the album I feel could really have been left off without missing something.

Conclusion:
Hybrid Theory, despite some minor imperfections, is a glorious debut album, and excellent album period, which has well earned it sales and fans.

Rating:
9.5/10

Track Listing:

1. "Papercut"
2. "One Step Closer"
3. "With You"
4. "Points of Authority"
5. "Crawling"
6. "Runaway"
7. "By Myself"
8. "In the End"
9. "A Place for My Head"
10. "Forgotten"
11. "Cure for the Itch"
12. "Pushing Me Away"

Inb4 someone says it sucks.

I prefer Meteora over it everyday, but it's still one of the most legendary albums of my time. I could talk about it all day.

Their method only works half the time, and the album is far from perfect and IMO, it set LP up for being in the talk of a "singles-only" band, but most of it is extremely, extremely catchy. Unlike most Linkin park fans, I am aware that Chester's voice isn't the most attractive, but the instrumentation, in particular the riffs and chord progressions, are ****ing brilliant, and Chester's voice, whether he's singing or screaming, is somehow always in tune with the melody, and his voice alone controls the mood of the song. It's powerful. Shinoa is the epitome of the stock, mainstream rap cadence, but his timing is absolutely glorious. His individual skill is low, but his production skills are godly. "Cure for the itch" was a strange track indeed, though I'm a lover of Daft Punk so it dun really bother me that much.

The songwriting is glorious, even if, again, some of the songs simply don't work well as others, but I don't appreciate the nu metal influences in some of the lyrics. Lines that consist of "shut up" shouted repeatedly are a total turn off for me.

Also, I'm very interested in keeping LP free of the "nu metal" labels. They are a heavily experimental alternative/metal band that dabbles heavily in metalcore and sometimes rap core.

Hybrid Theory and Meteora are two of Linkin Park's best albums, and will forever be a part of my "getting into rock" phase when I was younger. They definitely knew what they were doing back then, but unfortunately through the years they've sort of lose their way. Hybrid Theory is a great album though, but as Wpnfire said, I prefer Meteora.

Never listened to Meteora. I've heard this and the album they made with Jay-Z.

Was a big fan of this album as a child but I downloaded it a while back for the bants and had to turn it off. It was good at the time but not now.

Meteora was great as well, but for the most part it is like Hybrid Theory, so if you are no longer all that fond of this album, Meteora probably wouldn't be that enjoyable either. On their mash up album with Jay-Z, a few of the songs that were mixed were from Meteora.

It's good to see some responses from you guys, this is my first album review :laughing:

Not sure how much I would like it now, but it was my absolute favourite thing in the world when it first came out.

I listened to it again this morning on my way to work and I gotta say, it sounded ****ing amazing.

Yeah I reckon I would still like it. Forgotten was my jam.

I listened to Meteora as well the same morning and that one is still so ****ing good.

I still put Hybrid Theory on time to time as background music at my place and can still enjoy a lot. Always get really in to it once A Place for My Head comes on; strongest song on the album in my opinion, but there's really no bad song on Hybrid Theory, Joe's little moment isn't a negative in my opinion either.

People are usually too busy maintaining their spot on the hate train in regard to this band, which has more positives than negatives going for them. 27 million records is hard to argue with for a debut album, it's impressive. For its time, I agree that Hybrid Theory was a pretty solid album when it came out and was better than countless other mainstream releases by other bigger, and arguably better bands at the time.

There's an impressive attention to detail on Hybrid Theory. What sounds simplistic is in my opinion six people that know the importance of a good balance in music. Tell me that the attention to rhythm or melody on Hybrid Theory isn't impressive. It sounds pretty damn good and I've witnessed plenty of so called haters nodding their head to a band they claim has nothing good to offer.

I'm not as in to Linkin Park as I was in middle school, through highschool. But I'm not going to be made to feel ashamed or that my taste in music is ****ty because someone else can't stand this band.

Get off it already haha.

Oh. Meteora wasn't overly great in my opinion. There was some growth showcased in the songwriting. But overall there weren't huge strides forward in song arrangement or just instrumentation in general. I'd take Minutes To Midnight over Meteora any day, and Minutes To Midnight was still disappointing.

Echoing everyone else when I say this was the bomb when I was a kid

Not my thing anymore but it'll always have a special place in the depths of my heart

i have many nostalgic memories regarding both Hybrid Theory and Meteora.

not to parrot YorkeDaddy, but even though these aren't my thing anymore either, they'll still both mean a lot to me.

this was the band that essentially got me listening to music when i was 13/14 years old.

Fuck this thread for making me listen to Linkin Park and enjoy it.

Or thank. Whatever.

Nothing wrong with that. Meteora has become a regular listen for me lately.

Faint is a great tune.

That it is. Easier To Run has always been a favorite of mine, though I really do feel like Meteora has a lot of great tracks.

Meteora does have it's great tracks. I favor From The Inside and Faint over pretty much any other off of the album.

And, look at this. People here actually admitting there are good songs and good things to say about Linkin Park.

Bunch of closet listeners, I swear...

Unless this is some long running April Fool's going on.

This is how I'd say the LP albums are ranked, from worst to best.

Living Things (worst)

A Thousand Suns

Meteora

Minutes To Midnight

The Hunting Party

Hybrid Theory (best)

But if I had to rate it from a lyrical stand point, it'd be between A Thousand Suns and Living Things. Probably the bands best songwriting between those albums, Hybrid Theory a close contender oddly.

Screw you all for making me listen to this. It was awful

Here we are. This is more like normal for here.

:laughing:

I hope not. I actually have a lot to say about Hybrid Theory and Meteora and it's nice to actually talk about them with other people that like them as well.

The thing is, whenever I think of Hybrid Theory, I instantly think of this:



This is one of the coolest live videos for this song, ever. Great DVD too.

Live In Texas is so good, I actually prefer some of the songs from that album over the originals, and this is coming from the guy who has never attended more than two concerts in his life and thinks very little of live albums in general.

Meteora has slightly less screaming, if that's what bothers you. "Somewhere I Belong", and "Numb" are scream-less tracks so you can't write Linkin Park off till you listen to that album, or at least those songs.

I'll always recommend Meteora over Hybrid Theory any day. It's my favorite LP album, ever.

Live In Texas is actually the best live album from that year it was released. It only makes sense to me that people trash this band because it's popular to. Most of the people that do, they don't even give the band any fair chance by listening to an album with an open mind or without all of that negativity against Linkin Park. It's always "there's nothing good about that band, Chester sounds like a boy band wuss, the band can't play their instruments, their music is so simple..."

Yeah, a lot of it is simple. But I think those people are completely overlooking the fact that the majority of their music has a heavy emphasis on rhythm. A Place For My Head is a good example. "I could play that song in my sleep" Yeah...ok, Linkin Park doesn't try making music that is so complex that it takes someone a month or longer to figure out how to play the guitar parts either, so...your point is?

I think people could benefit from just listening to this band without thinking they'll get picked on for it. That's something I think plays a part in why so many people trash Linkin Park. If they admitted they listened to them. Their credibility or taste in music would be put in question. Get over it and screw everyone else's opinion haha.

LP motherf*ckers!

To be fair, it's perfectly alright to not like a band, as long as you're not a douche about it. I don't care for them, but I get why some people might, and totally respect that.

Yeah, it is fine to not like the band, I've got no issue with the people that are open about not liking the band but are also not dicks about it. Those people are good in my book. It's the ones that trash the band just to get a rise from someone that annoy me.

Funny thing is that some of those people are closet listeners. So I could always throw that in their face to see how creative they get when they deny it.

Nobody should be hazed or given a hard time because of their music choices. It's sort of pathetic that I even see it here on this forum. If people want to say they can't stand a band someone listens to. Why is it so hard to do it in a respectable manner?

My favorite band is 30 Seconds To Mars, and I could give a sh*t less if people think that band is horesh*t. I don't listen to them because I think they're the best band on Earth, I've got other reasons why I say they're my favorite band. But I won't hide it. I've got a tattoo of the band on my forearm.

If someone said Nickelback was their favorite band. I'd laugh to myself about it. But I wouldn't make them feel bad about it or ashamed of it either. Not a cool thing to do to anyone.

Hey, nothing wrong with 30 Seconds to Mars.

Last time I brought them up. Pretty much %90 of the people that commented, said Jared Leto isn't the best singer and sings every song in the same key. I was like, what, how? I hear plenty of key or tone changes in their music with his singing.

But, whatever. I like the guys singing.

When I was younger I admittedly joined the crowd that said they hatedd LP. I was stupid and wish I could take those moments back because over the years, I've learned that its my own taste and nowadays I will happily defend LP. I think they're great and Meteora is one of my favorite albums. Its got a lot of great memories attached to it.

I can't say that I've ever really been part of any hate crowd toward any band. I'd trash talk some, but all in good fun mostly; Nickelback was a popular one for me, joked about how Chad Kroger can't write about anything else other than sex, relationships, money, fame, doesn't branch out and write about much of any other topics.

But even then, what I said wasn't really that bad compared to other people that just enjoyed making people feel bad over the music they enjoy.

Meteora is a good album I guess, but it didn't really stand out to me in a lot of ways. I thought Minutes To Midnight was better, lyrically and instrumentally. I thought Meteora could have been a little less repetitive, but then again, Linkin Park has always been sort of that way with their music. I still enjoy it though.

CRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN

THESE WOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNDS THEY WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILL NOT HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

garbage ass song through and through, 0/10

I've always thought this was their best album personally, a very well crafted and consistent album for that subgenre of the genre.

I remember seeing coming across a shelf with loads of copy of this on one side and loads of copies of papa roach's infest on the other. Having only heard last resort by papa roach I went with infest, listened to it, got a refund and exchanged it for hybrid theory.

Cool story.

I agree. As a whole album, it's incredibly consistent and it's a comfortable listen from the first track to the last.

I still think this is one of their best tracks, even today:

Is it odd for me to say probably their best track is off of A Thousand Suns, even though I think it's one of their worst albums?

Nope. I don't think that's strange at all.

It just has their best songwriting, lyrically. There are some of their best moments musically on A Thousands Suns too, but the album collectively did not stand up to well for me. My initial first listen, I liked it a lot. But then I listened again, a lot closer, discovered that my actual true impression or what I took away from it was that even though I get it was a concept album, what they were wanting to do, didn't really work. Some of it was too fleshed out, I think a lot of the songs could have benefited from maybe taking a less is more approach.

What?! This is one of the best tracks on the album! Hybrid Theory is a classic, but I wouldn't consider it a 10/10. Meteora was better musically, but it's not my favorite of the two.

I used to like them very much. But now, just so so.

I'm amazed at the amount of positivity towards Linkin Park! I admit I hadn't checked back here in a while, because all I expected was hate. I underestimated the fine folks of MusicBanter. Now it's time for a Creed album review ;)

Well, I'm very sorry. And you're welcome.

It is an amazing and very underrated song, I get the guitar stuck in my head more than the lyrics.

Which one? Personally, I thought When They Come for Me was great, in an odd sort of way. It was just a song no one else dared to do anything like, and these guys kind of just said "F*** it, we're Linkin Park!"
Robot Boy, Waiting for the End, Iridescent, and The Messenger were some other likable songs from LP's crappiest album IMO.

This album is awesome, it was a way to get into metal music for many people like me since it's quite digestible and easy to listen to unlike other bands.

Me too.

I discovered these guys back in 2007 around the time Minutes to Midnight came out, and I had this album on repeat throughout the summer of that year.

Meteora is a better album, though.