1016. Linkin Park / Hybrid Theory. 2000. 3.5/5

It is amazing, over the course of reviewing hundreds of albums and dozens of bands over the course of the past five years, that you discover how many of these bands who went on to do huge things in the music industry had their beginnings in high school, where friends would come together to play music at its basic core, and then follow their dreams to become enormous influences in the industry. Yet another of those bands is the one who went on to eventually record and release this particular album. The band came together through three high school friends in Mike Shinoda, Rob Bourdon, and Brad Delson. They attended Agoura High School in Agoura Hills, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. It wasn’t until after they graduated high school that they began to take their music pursuits more seriously. Co-lead vocals and keyboardist Shinoda, drummer Bourdon and lead guitarist Delson brought three further members into the band – Joe Hahn on synths and turntables, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell on bass guitar and Mark Wakefield on lead vocals – and called the band Xero. In Shinoda’s makeshift bedroom studio they recorded a self-titled four track demo that was released in November 1997.
Delson introduced the band to Jeff Blue, the vice president of A&R for Zomba Music, whom he had interned for in college, who offered the band constructive criticism to catch the attention of record labels, though he privately believed the band needed a different vocalist. As the band failed to land a record deal, Wakefield and Farrel both left to pursue other opportunities. The band spent some time searching for Wakefield's replacement, eventually recruiting a vocalist from Arizona on Blue’s recommendation by the name of Chester Bennington. At this point, the band changed their name from Xero to Hybrid Theory, and the resulting vocal chemistry between Bennington and Shinoda gave the band a new drive and purpose.
Finding a record company continued to be the band’s biggest problem. After constant rejections, Jeff Blue, by now VP of Warner Bros. Records, helped to sign the band to a development deal in 1999. Their first demand was that the band changed their name – again – to avoid confusion with another band called Hybrid. After much discussion, they came up with the name of Linkin Park. Despite much scepticism from the record label of the band’s initial recording, and the hip-hop slash rock style of their music, the band stuck to their guns, eventually pulling together the material they had put written and recorded over several months to produce their debut album, one that no one could possibly have believed would become the monster that it became, the monster named “Hybrid Theory”.

Coming back into this album now has been an interesting experience. And I say that because, as I will also mention later, this type of metal isn’t one that I delve too much into. And I am definitely reviewing this album as a layman, as a lackey, because I don’t follow this band religiously nor have a great deal of their music or follow their music in great detail. This is the kind of album I could have missed for this podcast, because there will be far more fans out there who are far better qualified to give a great review of this album. I just thought I would offer that qualification up front, in case we have hard core Linkin Park fans tuning in for the first time to Music from a Lifetime expecting a glowingly glorious review of this album. Because you probably are not going to get that.
The opening stanza of “Papercut” opens the album excellently, though with a lot less power and aggression than you would think when you have listened to the album a few times over. There are a couple of nice guitar riffs through the beginning of the song, much this concentrates more on the clever rapping and synth and drums settling into their groove. The combined vocals offer a nice melody through the chorus and post chorus parts of the song. This is followed by the heavier first single “One Step Closer”, and for me this is where the band is best showcased, the better parts of the bands anatomy. The heavy riff guitar, the more energetic and harsher vocals, combining together to create the backbone of the track. Not so much rapping but riffing together. And yes, it is the music on this tracks that attracts me more. Next up is “With You” gives it a red hot go, programming and samples and turntable effects coming to the fore, more of the rap here and is enjoyable without being in my wheelhouse. It doesn’t have the heavy thump I need to get involved with.
“Points of Authority” has good moments, but honestly feels like it sits in the same gear musically for the whole three and a half minutes which is somewhat detrimental to its effect. The drums hold the same beat throughout, the riff settles int the same periphery and vocally it is in the other quadrant from what really drags me in. Then, the mournful aspect of “Crawling” no doubts serves its purpose both lyrically and musically, pushing that angst hard at you, but perhaps just wallows too much in it, much in the same way Andy Cairns from Therapy? made mistakes with their “Infernal Love” album. The massive change from quiet clear introspective vocals to the over-the-top harsh vocal is obviously a big part of the bands appeal to its fans, but for me the switch is too dramatic and doesn’t really make for a great song. This was the second single released from the album, one that never did much for me and I always thought was a strange choice. “Runaway” works better in this regard because at least it has a better tempo to break through that overloaded angst without losing the conveyance of the lyrics.
The industrial-styled mode of “By Myself” brings comparisons to Fear Factory in places, chugged along by various rap and scream combinations as well. You can hear how Linkin Park’s earlier sound grew out of bands and sounds such as this, and morphed into the styles that they combine to create the songs on this album. Following this assorted section of tracks we have the big single “In the End”, strangely the fourth released from the album more than a year after its release, which is still just as catchy now as it was when it was released. For me, and I do stand to be incorrect on this point, this is the best example of the rap/soaring vocals combination working at its best. All of the band’s elements pull together here in the one song to showcase exactly what they could do. Whether it is the album’s best song is open to question, but it is the one where those elements all blend together perfectly.
“A Place for My Head” bursts out with an energy not quite utilised by this point of the album. It jumps out at you as a faster paced rap song at the beginning, but then builds in with the guitar riff to create a more centralised metal rap combination, before the scream vocals take us to its conclusion. The blazing beginning of “Forgotten” almost segues out of the previous track, especially busting into the heaviest guitar from within. Again, the duelling rap vocals aren’t particularly enticing for me, but the switch between rap to harder core does recycle the energy of the album here.
“Cure for the Itch” seems like filler. Not just that – it IS filler! Two and a half minutes that you can’t get back as you approach the end of the album. Which, as it turns out, comes with the next song “Pushing Me Away”. This has the basic elements to be a really strong and hard closing track, but in the end (no pun intended) it doesn’t quite fulfil the brief in this regard. I think it leaves far too much waiting to happen to finish the album on a huge note, and while I still like the song I just get the feeling the finish needed a bigger ending than it has.

Back in 2001 I was being driven home by one of my mates from having seen KISS in concert on their final world tour. Yes, their first final world tour. As you do, you are reliving the night and listening to music at a thousand decibels in the car. This particular mate is very good at being up with the latest music trends, and he pulls out a CD and says, “Have you heard this album? It’s insane!” He throws it into his car’s CD player, and for the first time I hear what had become a particular obsession of his over recent months, Linkin Park’s debut album “Hybrid Theory”. So, as I mentioned from the very start, I can admit that this wasn't my preferred style of metal at the time the album was released. Still isn’t. And even on that first night listening to the album, with my mate Dale extolling its virtues constantly, I found myself pushing against it. Mind you, I had just seen KISS, so it’s a big change to go from KISS to Linkin Park. I recognised a couple of the songs, as they had begun to leak through to radio airplay even in Australia at that time, but I wasn’t jumping out of my skin about it. Over the coming weeks though, as I began to notice the radio singles each time they were played I felt more comfortable with the style, and with Dale’s constant pushing I eventually got a copy of the album to give it a fairer hearing.
The album switches between a heavier harder element and a softer less aggressive approach. Rapping through songs doesn’t do it for me in general. I find that as a rule for me it is like power metal ballads, for the most part I just can’t abide by it, but there are the odd occasions when I feels it works well. The same goes for sampling and other such effects. That stuff doesn’t fit in my picture of what metal is, but on occasions when it is done well, I can get along with it. Pieces of this album are the best examples of that in regards to the rapping and sampling.
So I had the album at the time, and though I persisted with it long after I normally would on the insistence of Dale – and maybe also to feel like I was cool around the 16 year olds I was playing cricket with at the time – the album moved back to the shelves. At times over the years I have put it on for a spin, but it is only ever one. The last time that I had pulled this album out prior to this week was back in 2017 on the passing of Chester Bennington. I brought this album out of storage to review it for my blog Music from a Lifetime, which still exists out there in the blog verse, and was surprised to find how well it had held up in my estimation after all of these years. Perhaps it was just that as it was the forerunner of this kind of material that those that had come after this album and done their own versions of the standard only made me realise just how impressive this album actually was.
And thus, it has come out again this week, and I have been listening to it all over again. And again, I have been surprised how enjoyable it has been. A couple of times in the Metal Cavern I have wondered, ‘why don’t I listen to this album more?’ And yet, after another couple of listens, I was wondering the opposite. So this week has at least shown that I can listen to and appreciate this album, but in short bursts and not long and lengthy replaying's back-to-back. Good to know! It still isn’t my preferred style of metal, but the appreciation for the skills of the band is still there, and it is still remarkable how catchy some of the songs remain. Will this ever become more to me than it is? I highly doubt it. I do regret not having seen them live while Bennington was alive, because it sounds to me that this material would be far better in the live environment. But beyond that, it’s an album I have enjoyed reliving. And that’s what this podcast is all about for me. And hopefully, for you as well! But in the end, it really even matter.