Linkin Park: Hybrid Theory Album Review (20th Anniversary)

Chester Bennington was 41 when he lost the battle he spent his life getting people to overcome. The defining characteristic of Linkin Parks’ music was the accessibility it made to the tools for dealing with trauma, an offer aimed both at their fans and at Bennington himself. His death in 2017 was obviously a shock: to the band, his family and the legions around the world who have treated him as an inspiration, not only for his power as a singer, but for his dignity in the recovery and honesty. relapsing. He has worked for years of sexual abuse and drug addiction on stage, on record and through community outreach. For those who saw Bennington floating and free on stage just weeks before his death, the burden of attendance is hard to shake off.

All of this weighs heavily on the 2000s Hybrid theory, already the most popular heavy music of the 21st century. With worldwide turnover of 32 million, including 12 million in the United States, of which one million in the last three yearsHybrid theory is the best-selling debut album in any genre since the 1988s Appetite for destruction. You suppose being the only diamond-tinged rock album on this side of the millennium might offer a little bit of influence. Yet on the lists of the best metal, hard rock, emo or straight-up rock, Hybrid theory is often conspicuously absent, as if no ax-worshiping sub-tribe is willing to adopt it as their own.

Bare-metal would seem the obvious category, but even though Linkin Park was saddled with the tag at the time, it was an awkward fit. They knew the do not- was loaded: Their mix of rap, screaming, and hijacking made them suspect for the double-denim dinosaurs of rock critics, so they built a street team on chat rooms and practiced on untapped confessions of discouragement and failure. They sang of being filled with tension, of feeling betrayed by the light, of wishing for a way out. By making themselves small, they have become colossal.

Rather than reassessing when they found fame, the 20th anniversary reissue of Hybrid theorywith over 50 unreleased tracks, B-sides, remixes, live performances and rarities, encourages a closer examination of why this group has become a supernova. Today, it’s hard to look past Bennington and Mike Shinoda’s pal, as the Skeleton Key that unlocked Linkin Parks draws a wider range of listeners. It hardly happened. The group had been active for three years before the departure in 1999 of original singer Mark Wakefield (who went on to manage Taproot and designed the cover of System of a Downs. Toxicity). Even after Bennington moved in, Hybrid theoryThe demos show how far they had to go before they came up with something that feels like a synergy. On the early versions of A Place for My Head and Points of Authority, it looks like Bennington and Shinoda are reading different sheets entirely.

Once they found a cozy corner in the venous catharsis, this duality became the heart of Linkin Parks’ music. Bennington and Shinoda were clear-sighted in the face of matters of duplicity, control, psychological and physical abuse, and suicidal ideation at a time few ventured this far. For anyone hiding under a duvet and spinning their portable CD player, this was a revelation. The couple changed their perspective and cunningly crisscrossed verses, playing an invigorating dialogue between that and the superego. Bennington was particularly good at self-analysis, explaining how the tide of anxiety inside him could only recede to return in the form of an overwhelming wave of depression, or watching the last remnants of serotonin circle his spirits like black tap water.

Linkin Park is committed to making sure you know their tastes go beyond simple riff-o-rama. The album was called Hybrid theory for a reason (that would have been the name of the band too, if someone else hadn’t beaten them). Drummer Rob Bourdon grew up idolizing funk and R&B drummers. Guitarist Brad Delson and turntablist Joe Hahn shared a love of glitch, boom-bap, and trip-hop, which is why Cure for the Itch only feels one crab scratch far from falling into DJ Shadows. Donor bodies. When a friend’s father chaperoned Shinoda, 15, to see a joint Anthrax / Public Enemy bill, his mind was blown away. Through Hybrid theorys spreading out additional material, you can hear many attempts to recreate this nuclear fusion in 1999 Step Up; the hit it was later sampled on, the X-Ecutioners Its Goin Down; or the remix album of Linkin Parks 2002 Intensive care, such a clumsy fiery attempt to put the vibes of RJD2 and Rage Against the Machine under one roof.

Few assembled extras eclipse Hybrid theoryThe strongest material, that is to say everything that goes back to the last three tracks of the albums. There are, however, a few winners on the box. She Couldnt, long denied public release due to an uncleaned Mos Def sample, removes the band-spiked exoskeleton to reveal the tenderness within. Strass, which dates back to 1997, is doing better than its evolved Forgotten form, the only track on Hybrid theory which really wears the septic shade of nu-metal. Krwlng elicits the hidden emotion in Crawling, with bassist Dave Farrell patiently wrapping cello and violin around a slower take on the original intro, the notes as icy as icicles descending into the mud. Trent Reznor might spit feathers at the comparison, but you could comfortably under A Warm Place on The downward spiral for the first few minutes of Krwlng and no one would blink. Like Reznor, Bennington paid the price for delving into tortuous subjects so far. Crawling, an alleged description of her teenage methamphetamine addiction, has often proven too upsetting to perform live without it. help from the crowd.

Celebrate Deftones 20th Anniversary White pony earlier this year, Shinoda reported how Hybrid theory came both slashing and quite appetizing for the general public: although [Deftones] the guitars were super heavy, often they felt as smooth as a keyboard, as if the distortion had flattened it so much that it was just a wave of chords. A proper check-in process brought out the best in Linkin Park. The collaboration with the Dust Brothers resulted in the low loops of With You, although it is the dynamic changes that are most striking when played back, with the tracks’ center of gravity wobbling so quickly that it feels like you are push into the jaw. The skyscraper hooks on songs like Runaway and Papercut were a byproduct of divisive producer Don Gilmore, who made it clear to the group that their cluttered primitive tunes would also be rans if they didn’t spit out melodies for the radio. alternative. Sufficiently shaken, they retaliated by writing One Step Closer, although they probably didn’t consider Gilmour would react to being told to shut up by jumping for joy. A synchronized headbanging shoot later and the band were on their way to a level of MTV perma-rotation that hasn’t abated for years.

And then there’s the crown jewel, In the End. Originally titled Untitled until DAngelos version has skyrocketed the video charts, it’s the clearest exhibition of how the band’s songcraft sets them apart from the pack. The glitchy drumming and brooding piano driving it is as instantly recognizable as the nosebleed that heralds Master of Puppets. For a song that telegraphs every move so obviously it begins with it begins with, In the End retains a rare ability to vibrate, even after 10,000 howling backing vocals and more late-night karaoke renditions than you might want. admit it. Neither the low-risk, half-reward stream of the Shinodas, nor what Bennington would self-criticize as poor and poor bawling at me, would be nearly as captivating without the other there to flank and fill the space.

After the emergence of each derivative of Stroke, Stripe, and Ladle, a practical narrative set in. Indie rock has come down from above and has swept away the moldy lees of post-grunge and nu-metal, much like grunge once sprayed cartoonish metal hair shredders. Linkin Park maintained their streak of success in 2003 Meteora, in particular with the first MPC successes of Numband, by extension, the lunar filming in monoculture of the Numb / Encorepiercing team of JAY-Z through countless bar mitzvahs, graduation parties and grocery store speakers . They brought out stadium-sized ambitions by approaching The Edge on What Ive Done, and came full circle by creating a soundtrack Transformers film which felt openly indebted to the CGI Fighting Fantasies Hahn performed as a promo. Four albums from the 2010s treated their internal chemistry as something to be distilled and distributed: industrial one cycle, electronica the next, synthpop the next.

Yet it is the international blockbuster in five singles Hybrid theory that people come back again and again. It is here that all the liveliest stripe trends meshed and their less attractive aesthetic impulses were suppressed. The open discussion about mental health within pop, rock, rap, and all genres along the Heavy Axis has been normalized to a level unthinkable 20 years ago, for which Linkin Parkabsent is a leader. but now striving to make new music together deserves considerable credit. Bennington remained standing as long as he could until this wave overwhelmed him. Hybrid theory remains a comfort to continue to hang on.

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