Linkin Park Hybrid Theory 2000 Album Review | Alternative Fruit

Linkin Park
Hybrid Theory
2000
Warner Bros Music


Following their EP which was mainly promoted online with the help of their dedicated “street team”, Linkin Park found a deal with Warner to record and release their debut album. Having been playing as a group since leaving school a few years previously, the band had worked hard to form a unique and original sound. As the Nu-metal wave progressed during the 90s, Linkin Park took their time to find exactly the right moment to enter the scene. Their definitive sound helped to mould the evolution of rap metal into the new millennium.


Rapping over metal riffs wasn't taken to well by all rock and metal fans. The music had snake tongued into two distinctive formats. One chunky and with shorts and a hat, the other frilly with long hair and fantastical song titles. Linkin Park went one way and pushed it hard in that direction. Their shorts got longer and their hats slowly turned round backwards. All in good taste, their lines made sense to the unspoken voice inside of the youth of America and Europe, broke the silence and did it in a style that didn't associate with the strange and often over the top aspects of the heavy metal scene.


Emotional music without the symbolisms and make-up got a lot of people's attention, it opened pathways to feelings and expression that didn't seem sissy or from a qualia. As hip-hop had stuck to the synthesised and looped backing-tracks composed by DJs and computer wizards, Linkin Park made full use of a proper band but managed to cling on to that smooth sensation that comes with neatly packaged rapping, but also were able to distil the anger and frustration into concentrated moments of musical force.


Hybrid Theory pulls aspects from many compositional areas, the experimental sounds that fill the spaces between staple numbers make for interesting listening. The nu-metal wave was moulded by this release and no band in the genre could get by without taking influence from this band. The hybrid between metal and rap was equalised perfectly, singing makes its worthwhile appearance in a few places and so does more musical based composing. The landscape of metal was changed dramatically by this album, for better or worse, rapping to guitars was brought into the every-day with a lot of help from Hybrid Theory. 
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