Hybrid Theory

by

Linkin Park

Edit

Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory is one of the greatest albums I have ever heard. I think that putting High Voltage and My December on Hybrid Theory and adding 20 dollars, is not a waste of money,(especially if you have the original album, you should) but I think your money could be better spent. I have attended a concert of theirs and seen exactly what they're capable of. Not only have I heard Hybrid Theory about a thousand times, I have searched for other songs of theirs. When I saw they released Hybrid Theory with two bonus tracks, I was a little amazed. High Voltage and My December are great songs, but the greatest was left out. "And One," a song that they played at the concert I attended, is a GREAT song by them; I believe this song should have been on the original album. The band played this song when they were called Hybrid Theory, not yet Linkin Park. I believe that other songs like Part of Me, Step Up, High Voltage, My December, Carousel, and And One, should be all on a seperate import. Since this hasn't been released yet, these songs can be found and downloaded. I suggest that if you're a TRUE Linkin Park fan, you should track down these songs. If you're someone who just likes the song Crawling and wants the cd, these two bonus tracks won't do much for you! I would give a 5+ for the original Hybrid Theory album, and their other unreleased songs, but for the two bonus tracks for 20 more dollars, I will give an overall rating of 4.

Or at least that's what I think. It seems that for most people, when they realized that the minimally talented Limp Bizkit was going to rock bottom (the twin embarrassments "Chocolate Starfish..." and "Results") and heard Linkin Park, it connected to many as a good alternative to that. And for others, well there's lots of sounds that connected. For many people it was a good soundtrack to teenage angst. I still am, but I prefer a band called Violent Femmes for that. I don't mind the album or anything, but I don't actually think it's perfect or anything.

That's not to say there isn't any good songs here; many of them are decent. And it really could be worse. While they are arguably the most mainstream band of their contemporaries, they also can make songs that are structured musically and make sense, which connects to people. It sold so many copies, and when not played to death, I really do enjoy "Crawling" and "In the End". Both show a great Depeche Mode influence as well as being pretty decent songs. Even I don't really like the tracks where Chester screams that much. Don't get me wrong, the Dillinger Escape Plan is one of my favorite bands and screams in like all of their songs. It's just the way it is done, it sounds so pubescent or something to me. It makes it sound like a teenybop version of what they're doing.

As for the rest of the band, what stands out is what Mr. Hahn does in tracks like "Cure for the Itch", although it's pretty much just made to show off his skills. He has some pretty good ideas; unfortunately they rarely go throughout the songs. "Papercut" is fairly good, even though Chester sounds a lot like Fred Durst, but does it quite decently for being in a bad comparison. So, while it's not perfect you could do a lot worse. I had to check it out because of some NIN/DM influence, and those are some of my favorite artists. But it's also very probable that you will like it.