The album Hybrid Theory launched Linkin Park . Their debut album remains their best-selling record, having sold approximately 30 million copies to date.
Many consider Linkin Park to be the band that solidified nu metal as a genre. Even Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit said this to vocalist Chester Bennington . None of this would have happened if it weren't for the resounding success of Hybrid Theory .
This is the most successful debut album of the 21st century. It even earned Linkin Park a Grammy Award in the "Best Hard Rock Performance" category for "Crawling" in 2002. They were also nominated in the "Best Rock Album" and "Best New Artist" categories.
At the time, Rolling Stone described the album as "twelve songs of packed fire, mixing alternative metal, hip hop and turntable art, that cannot be separated." Hybrid Theory is on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 200 Definitive Albums. It also spent 200 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart.
What Linkin Park did with Hybrid Theory was take references from bands like Korn, Rage Against The Machine, and Faith No More and bring a twist of catchy choruses and anguished screams. Chester Bennington's suffering and angry vocals, with a grunge edge that would lead him, years later, to take over the position in Stone Temple Pilots , perfectly matched Mike Shinoda .
Distorted guitars and power chords intertwine with the bass groove, both combined with electronic samples, forming a previously unseen mix with significant commercial appeal due to the pop sound inherent in alternative metal.
Thematically, the lyrics deal with the struggles of young adults trying to understand their role in life. Chester incorporates personal experiences with drugs and abuse he suffered during childhood.
The success was so great that, years later, with the change in Linkin Park's style, many fans asked for a return to the Hybrid Theory . But the band took more experimental paths that flirted more with pop, except for the hit The Hunting Party from 2014. Even so, Linkin Park still had 5 of their albums reach number one on the best-selling releases charts in the United States.
With the death of Chester Bennington in 2017, the band went on to achieve 11 more platinum singles, closing the cycle of success that began with Hybrid Theory in 2000.
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