It’s the summer of 2001 and I’m in a New Orleans hotel room with my friend Ryan and a group of teenaged girls. We’re all soon-to-be high school sophomores, here on some sort of church youth group retreat— excuse enough to get out of Michigan for a few weeks. The girls, I regret to report, aren’t paying any attention to me— they’re huddled around Ryan and his Discman, taking turns with the set of headphones. “Don’t keep playing it over and over, it’ll ruin the CD!” he demands naively. He’s referring to “In The End”, Track 8 on Linkin Park’s now diamond selling debut album Hybrid Theory. The record hasn’t yet exploded, but by the following summer, seemingly everyone at my school has a copy taking up residence in a car stereo or portable CD player somewhere.
Though it’s easy to scoff and laugh now, Hybrid Theory (and, to a lesser extent, its follow-up Meteora in 2003) was the pop soundtrack for much of my high school experience, whether I liked it or not. The postured anguish of singer Chester Bennington, the suburban hip-hop plagiarism of Mike Shinoda, guitarist Brad Delson’s over the top, third generation heavy metal riffing… in those years before Morrissey, David Bowie, and The Cure entered the picture, this was the sound of my less-miserable-than-I-thought teenage life in downriver Michigan.
So more than a decade later, with the band themselves moving on to more atmospheric, less pop-centric and marketable places (read my review of their latest album A Thousand Suns), how does Hybrid Theory hold up? Will this jaded, cynical music critic be awash with gushing nostalgia for those days when gas cost $2.50 a gallon and you could buy two bottles of Pepsi Blue for a dollar, or will I be assaulted with pangs of embarrassment for the musical misguidance of yesteryear?
“Papercut”
Super dated electronic beat and DJ scratching gives way to the inevitable rush of nu-metal guitars. I doubt that Mike Shinoda genuinely knows what it feels like to have a voice in the back of his head, and Chester does an embarrassing Fred Durst impression on the chorus. Super catchy bridge section, though—reminds me why even the girls liked Linkin Park back then.
“One Step Closer”
No idea how this was ever a hit single. Any band that lists their clothing brand sponsorships in the liner notes should never get away with lines like “I cannot take this anymore” and “I’m about to break”. Yeah, this one doesn’t do anything for me. I’m wondering whatever happened to Adema— didn’t they make entire albums of this stuff?
“With You”
Jeez, that guitar riff takes me back. Shudder. Features some additional beats by The Dust Brothers, I’m somewhat surprised to read, which I suppose makes sense as this one has a few interesting things happening sonically on the verses. I stand by my early assessment that DJ Joe Hahn was always Linkin Park’s secret weapon; nu-metal guitar riffs will die slow, painful deaths, but nerdy electronica is forever.
“Points Of Authority”
Oh “rap rock”…. never has an idea sounded so good on paper and so awful coming out of a stereo. Another unlikely hit single, though I think it was the version on Reanimation that got played on the radio. I’m too embarrassed to even Wikipedia it, though.
“Crawling”
More sigh inducing, mock-angst (“There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface”…?), though with that trademark boy band-esque melody on the verses. Apart from the guitars and that screaming, this isn’t too far musically from what N’Sync and the Backstreet Boys were doing around the same time.
“Runaway”
I wonder how many pop songs have used this title? Chester’s in boy band mode again and DJ Hahn is doing some more cool stuff before the major-minor guitar crunch reveals that our tortured vocalists wants to… get ready… run away! And not come back. Hmm.
“By Myself”
Oh god, that intro. Remember when every popular rock band started buying seven-string guitars to sound like Korn? I know the guy from Staind just started tuning his guitars way, way down from E to Ab, I’m startled to recall. Anyways, ready to play the Nu-Metal Adjectives Game? Here you go: we’ve got “blindly”, “bad”, “sad”, “maddening”, “defenseless”, “senseless”, etc.
“In The End”
Sigh. I wish I could forget how many different painful renditions I heard of this at high school “talent” shows. What’s most striking, listening back now, is how calculatingly pop it is. I mean, for a late-90s/early-00s kid, this song has everything: woe-is-me lyrics, a larger than life chorus, rapping, and big mean guitars. While the rap-sing thing and that digital stuttering effect sound a million years old by now, I’ll live to be a hundred and probably still hear that chorus in my head every time I feel frustrated about something. (p.s. The Backstreet Boys called, and they want their middle eight back.)
“A Place For My Head”
That little guitar lick in the intro made me laugh too much, so I skipped this one.
“Forgotten”
Don’t know how this Limp Bizkit song got on my CD by mistake. Damn underpaid factory workers screwing up my disc!
“Cure For The Itch”
Okay, I’m going to make a little confession: I genuinely really, really like this song. By “song”, I mean throwaway electronic filler/interlude composed 100% by my hero, Mr. Joe Hahn. Because it’s devoid of all the rapping, whining, and riffing, this short little tune is probably the most aestheticaly salvagable thing on Hybrid Theory, and certainly the piece that time has been kindest too. Really love the synth strings in the second half, and I slap myself for never having the hindsight to learn the turntables when I had the time and nerd cred to pull it off.
“Pushing Me Away”
Meteora ends with “Numb”, and it has a similar effect as this song: ending things with a slightly more soaring version of what we’ve already heard. That chorus seals the deal for me: Linkin Park were simultaneously the most awesome pop band and most abysmally terrible rock band of my teen years. While my generation’s answer to Frampton Comes Alive certainly hasn’t aged particularly well, it’s worth revisiting for nostalgia’s sake once in a while. That’s really what the best pop music is designed for anyway, right?
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