Linkin Park, a group of six from SoCal. An array of hip-hop, rap metal and amazing vocals. This sixtet is made up of two vocalists, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, Phoenix on guitar, Brad Delson on bass, Joe Hahn on the turntables and lastly, Rob Bourdon on drums. The band first formed in the late 90s, without Chester, otherwise known as Xero. Then the moment of truth. Chester answered the call for a lead singer, leaving his own birthday party in Arizona and tried out for the band and made the cut. The band changed its name to Hybrid Theory and put out the Hybrid Theory EP. After one more name change, the band is now the ever famous, Linkin Park. Linkin Park are on Warner Brother Records. Linkin Park have an EP, the Hybrid Theory EP and of course the [Hybrid Theory] LP. The [Hybrid Theory] LP went eight times platinum and was #1 on the Billboard.
The first track off Meteora is a 13 second intro, which leads into “Don’t Stay”. A very get off your feet and jump around. The scratching by Hahn and Chester’s hard edge voice really reminds me of “One Step Closer”. “Somewhere I Belong” came shortly before the release of Meteora. Inspiration would be the not fitting in, in society. Being someone different, not the typical, everyday person. The band’s Dj, Joe Hahn, directed the video for “Somewhere I Belong”, his second video directed. The inspiration for the video is having simple objects in Chester’s bedroom turning into a new sort of enviroment for the band to play “live” in. On March 25th, I snagged my copy along with hundreds upon thousands of crazed fans. On first listen through, you detect a little maturity, but similar sounding songs. Now after hundreds of listens, many hours spent filling my ears. A definite maturity is still there, more bass heavy, more screaming, better rapping, more experimental. And my favorite track would be “Lying From You”. The song that debuted on the Linkin Park website. Starts off some scratching and a few bass thumps, and the song explodes into an anger filled mixture of guitars, bass, drums and turntables. Mike steps in and starts laying down his rhymes about how how his personality has taken apart by some girl. So now that “Somewhere I Belong” has had its affect on the music industry, Linkin Park has instantaneously put out two more singles, “Faint” and “From the Inside”. After the huge success that [Hybrid Theory] had and after all the singles, the album was turned into one hit song and I really wouldn’t like to see that happen to Meteora.
After much listening to, I really feel this album gets a definite 4 and a half. I have few disagreements with this album, except for track 6, “Easier to Run”. It really just doesn’t fit with the rest of the surrounding song. Chester’s voice is too long and drawn out, which really irritates me. Other then “Easier to Run” I’d say this album is solid, absolutely amazing. Right now, you can catch Linkin Park on Projekt Revolution 2, after this short stint, next up is Summer Sanitarium, featuring Metallica, Limp Bizkit, the Deftones and Mudvayne.